Christ Was Buried

I’ve been studying early church history for months now. I cannot get enough of it. You’d think the by-product of studying history would be a plethora of random facts and dates. Maybe it’s that my memory isn’t what it once was, but studying church history has actually firmed up my faith in a way I didn’t know I needed. Since Sunday marked the beginning of Holy Week, I wanted to share something really cool I’ve been able to excavate in my deep dive into church history.

I think you’ll be blown away if you don’t already know this.

The church today is great at talking about how Christ died. It’s great at talking about how Christ rose from the dead. But that middle piece? About how Christ was buried? It’s missing from many churches’ doctrinal statements. It’s overlooked as a given or as a trivial detail in the greater narrative of the gospel.

That’s not how the early church viewed it.

That statement mattered. It is a tenet of the gospel. You can find it in both the Apostles and the Nicene Creeds. Paul writes it in his letters in what we now call the Pauline Creeds (See 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 for one example***).

One reason why it mattered so much was that the early church knew Jewish customs. During the time of Jesus, the Jewish people wrapped their dead in cloths and spices and buried them in tombs. One year later they returned to the site of the burial to collect the bones and put them in an ossuary (a small box) which was then placed in the back of the tomb with other burial boxes. Jewish people, as a matter of law, buried ALL bodies in two rites regardless of whether they were criminals or not. Roman law allowed them to do this–even if one of their own was, say, a convicted criminal hanging on a Roman cross.

Because of this, the early church knew that they held outstanding proof of Jesus’s resurrection. If Jesus was in fact buried (and he was) but was not also resurrected, the Jewish council would have had zero problems producing his body and proving Jesus’ disciples wrong once and for all. They knew where he was buried. The council had to know his burial site to be able to perform the second rite of his burial a year later. It was a member of their own council, Joseph of Arimathea, who provided the place for Jesus’ burial (Luke 23:50-53). They didn’t produce Christ’s body. Because they couldn’t.

Instead, they claimed his body was stolen.

This theory has many logical holes. I’m just going to share my favorite one.

The first witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection were women. In those times and in Jewish law, women legally could not testify. Regardless of the circumstances, their witness meant nothing. Never mind the huge stone or the guards posted in front of the tomb or the sheer number of people who SAW the risen Christ with scars but also not nasty and bleeding, no human who was masterminding the stealing of Jesus’ body would pick women to be the first witnesses. Only God would, guys. Only God. (And how beautiful that God reveals himself through the witness of the marginalized?! THAT is our God.)

Y’all.

You can choose to not follow Christ.

You can despise his teachings.

But trying to say Jesus didn’t die on the cross, wasn’t buried, and didn’t rise from the dead is foolish. It’s a matter of historical record.

The resurrection of Christ is not merely a spiritual event. It’s a historical event. His burial holds the proof of this.

More personally, I think the part where he was buried felt so final. Jesus was super dead. It looked hopeless, his lifeless body laid out on a shelf inside an earthen tomb, a stone rolled in front, soldiers standing guard. You couldn’t get in. He couldn’t get out.

Maybe you know that moment. The one where you are looking at your life and saying, “No, no, no, no! It wasn’t supposed to go this way. This isn’t a story I’d want to tell. This isn’t a story I want to live.”

Your life isn’t going how you thought it would, and you’re gutted by what is no more.

By all accounts, it looks hopeless. With much anguish you turn away, you leave it behind, and you try to come to grips with a new normal.

It’s buried.

It isn’t just that Christ died and then rose again as though there was pain and then immediately triumph. His death was finalized. His march towards resurrection included Silent Saturday—where all was lost and silent and cold.

It’s in the utter hopelessness of burial that God reveals his unfathomable ways and his unshakeable love for us. What looks like death to us looks like seeded soil to God.

I can’t say when. I definitely cannot say how. But we know and we believe that God raises the dead to life. What we bury can be resurrected by Him.

Christ died.

Christ was buried.

Christ rose from the dead.

Christ is coming again.

Praise God.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Hey! I would love to hear from you! Comment below and tell me about a time you got to witness the resurrection power of Christ at work in your life?? Man, it’d be cool to hear those testimonies. I’m linking a few of my own death-to-life stories: What Hope Really Looks Like, Joy Invincible {A Birth Story}, and Proclaiming the Miracle.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

Sources: Bede’s Podcast with Dr. Michael A. G. Haykin, episode titled “The Resurrection” (a fantastic listen if you enjoy podcasts) and Salvation by Allegiance Alone, by Dr. Michael W. Bates (a heavyweight, but nevertheless fantastic theology read).

***I just wanted to mention that 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 is actually believed to be a Pre-Pauline Creed. Scholars believe that what Paul wrote down in his letter to Corinth (verses 3-7) was known and recited by many first Christians. I dare you to read aloud 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 knowing before there was a New Testament canon, before Paul’s letters, before the gospels were recorded, the very first generation of Christians memorized, recited, and sang these precious words.