Solomon writes: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die.”
In the time of Jesus, death was marked by the family with great solemnity and ceremony. It set in motion a carefully prescribed set of activities, which began with the preparation of the body for burial. First the body was washed and rubbed with oil or sprinkled with perfume. It was then wrapped in special grave clothes, made of long strips of linen. Fragrant spices were packed between the cloth and the body to take away the smell of death, and the head was bound with a linen napkin.
Aloes, myrrh, and other aromatic plants were wrapped with a body in preparing it for burial. Myrrh was one of the gifts brought to the child Jesus by the Wise Men. Most probably aloes were oils extracted from the succulent leaves of the aloe plant. The aloe has stiff, fleshy leaves edged with sharp teeth and produces reddish or yellow flowers every year. In John's gospel, we read that after Joseph of Arimathea claimed the body of Jesus, Nicodemus "came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds' weight. They took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloth with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews."
Family and friends gathered round to lament with loud cries of sorrow. The intensity of their grieving may be reflected in Micah 1:8, "I will make lamentation like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches." The mourners tore their clothes, usually of coarse sackcloth and they disfigured themselves with dust and ashes. Some may have even shaved their heads or beards. If money permitted, professional mourners were hired to assist in the public expression of grief, although in a small town like Nazareth it is likely that most families would have been able to afford only one professional mourner. According to a later ruling, a Jew was required to provide at least one professional woman mourner and two flute players for his wife's funeral, and this may have already been a custom at the time of Jesus.
Jesus must have witnessed such scenes of mourning as he grew up, and he surely saw them in the years of his ministry. In Matthew's gospel, we are told that when Jesus went to the house of a synagogue leader whose daughter was reported dead, he "saw the flute players, and the crowd making a tumult."
The burial places were usually located on any side of town but the west, as the prevailing winds blew from that direction. The entrance of the cave was sealed with a large boulder or slab of rock to keep in the smells and to keep out the jackals and other animals, and the door of the tomb may have been whitewashed to warn people that there was a corrupting body inside. Jesus referred to the scribes and Pharisees of being hypocrites, "like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones."
The dead person's house was also considered unclean for a week after the body was removed from it: no food could be prepared there during that time. Neighbors brought food for the family to eat.
Death was seen as a part of life. After the appropriate period of mourning, the family went on as before. Children were born and grew up to do the work of those who had died. And early in the first century A.D., in the town of Nazareth, one of those children was Jesus.
Reference: Micah 1:8, Matt. 9:23, 23:27, John 19: 39-40, Ecc.3:1, 2 The Holy Bible. Jesus and His Times, The Reader's Digest 1987.