Title: "He was buried" - A Sermon for Easter Even
Author: Macgill, Thomas
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book ""He was buried" - A Sermon for Easter Even" ***


Transcribed from the 1849 D. Batten edition by David Price.



                             “He was buried.”


                                * * * * *

                                 A SERMON

                                   FOR

                               EASTER EVEN.

                                * * * * *

                                    BY
                             THOMAS MACGILL,

                            CURATE OF CLAPHAM,
                EVENING PREACHER AT THE MAGDALEN HOSPITAL.

                                * * * * *

                                * * * * *

                                * * * * *

                                 Clapham:
                          PRINTED BY D. BATTEN.

                                  1849.

                                * * * * *

_If there be any profits from the sale of this publication_, _they will
be added to the funds for Building a Temporary Church in Clapham_.

                                * * * * *



                                A SERMON.


                        1 Cor. xv. 4.—“HE WAS BURIED.”

WHO has not witnessed a funeral!  Who is unacquainted with the emotions
that possess the heart whilst carrying the remains of a beloved friend to
the grave!  And even when we have no interest in the deceased beyond the
ties of a common humanity, there is a majesty in death itself that
overawes the mind, and the gloomy pomp that proclaims death’s triumph
arrests the thoughtlessness of man and repeats to him the lesson of the
Bible—“The grave is thine house, and thou must make thy bed in the
darkness.”  Who has not felt his curiosity awakened when some splendid
train of mourners has passed by, declaring by the parade in which
corruption sits in mockery, how noble, or how renowned, or how rich the
victim on whom the hand of the destroyer has fallen, and how utterly vain
and empty are all human glories.  And who has not experienced a hallowed
sympathy when he has met a little band hurrying towards the churchyard
all that is mortal of some friendless man, who lived unknown and died
unbewailed, and who now seems to be stealing out of a world that had
scarcely acknowledged his existence,—yet declaring in his undistinguished
departure that “death has passed upon all men, because all have sinned.”

To-day I invite you to contemplate the funeral ceremonies of the Prince
of Life, of Him who lay down amid the mansions of the dead, that by dying
He might destroy death and him that had the power of death.

The mourners on this mysterious occasion were few in number.  The Lord
whom all despised, and who had no home in which to lay his head in life,
could scarcely attract around him in death as many as could carry him
from the cross to the grave.  His disciples, with one honoured exception,
had all disappeared in shameful flight.  A few women, with tearful
sympathy, lingered to mark the spot where their Lord should be laid, and
assisted Joseph and Nicodemus to perform the last offices to the
crucified Immanuel.  These two persons were men of considerable
distinction in Judea, rich and honourable, and members of the great
council of the nation.  Of Joseph it is written that he was “a good man
and a just.”  Of Nicodemus we read that he was a ruler of the Jews, a
public teacher, “a master in Israel,” but of a remarkably timid
disposition.  Three years before this sad day he had visited Jesus under
the cover of night, and received instructions in the mysteries of the
kingdom of God, but he had never yet openly avowed his attachment to
Messiah.  The world’s frown, the dread of its reproach, the certainty of
its persecution, had deterred both Joseph and Nicodemus from confessing
Christ before men.  But his death, the event that encreased the peril of
his disciples, had the effect of dissipating all their fears, and
constrained them openly to profess their respect to the Lord.  With a
boldness which defied all danger they begged from Pilate the body of
Christ, that it might not be cast into a malefactor’s grave, but entombed
with such honour and distinction as circumstances would allow.  The
earnest desire of such a person as Joseph was not to be refused, and
agreeing, as it doubtless would, with Pilate’s own feelings respecting
one whom he had pronounced innocent, the request was at once complied
with.

How strange an event was this!  At the very time of Messiah’s utmost
desertion, when heaven frowns with gathered blackness, and the cry has
been uttered, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me!”—when lover and
friend were put far from Him, there went forth from the Sanhedrim that
had condemned Him two distinguished witnesses to proclaim His praise, and
shew to His lifeless remains the respect they had themselves denied to
His living person.

Thus it is, Christian brethren, that, when least expected, God’s hidden
work of grace may be silently advancing; in young and aged hearts
Christianity may be putting forward its sacred and resistless claims and
obtaining a mastery within, that needs only to be put to the trial to
exhibit its real power.  There is not always the “rushing mighty wind”
when the Spirit of the Lord takes possession of a man’s heart.  There is
not always the intense sorrow of “one mourning as for an only son,” when
the sinner looks to Christ.  There is not always the alarm of “Men and
brethren what shall we do?” when sin’s appalling consequences are first
spiritually discovered.  The work of grace is often silent and gentle,
like the season of spring in a tropical clime, when the earth by some
rapid change of the atmosphere seems by enchantment to be covered with
new created loveliness, and welcomes the blessed showers of heaven with a
bloom as sudden as it is glorious.  And how often are the very
circumstances that seem most unfavorable to the progress of faith, chosen
by God for the manifestation of His grace.  Yet let no man carry this
principle beyond its legitimate use, nor consider that the existence of
religious principles can ever be consistent with a life of ungodliness.
In the case of Joseph it is expressly declared that, though he was a
member of the Council that condemned Jesus to death, he had not consented
to their verdict.—No; men cannot be the children of God whilst they are
avowedly the children of their father the devil, whose works they do.

