And it was preparation day, and [the] sabbath twilight was coming on.
It was Friday afternoon, and Joseph had just laid the body of Jesus in a tomb. Luke stops to fix the hour, and that one detail explains the rushed burial, the silent day that followed, and what the day of Preparation was preparing for.
Luke uses a fixed name from the Jewish calendar, not a general word for getting ready.
The "Preparation" (paraskeue) is the same as the "eve" of the Passover. Jewish writings always use that name for the time from the evening of the 14th of Nisan to the evening of the 15th. It came to mean the Christian's Friday.
Older translations say the Sabbath "drew on"; the ESV says it "was beginning." The Greek word behind the phrase describes light fading, not light breaking.
First, epiphoskouse does not mean only or properly "dawn." Here Friday is sabbaton epephoske, translated "drew on." It was the day before the Sabbath... I learn also from Marsh that the Syriac uses the same word in Luke 23:54 and John 19:31, which is certainly the evening... and this word has the natural meaning of epiphosko. Syriac was the apostles' language.
Kelly warns that this small mistake has caused wide confusion.
It was evening, not morning. Scholars have forgotten the Jewish way of speaking about a day just as much as uneducated people have. Anyone who looks into it can soon see how this mistake has confused the attempts to fit the Gospel accounts together, above all over the timing of the death and the resurrection of Christ.
Some argue for an earlier crucifixion day by supposing an extra festival Sabbath that week. Grant answers from Luke's own wording.
Verse 54 is clear that this day was Friday, called "the preparation," and the Sabbath drew near. Some have imagined that there was more than one Sabbath in the week, and that the crucifixion took place on Wednesday or Thursday. But the Greek article settles it: "the Sabbath." In verse 56 the women rested only "the Sabbath day," not "days."
The closing hour explains the rush: at sunset the Sabbath began, and the work had to stop.
Remember that our blessed Lord was crucified on the Friday, and that the Sabbath began at sunset the same evening. If the ninth hour was three o'clock in the afternoon, Joseph had to move fast. He had to get Pilate's permission, take the body of Jesus down from the cross, and prepare it for burial, so that he could finish the entombment before the Sabbath began. Luke marks this when he says the Sabbath "drew on."
The day's name raises a question: preparation for what? One writer answers that God had His own purpose in the day.
The preparation day, then, began on the Thursday evening at sunset, and lasted until Friday evening sunset. But what was it the preparation for? It was God's preparation day for man — poor, lost, guilty man. God would bring him into eternal rest with Himself: the eternal Sabbath based on redemption... The Sabbath, or rest of creation, had long been lost. Now God set out the Sabbath of redemption. It can never be lost while God is faithful to the claims of the redemption-blood of His Lamb.
Jesus entered that day of rest from inside a tomb. Mackintosh asks what that says about rest.
Christ had no Sabbath when He was upon this earth. True, He finished His work — blessedly, gloriously finished it — but where did He spend the Sabbath day? In the tomb!... Could the Son of God lie in the grave on the seventh day, if that day was meant for rest and peace, with the full sense that nothing was left to be done? Impossible!
The same silence was a message to the nation that had condemned Him.
He lies in the grave all the day which His murderers kept as a day holy to Jehovah... their own Messiah slain by His own people: such was the truth which that Sabbath-day uttered to him who had ears to hear.
- Preparation — The word names the eve of the Passover, a fixed Jewish term that later came to mean Friday.
- Dusk — "Drew on" means evening light fading, not morning breaking. Reading it as dawn has confused the Gospel timelines.
- One Sabbath — The Greek article rules out a second festival Sabbath. Verse 56 has the women resting one day, not several.
- Haste — Sunset would start the Sabbath, so Joseph worked fast to finish the burial in time.
- Rest — The preparation day pointed to the rest that redemption would bring. Jesus spent that Sabbath in the grave, proof that the true rest had not yet come.
And women, who had come along with him out of Galilee, having followed, saw the sepulchre and how his body was placed.
Joseph of Arimathea had just laid the body of Jesus in a tomb, and the light was fading before the Sabbath. Luke does not name the women who followed the body to the grave; he only tells us twice where they came from.
Matthew describes the same group in fuller terms. One writer lines up the two accounts:
Luke only says (and he speaks this way twice): "the women who had followed him from Galilee" (Luke 23:49, 55). But since Matthew includes Mary among those "who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him" (Matt. 27:55), we know that Mary was one of the group Luke describes.
Following Him to the grave was the last stage of a service that ran through His whole life:
Such was the devoted service of women towards the Lord in life and in death. Personal, loving devotedness shines out here as the special service of sisters.
Only a handful of people watched the burial. One writer counts them:
Angels were surely spectators, but not angels only. The women who had come with the Lord from Galilee followed after, and saw the tomb and how His body was laid. Luke is general in his statement. Matthew and Mark, on the other hand, mention only two: Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses. Two men to bury, two women looking on, mourners in the truest sense — these are the only ones we can name as present at the funeral of the Lord Jesus Christ.
They saw not only where the body lay, but how. Luke's word for the tomb belongs to the body that goes into it — and one writer contrasts it with Hades:
Mnēmeion is spoken of in relation to the body going into it: "saw the tomb and how His body was laid" (Luke 23:55). Hades is never spoken of in relation to the body, for the obvious reason that it has no relation to it.
