Where He Was Laid

It was already evening, and it was Preparation Day, the day before the Sabbath. Mark gives both details before anyone asks for the body. Jesus had breathed His last, the centurion had spoken, and the women had watched. Now the account turns to what will happen to His body before the day is over.

Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate. He was a prominent Council member, a man “who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God,” and Mark says he went boldly. His request was for the body of Jesus. The account brings him forward here, with a position in the Council and a particular thing he has come to ask.

Pilate was surprised that Jesus was already dead. Joseph’s arrival did not immediately settle the matter; Pilate summoned the centurion to find out whether it was so. Before the body could be released, the report of the death passed through this further exchange. Mark gives no words from Joseph while Pilate sought confirmation.

The centurion had stood in front of Jesus and seen how He breathed His last. Now Pilate asked him about that death. Once the centurion had confirmed it, Pilate granted the body to Joseph. The request had reached an answer, and Joseph could attend to the burial.

Joseph bought a linen cloth. After the approach to Pilate and the summons to the centurion, the account follows the things he did with his own hands. He took down the body of Jesus and wrapped it in the cloth. Mark tells the work plainly, without supplying a conversation around it.

Then Joseph placed the body in a tomb “that had been cut out of the rock.” The account does not describe the cutting of that tomb or how Joseph came to use it. It gives the place as it stands that evening, ready to receive the body he has wrapped. The movement from the cross ends there.

He rolled a stone against the entrance. The linen was around the body, the body was inside the tomb, and the stone closed the way in. Each action has followed the permission Joseph obtained from Pilate. By the end of the sentence, the burial is complete and the entrance is shut.

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were watching. In this verse, the supplied account names her companion as Mary the mother of Joseph. Mark says they “saw where His body was placed.” Their part in the burial is recorded through that act of seeing, after all that Joseph has done.

They had watched at the crucifixion, and now they knew the place of burial. Mark does not give their words to Joseph or to one another. He does not describe them helping with the linen or moving the stone. He leaves them beside the account of the burial as the women who saw where the body went.

That knowledge is the last detail he gives before the Sabbath. The tomb is no unnamed destination to which someone has carried Jesus out of their sight. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary have seen the place themselves. When the account returns to them, their next journey will have an entrance they can find.

For now, the stone remains against it. Evening has brought the request, the confirmation, the linen, and the burial, and the Sabbath lies between this watching and the women’s next work. They know where He was laid. They cannot yet return with what they will bring.