Joseph of Arimathea, a leading member of the Sanhedrin has sought an audience with Pontius Pilate to request the body of Jesus. For many reasons, this was a highly unusual request.

Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. – Mark 15:25-26

The reason why Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus was already dead was because he would have expected Jesus to have lasted days upon the cross, as was usually the case. In fact, Pilate couldn’t believe it, so he summoned the centurion for confirmation. You see, Pilate didn’t understand that it wasn’t the might of Rome that had killed Jesus at all! He didn’t understand that Jesus had given his life as an act of his own self-will. Pilate didn’t understand that Jesus’ sufferings at the place of execution hadn’t been principally physical but spiritual.

He didn’t understand that there at the cross, atonement had been made for the sin of the world. Pilate, you see, deals only at the level of the physical. The centurion absolutely confirmed that Jesus was dead, because he had asked one of his squad to thrust a spear through his side and into his heart after his death. And so, Pilate let Joseph have the body. The fact that he did so speaks of Joseph of Arimathea’s exceptionally high standing. Normally, not even the family was permitted to take the body.

Pilate asked for proof that Jesus had died. And Pilate had no idea of the monumental spiritual achievement that Jesus had just made at the Cross. We live in an age of scientific materialism in which we need 100% proof for anything otherwise we just won’t believe. That’s why people don’t believe anything anymore; they just have opinions.
Think carefully about your own walk through life. Are you operating at the physical level like Pilate, or the spiritual like Joseph of Arimethea?

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