Luke 23:56

And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.

This is not a denial that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus might also have made such preparations for anointing the body, a tender act of love that could not be rendered because of the sudden onset of the holy Passover and its special high sabbath. Significantly, by the falling of that high day upon a Friday (beginning Thursday at sunset), there were back-to-back sabbaths, Friday and Saturday, a truth witnessed in the Greek text of Matthew 28:1 which speaks of "the end of the sabbaths (plural)" and says that the first day of the week came toward the "end of one of the sabbaths," after which the events of the resurrection began to unfold. Every Greek student on earth knows of this reference (twice) to plural sabbaths, that is, back-to-back sabbaths, in Matthew 28:1; but despite this, out of deference to the Friday crucifixion theory, it is still translated "the sabbath" even in the version before us. The word of God is true.

Considering the lapse of three nights and two whole days BEFORE the anointing of the body of Jesus, or the wrapping in spices, could begin, due to double sabbaths, it is not hard to understand why those who intended thus to minister to a dead body would have been about their business "very early" on the first day of the week (Mark 16:2). As God would have it, however, no ministration whatever was required for the body of our Lord, other than that which is mentioned in these verses. He rose from the dead even before the women arrived to anoint him.