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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, His disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that He has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”
“Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.
Matthew 27:62-66
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
It was Saturday of what is widely known as Holy Week, the Sabbath rest from what was a more than eventful Preparation Day which saw the crucifixion and death of a man named Jesus, the leader of the Way and nemesis of the Sanhedrin, the governing body of Jewish religious leaders.
As we look at the scriptures, we aren’t given insight as to what was going through the minds of Jesus’ followers, followers who extended well beyond His specially chosen Eleven to include the women who traveled with Him and were present at the cross to witness His execution. I would imagine that not many of Jesus’ disciples slept very well on either Friday or Saturday night, awash in the grief and emotions of the crucifixion, and maybe even afraid that they might be next. For if they could get to Jesus and kill Him, what would stop the Pharisees and Sadducees from pursuing and executing them as well.
Now, just because the scriptures don’t give us an insight into what the followers of Jesus were doing on that Sabbath Saturday of Holy Week, we see where this wasn’t the case with the Jewish religious powers who I believe also failed to rest well on that night after the crucifixion. Look at what we find in the Gospel of Matthew toward the tail end of chapter 27:
The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, His disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that He has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”
“Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard. Vv. 62-66
Every time I read this, the same question always pops up:
“Wasn’t the Sabbath established by God to be a day of rest?”
We all know the answer to that question is “Yes!” but you wouldn’t have known it if you were hanging out with the chief priests and Pharisees that Sabbath Saturday. The very men who were esteemed as the ones most fervent and connected to God were the ones who quickly felt it was okay to do what they wanted to do, regardless of whether God prohibited it or not. It’s no wonder why one of the biggest contention points Jesus had with the Pharisees and Sadducees was regarding their blatant hypocrisy.
Going back to our passage for today, I have been always fascinated with what went down as the chief priests and Pharisees went to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of the province that included Jerusalem. If they were so sure Jesus wasn’t who He said He was, the very Son of the God Most High that they worshiped and followed, why were they even worried about the tomb. Don’t believe for a moment that they were only concerned about the disciples coming to take the body and then make up some story that He was raised from the dead as He said He would. The disciples, minus John, weren’t even at the cross as their Master hung and died. Is it really believable that they were committed to Him at such a level that they would do as the chief priests and Pharisees proposed to Pilate?
No, the Jewish religious leaders were genuinely concerned about the power they saw first-hand in Jesus and were more than a little worried that He indeed could be resurrected from the dead. This is why they found it so important to go to Pilate, despite the fact that it was the Sabbath.
Well, we read where Pilate bought the story and provided the chief priests and Pharisees a guard to watch the tomb. He also authorized the sealing of the tomb in whatever way the Jewish religious leaders wished. The scriptures tell us they “made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone” while “posting the guard”.
And with that, their work, illegal and sinful work on the Sabbath as it was, concluded.
Jesus’ body was inside the sealed tomb and closely guarded. The Sabbath Saturday would be His final day of rest for at dawn, He would come back to life forever. Tomorrow, we’ll look at that glorious resurrection in the final message in this Holy Week series.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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