Cut Out Of The Rock

After Christ died it says that Joseph of Arimathea took the body and "placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away." (Matthew 27:60 NIV).

Joseph was not alone.

Nicodemus a Pharisee had accompanied him bringing a costly ointment of myrrh and aloes for the burial (John 19:39). This is the same man who had asked Jesus what it was meant to be born again (John 3).

These religious men represented a hard and legalistic system of worship of their day. The Lord spoke of such empty religious devotion like a fig tree that appears to have green leaves but yields no fruit. He cursed it and immediately it withered (Matthew 21:19). And Jesus called the religious rulers of their day whitewashed tombs (Matthew 23:27).

And there in the tomb stood a Pharisee and a Sadducee.

Interesting that after His death the first to touch Him were religious men who were touch by the Spirit of God. How fitting it was to lay His body in a tomb cut from rock. This was a prophetic moment recorded in Isaiah 53:9.

Looking at His body did they consider Deuteronomy 8:15? The Scripture says out of a hard rock water flowed much the same way water and blood gushed from His side (John 19:34).

Did they understand that Christ was their Rock who followed their people through a dry and barren wasteland? The Bible says, "And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ." (I Corinthians 10:4, KJV).

Could they have known that while they worked in silence wrapping His broken body they were actually living Ezekiel 36:26. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. (KJV).

I believe God's truth cut away the stony rock in the their own heart softening it so much so that they found themselves in a tomb attending to His body.

Beloved, this work of changing a stony heart to one of flesh is done only through the Spirit of God. That is why the resurrection of Christ is necessary to our faith (1 Corinthian 15:14). We have a living hope in a resurrected Savior.

For this Easter (and every moment of every day) allow the Spirit of Christ to soften your heart. It's not a time to get more religious but rather allow Him to speak to your grave - those places of death - places where indifference and hardness from life's battles and struggles may have tightly wrapped itself around your life - let Him bring you to life again.

Let Him cut out the stony places in your heart so His living waters will flow!