Luke 23:55-56 - Exposition

And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. The real process of embalming, the women who were of the company of Jesus—the Maries, Salome, and others—proposed to undertake as soon as the sabbath was passed, that is, on the first day of the coming week—the Sunday. How little even his nearest and dearest friends dreamed of a resurrection of the body! It seems probable that they expected, at least some of them, a glorious reappearance of Jesus, but when, but how, they had evidently formed no definite conception. None, however, seemed to have thought of the bodily resurrection which took place on the first day of the week- on that Sunday morning. St. Matthew ( Matthew 27:62-66 ) relates how, after the entombment, the chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate and asked that the sepulchre might, "until the third day," be made sure; and how the Roman governor bade them take such precautions as seemed good to them. These—his bitter opponents—were more clearsighted than his friends. They had some dim fears of something which might still follow, while his disciples, in their hopeless sorrow, thought nil was over. And rested the sabbath day according to the commandment . "It was the last sabbath of the old covenant. It was scrupulously respected" (Godet).