Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Transformed living

4 So, then, just as the Messiah suffered in the flesh, you too must equip yourselves with the same mental armor. Someone who suffers in the flesh has ceased from sin, ² so as to live the rest of their mortal life no longer according to human desires but according to God’s will. ³ Pagan ways of life have had quite enough of your time already, and you should put all that behind you for good—all that uncleanness, passion, drunkenness, excessive feasting, drinking-parties and lawless idolatry. ⁴ People are shocked that you don’t now join in with the same wild and reckless behavior, and so they call down curses on you. ⁵ But they will have to account for it before the one who is ready to judge the living and the dead. ⁶ That is why, you see, the gospel was preached even to the dead, so that, being judged in human fashion, in the flesh, they might live in God’s fashion, in the spirit.

⁷ The end of all things is upon us. You must keep sober, then, and self-disciplined for your prayers. ⁸ Above all, keep absolutely firm in your love for one another, because “love covers a multitude of sins.”

The burial of Jesus

⁵⁷ When evening came, a rich man from Arimathea arrived. He was called Joseph, and he, too, was a disciple of Jesus. ⁵⁸ He went to Pilate and requested the body of Jesus. Pilate gave the order that it should be given to him.

⁵⁹ So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth. ⁶⁰ He laid it in his own new tomb, which he had carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a large stone across the doorway of the tomb, and went away.

⁶¹ Mary Magdalene was there, and so was the other Mary. They were sitting opposite the tomb.

⁶² On the next day (that is, the day after Preparation Day), the chief priests and the Pharisees went as a group to Pilate.

⁶³ “Sir,” they said, “when that deceiver was still alive, we recall that he said, ‘After three days, I’ll rise again.’ ⁶⁴ So please give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise his disciples might come and steal him away, and then tell the people, ‘He’s been raised from the dead!’ and so the last deception would be worse than the first.”

⁶⁵ “You can have a guard,” said Pilate; “go and make it as secure as you know how.” ⁶⁶ So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and putting a guard on watch.

The burial of Jesus

³⁸ After this, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate if he could take Jesus’ body away. He was a disciple of Jesus, but he kept it secret because he was afraid of the Judaeans. Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took his body. ³⁹ Nicodemus came too (the man who, at first, had visited Jesus by night). He brought a concoction of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds in weight. ⁴⁰ They took Jesus’ body, and wrapped it up in cloths with the spices, according to the normal Judaean burial custom.

⁴¹ There was a garden in the place where he was crucified. In the garden, there was a new tomb in which nobody had ever been buried. ⁴² So, because the tomb was nearby, and because of the Judaean day of Preparation, they buried Jesus there.