On Good Friday, Christ’s ignoble death was in the company of “wicked men,” but according to God’s plan He received the honor of a burial by “a rich man” (Isaiah 53:9), Joseph of Arimathea, who gave Christ a tomb that was suitable for a righteous, noble, and wealthy man—a rich burial. All baptized believers are buried with the lavish riches of God’s grace in Christ, which promises resurrection and the priceless inheritance of eternal life.

Our Good Friday text is a carefully nuanced prophecy about the end of Jesus’ earthly life. We will quote each part in a literal translation that conveys the specific details uttered by Isaiah some 700 years before Christ.

Our verse begins “He assigned His grave with wicked men” (Isaiah 53:9). God the Father is the unnamed subject, the one who “assigned” to Christ His grave. The circumstances of Good Friday are not haphazard accidents of history. Rather, all took place according to God’s detailed, preordained plan. And that prophetic plan was for Christ’s grave to be among “wicked men” That first phrase might imply a dishonorable interment for Jesus, a pauper’s grave, a meager memorial suitable for a common criminal. Yet our verse continues, “but with a rich man in His death” So how was Christ treated—as shameful or honorable, poor or rich?

As Jesus Christ died and was buried on this day nearly two thousand years ago, He fulfilled both lines of our verse. Jesus was assigned a grave with wicked men and with a rich man in His death. Moreover, His rich burial holds great promise for each of us.

The first part of God’s plan made use of the scheme of Jesus’ enemies. They plotted to kill the one who claimed to be the King of the Jews, even though His kingdom was not of this world. They bribed Judas to betray Him. Jesus was arrested and led though a series of sham trials before Jewish leaders and the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who unjustly condemned Jesus to what was known in the ancient world as, “the most vile death of the cross.”

In the narrative of Jesus’ death, we find violent criminals not unlike the Muslim terrorists who, on September 11, 2001, attacked New York City for the sake of their religious cause. They imagined that they were serving God, but in actuality they were serving the devil, who is the author of murder.

Instead of freeing Jesus, Pilate freed Barabbas, a murderous insurrectionist (Luke 23:19, 25). On Christ’s right and left, the Romans crucified two “evildoers. Thus Jesus “was numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). The sinless Son of God pined away beside malefactors, “although He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth” (53:9). Such was the ignominious death planned for Jesus by His enemies. In this way, the first line of our verse was fulfilled: God “assigned His [Jesus’] grave with wicked men” (53:9).

Jesus’ death in the company of abject sinners capped His earthly ministry to and among sinners. Christ came to be known as the “friend of . . . sinners” (Luke 7:34) because He associated with tax collectors and prostitutes, the poor and the lowly, those who were despised and scorned. Now also in His death, Christ identifies with sinners, executed as a criminal in the company of wicked men. His sole possession—a robe—became the soldiers’ gamble. Forsaken, stripped of all dignity, and bereft of any possession, He dies in utter poverty.

This was God’s plan to bring us salvation. Jesus’ death in the place of sinners procured the forgiveness of sins for all humanity. Isaiah expresses this most memorably:

He was pierced for our transgression, crushed for our iniquities.

The punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

By grace alone and through Baptism into Christ’s atoning death, God takes away our sin and clothes us in the robe of Christ’s perfect righteousness. Isaiah foresaw:

My Servant will justify the many so that each He who died in abject poverty gives us a share in the victor’s spoils -riches of eternal life. This too is righteous, and He will carry their iniquities.

Therefore I will give to Him His portion while He is among the many, and He will divide the spoil with the numerous. (Isaiah 53:11–12)

In ancient Israel, as today, it was an honor to be buried next to your relatives. A man buried in the family plot slept with his fathers It was a dishonor to be consigned namelessly to a public cemetery. To be denied any burial was an abomination and God’s curse According to the Torah, even the most accursed criminals who were impaled (an early form of crucifixion) were to be buried, lest the corpse defile the land. But the pagan, Gentile Romans, who lacked God’s Torah, often left crucified victims on the cross, to be attacked by birds of prey and other scavengers, to suffer the most horrific humiliation even after death. Christ’s enemies may have envisioned such a dishonor for Him.

But God the Father would not permit such disgrace to mock His Son after His death. As Jesus prayed, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46), and breathed His last, He completed the redemption of all humanity for all time. Jesus’ state of humiliation was over. Rich glory awaited.

God’s plan was that after Christ died in the company of “wicked men,” He was to be “with a rich man in His death” (Isaiah 53:9). Joseph of Arimathea was “a good and righteous” Jewish man (Luke 23:50) who had become a disciple of Jesus Christ. He took a bold step of faith. God moved him to ask Pontius Pilate for the body of Jesus. Joseph wished to give Christ His last honors. It took a brave man to request the body of criminal, for by doing so he declared his allegiance to the one who had been executed, and he could be next.

This Joseph was “a rich man” (Matthew 27:57). His wealth included ownership of a tomb in a garden near Golgotha. Joseph had gone to the expense of having a tomb hewn out of solid rock—the most secure type of grave (though it could not hold the risen Lord). It was not the tomb of Joseph’s ancestors, but a new tomb, for no one else had ever been laid in it. Probably Joseph had prepared it to be his own resting place (Matthew 27:60). But out of love for the Lord who had taken his place on the cross, Joseph wanted Jesus to take his place in his costly tomb. Into the virgin tomb was placed the Virgin’s Son.

The sin of the first Adam caused humanity’s expulsion from the garden paradise (Genesis 2–3). But the second Adam leads humanity back into paradise through His burial and resurrection in another garden. Today the Church of the Holy Sepulcher marks the traditional location. According to our text, Christ’s sepulcher was holy “because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth” (Isaiah 53:9). By Christ’s rich burial, God testified that His Son is the Lamb of God without spot or blemish.

Most of us cannot afford an imposing stone edifice for our grave. Nevertheless, at the cemetery we pray:

Almighty God, by the death of Your Son Jesus Christ You destroyed death, by His rest in the tomb You sanctified the graves of Your saints, and by His glorious resurrection You brought life and immortality to light so that all who die in Him abide in peace and hope.