But to return to the narrative.  No sooner had Joseph obtained the
consent of Pilate than he hurried back to the cross.  The day was,
however, far spent and the sabbath was at hand, therefore the funeral
ceremonies must needs be finished in a very hasty manner.  With such
assistance as the occasion commanded, Joseph and Nicodemus removed the
sacred corpse, extracted the nails from the cross, wiped off the stains
of indignity with which that holy countenance had been profaned, and
having wound the body in fine linen with spices and aromatic gums they
bore it to a new tomb wherein never before was man laid.  There amid the
dimness of twilight, the fitting emblem of the extinguished hopes of the
world, they deposited with speechless grief, the precious form of Him who
came in the name of the Lord to save us.  O ye men of holy and humble
hearts, how sad was your task! and your faith was too feeble and your
hopes too gloomy to sustain you in this pious duty.

It is to be observed that the sepulchre in which Christ was laid was a
new one, the property of a rich man, and was situated beyond the gates of
Jerusalem.  Thus the Scriptures were fulfilled which declare that He
should be “with the rich in His death (Isaiah liii. 9.) thus was
fulfilled the type involved in the command that the ashes of the
sacrifice should be carried without the camp, (Leviticus iv. 12.  Heb.
xiii. 11, 12).  It was also a part of the proof necessary for the fact of
the resurrection, that He had been laid, not in the place where the
bodies of felons were usually cast, nor in any ordinary burying ground
where other bodies lay, and where some deceit might have been practised
by the disciples; and being a grave excavated in the rock it could only
be approached by one entrance, and the entrance was guarded by sentinels
and sealed.  These circumstances are of vast importance as bearing on the
reality of His resurrection, and they are proofs which easily and
naturally present themselves to the mind.

“There laid they Jesus.”—Observe its locality; it was in a garden, a
lonely but a lovely resting place, constructed amid the arbors and
flower-paths, and near it there would grow many a fragrant plant with
leaves painted by heavenly art, and be like ornaments of beauty designed
to relieve the gloom that overhangs the dwellings of the dead.  Here
there would be nothing to remind us of death, no sickening vapours of
corruption; no mouldering fragments of humanity, to proclaim it a place
of skulls.  All around would breathe the spicy odours of the eastern
clime; yea, from the sepulchre itself would exhale a balmy sweetness,
fulfilling the words of the royal poet,

    “All thy garments smell
       Of myrrh and aloes and cassia:
    Out of the ivory palaces
       Whereby they have made thee glad.”

And what does this flowery abode of death speak to us, Christian friends?
It proclaims how death and the grave have been divested of all their
terrible features by the work of Christ, how He hath planted flowers of
heavenly promise around the margin of the tomb, perfumed the sepulchre
itself with odours of eternal love, and scented the once hateful garments
of the dead with the fragrance and freshness of a sure and certain
immortality.  It proclaims that there is nothing now in the chill and
darkness of the narrow house, to alarm the fears of the dying Christian.
For Jesus has been there and has left within it the impress of His own
form, and has changed its aspect and altered its character.  It is no
longer a prison-house, but the vestibule of heaven, in which the children
of the kingdom repose their wearied frames before they enter with
spiritual bodies on the employments of a glorious eternity.

“And there,” says St. Matthew, “was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary
sitting over against the sepulchre.”  Let us draw near, and share with
them their holy musings.

There, in that rock, lies He that made the world.  There are sealed up
the lips which said, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden
and I will give you rest.”  There are closed the eyes which always beamed
compassion, and wept for human woe.  There, cold, are the hands which
were laid on little children to bless them, and opened the eyes of the
blind, and delivered the widow’s son alive to his mother.  There reposes
that gentle head, that knew no resting place till He could say “I have
finished the work that my father gave me to do.”  There lies the Life of
the world and the Hope of Israel!—The Wonderful, the Counsellor, the
Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace!  He was fairer
than the children of men!  He was the image of the invisible God!  He
went about doing good; He was rich, and for our sakes He become poor!

Were we seated beside the two Marys, with bleeding hearts we might think
what epitaph would best become Immanuel’s tomb; and had we been like them
at that moment, ignorant of the purpose of His death, this would express
both our faith and our fears—

    “We trusted that it had been He
    Who should have redeemed Israel.”

But had their conceptions of the great scheme of the atonement been
correct, had they understood the nature of Christ’s satisfaction for sin,
had they comprehended how before one sinner could be saved the law must
be made honourable in all its penalties and all its requirements, they
would have been disposed to rejoice rather than mourn when Jesus came to
the grave, and they would have written “Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
that the King of Glory may come in, to spoil you of your strength and
prostrate all your pride.  He comes, the Lord of hosts, like a second
Samson, to lay His hands on your most colossal pillars, and complete by
His own death the overthrow begun in the days of His life.”

