"He was buried." A Sermon for Easter Even

A preacher reflects on the burial of Jesus as described in scripture, meditating on funeral imagery, the small band of mourners, and the roles of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus who obtain the body from Pilate, preparing it with spices and linen and placing it in a new rock-cut tomb in a garden. The sermon connects these details to themes of death's universality, the quiet and gradual work of grace in hearts, fulfillment of prophecy, and the tomb's particulars — new, belonging to a rich man, sealed and guarded — as evidences supporting the reality of the resurrection.