They had heard His words. Their care over the grave shows how little of them had sunk in:
It was affection, but with little intelligence. Their love lingered over the scene of His death and burial. For the present they did not realize at all the life that would so soon shine out in glory. Had they not heard His words? Would He, would God, not make them good?
That failure is the easy thing to notice — and the wrong place to stop:
In love they had followed the Lord in His life of service, they clung to Him in death on the cross, they watch as His body is laid in the grave. It is easy to dwell on their lack of intelligence, while falling far behind them in their devoted love.
A body and a burial held their whole attention. One writer finds us in them, and points to where God had arranged the anointing instead:
We are often just as ignorant as those poor affectionate women who went with their spices and ointment to the tomb. In chapter 23:55-56 we see them occupied with death. It was death in no ordinary form, but it was still death: "They saw the tomb and how His body was laid." Then they return and prepare spices and ointments. But the Sabbath rest keeps them from doing what would have been wholly out of place. God had arranged the anointing of the Lord for His burial. It was not to take place at the tomb, but in the house at Bethany. There the presence of Lazarus proved the power of resurrection.
- Followed. These women had travelled with Jesus from Galilee and served Him along the way. Luke leaves them unnamed. Matthew lets us place Mary Magdalene among them.
- Watched. Two men buried Him and two women looked on — the only mourners Scripture allows us to name at the funeral of the Son of God.
- Saw. They noted the tomb and the exact position of the body. Luke's word for the tomb belongs to a body going into it; Scripture never uses Hades that way.
- Loved. Their devotion outran their understanding. It was real affection lingering at a grave, with no thought yet of the life about to break out of it.
- Learned. Their spices at the tomb would have been out of place. God had already arranged the anointing at Bethany, where Lazarus proved the power of resurrection.
And having returned they prepared aromatic spices and ointments, and remained quiet on the sabbath, according to the commandment.
The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee saw where His body was laid. They went home and prepared spices and ointments — and then stopped for a whole day. What they did with that day says as much about them as their love did.
The verse fixes the end of a Friday and the start of the seventh day. One writer notes that the wording rules out the theory of multiple Sabbaths that week:
Verse 54 is clear that this day was Friday, called "the preparation," and the Sabbath drew near. Some have thought that there was more than one Sabbath that week, and that the crucifixion took place on Wednesday or Thursday. But the Greek article settles it: "the Sabbath." In verse 56 the women rested only "the Sabbath day," not "days." They came to watch His burial. Then they returned home to prepare spices and ointments, hoping to anoint His body after the Sabbath — the day on which they rested.
One writer finds three things about these women in this one verse:
Three things are clearly shown here. First, their affection for Christ. Second, that they expected no resurrection. Third, their devotion to God, seen in their submission to the word of God. They longed to pour out the signs of their deep love on the dead body of their Lord. But the Sabbath came at once. So these holy women — and Mary Magdalene stood out among them — waited quietly and rested in obedience to the commandment, before they carried out their plan to anoint the body of our blessed Lord.
The spices were prepared for a dead body. One writer names what was missing in that love:
It was affection, but with little intelligence. Their love lingered over the scene of His death and burial. For the moment they did not grasp at all the life that would soon be displayed in glory. Had they not heard His words? Would He, would God, not make them good?
Another writer weighs that kind of love against faith:
Love did an acceptable service afterwards. It came to bury the dead. It brought its spices to the tomb. It wept with those who wept. It died with Jesus. "Let us also go," it said, "that we may die with him." But this was not faith. Faith looked beyond the grave; love looked into it.
The last thing Luke records before the resurrection is obedience to the law. One writer sees the Lord Himself honouring that law, even in death:
Luke tells us more about the women who had come with Him from Galilee. They saw the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they went back to prepare spices and ointments, and they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. So, even in His death, our blessed Lord was honouring the law. He had indeed reached the Sabbath of God, and in picture His people had reached it too. It was fitting, then, that they rested on the holy day.
While His followers kept the day of rest, the Lord of that day was in the grave. One writer draws out what this silence teaches:
Christ certainly had no Sabbath while He was on this earth. True, He finished His work — He finished it gloriously. But where did He spend the Sabbath day? In the tomb! Yes, the Lord Christ — God revealed in human flesh, the Lord of the Sabbath, the Maker and Sustainer of heaven and earth — spent the seventh day in the dark and silent tomb. Has this no voice for us? Does it teach us nothing? Could the Son of God lie in the grave on the seventh day, if that day were to be spent in rest and peace, in the full sense that nothing was left to be done? Impossible! We need no further proof that a Sabbath cannot be kept than what we find at the grave of Jesus.
Luke marks the Sabbath here, and the next verse moves to the first day of the week. One writer keeps the two days apart:
They obeyed the law. They had prepared spices "so that they might go and anoint him" on the Friday evening, and then rested on the Saturday. That was the Sabbath. The Lord's Day has nothing at all to do with the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the last day of the week. There is no such thing as the Christian Sabbath, though people often speak that way. There is the Lord's Day. The first of the week is the day that belongs to the Lord.
- Love — Their affection was real. They watched the burial, then went home and prepared spices for the body of their Lord.
- Limit — That same love expected no resurrection. It looked into the grave; faith looks beyond it.
- Obedience — What they failed to understand, they made up for in obedience. They stopped and rested because the commandment said so.
- Silence — While they rested, the Lord of the Sabbath lay in the dark tomb. That grave is proof enough that man had no Sabbath rest to keep.
- Sunrise — The waiting ends at the first day of the week. That day belongs to the Lord, and it is not the Sabbath.