On the tombs of mortals, however illustrious, we write these humbling
words, “Here he _lies_,” but I hear the angel saying at the tomb of
Christ, “Come, see the place where the Lord _lay_.”

Brethren, “companions in tribulation, and in the patience and kingdom of
Christ”—it is well for us to stand by His grave and compare His deep
humiliation with His essential glory.  Let us behold in His death the
infliction pronounced against sin; let us learn the odiousness of it in
the sight of God, the vastness of the evil displayed in the magnitude of
the remedy, the boundlessness of God’s grace in “sparing not His own Son
but giving him up” to the death “for us all.”

But, above all, let us learn to look on Jesus as one whom _we_ have
pierced, and who has purchased our ransom from eternal death by sorrows
and sacrifices which neither time nor eternity will enable us to estimate
aright.  Let us put ourselves in the place of those charged with the
bloody deed, when they reflected that they had sacrificed an innocent
being.  Suppose that you had been consenting to His death.  Suppose you
had been the cause of it.  Suppose his murderers had only been agents
employed by you.  Then your resentment will operate nearer home, and your
grief will rend your own heart.  And this, brethren, is the only true
repentance.  By faith the sinner perceives his own blood guiltiness in
this cruel tragedy, and “looking upon Him whom he has pierced, he mourns
for him.” (Zech. xii. 10.)  No; you cannot learn the true evil of sin and
your own lost condition because of it, but by considering and laying to
heart the cross and passion, the precious death and burial, of your Lord
and Saviour.  Many think that sin is but a light thing; but hear Him, in
whom _was no sin_ and who _did no sin_, saying, in the anguish of a
wounded spirit “My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death.”  See Him
“sore amazed and very heavy;” behold “His sweat as it were great drops of
blood falling down to the ground.”  No; you cannot otherwise learn what a
dreadful evil sin is—you cannot trifle with it—you cannot be reconciled
to it—when you see the agonies of Him who “made His soul an offering for”
it, and became a curse on account of it.

In the ancient history we read that the citizens of Rome, when they
beheld the mangled body and the gory mantle of Cæsar, rushed forth in
fury to be avenged upon his murderers.  So will the heart of every true
believer, when he sees the wounds of Jesus, be stirred up to mutiny and
rage—against himself, against those sins which caused the shedding of
that innocent blood.

And such emotions best become this solemn time.  The language of this sad
event is this—“Scarcely for a righteous man will one die, peradventure
for a _good man_ some would even dare to die, but God commendeth His love
to us, in that _while we were yet sinners_ Christ died for us.”  Come,
then, to the hallowed scene of Immanuel’s death.  Come, and anoint His
body with tears of godly sorrow, and swathe it in the fine linen of
undissembled love.  If David, in that most plaintive of all elegies,
could say over the slaughtered bodies of Saul and Jonathan, “Weep, O
daughters of Jerusalem, over Saul who clothed you in scarlet, and put
ornaments of gold upon your apparel,” much more may we say, “Weep, ye
believers in Jesus, weep over the King of Salem, who clothes you with
righteousness and crowns you with salvation.”

And are there some among you mourning the loss of dear relatives,
departed this life in God’s faith and fear?  I bid you look upon the tomb
of Christ, and learn what it is to have sorrow sweetened by grace and
sanctified by truth.  If their Saviour strengthened them amid the
weakness of mortality to glory in His cross, and practically to exclaim,
“O death, where is thy sting; O grave, where is thy victory?”—if now you
feel that the fairest flowers you can strew over their memory are those
of faith and hope and love, why should your hearts be heavy and your
spirits faint!  Know ye not that Christ hath laid _them_ in his own
resting-place, and that all who sleep in Jesus, God shall bring with Him?
Precious Gospel! which has brought life and immortality to light; which
bids us “not be ignorant concerning them that are asleep”—which tells us
that our departed brethren are blessed, and that when we too shall come
to the shores of the better land, we shall be welcomed by them arrived
before us—that we shall together walk along the golden streets of the
holy city, and sit down together by the fountains of joy which adorn and
beautify our common home.

But whatever may be our private griefs, whatever the hopes we cherish of
departed friends, let the burial and grave of Christ remind us that we
must die, and that after death there is the judgment.  It appeals to the
thoughtless and the careless and the gay, with a searching enquiry, “When
will _your_ spirit be at rest?” when corruption preys upon your body, it
asks “are you united to the Saviour?  Have your submitted to the
righteousness of God, and renounced your own, as a sinner guilty and
hell-deserving?  Have you fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set
before you on the cross of Christ?  Or are you yet dead in trespasses and
sins—a captive to Satan—a vessel fitted for destruction?”

Men and brethren, the fashion of this world passeth away, the grave, and
the mourners, and the funeral train, are preparing for us all.  Then it
is high time to awake out of sleep.

And now, “O Lord, grant that as we are baptized into the death of thy
blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our
corrupt affections we may be buried with Him; and that through the grave,
and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection; for His
merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, thy Son Jesus
Christ our Lord.  Amen.”

                                * * * * *

                                * * * * *

        London: D. Batten, Printer and Publisher, Clapham Common.





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