What happened during the time that the body of Jesus lay in the tomb? Did someone bribe the guards to look the other way while they sole the corpse away? Were the soldiers simply careless, dozing off perhaps, or sneaking to the nearest hostelry for a quick drink? Well, not according to the Gospel narratives; quite the opposite, in fact. The chief priests and the Roman authorities, we are told, took every precaution to ensure that Jesus stayed exactly where he was: dead and buried; not going anywhere; his body cold and lifeless. The following meditation from my book A Most Amazing Man B makes the point, in so doing emphasising all the more the wonder of what would shortly follow.
Read
Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.’ So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone. Matthew 27:65, 66
The meditation of the chief priest
It’s sorted at last, thank God!
That Jesus fellow silenced for good.
Heaven knows what might have happened had we failed to act,
There would have been hell to pay, mark my words.
You should have seen the crowds that followed him,
heard the things they said.
The Messiah, they shouted,
the son of David,
the one sent to set us free.
We’ve had enough pretenders already, thank you very much,
and look where they got us:
hopes raised only to be dashed,
followed by brutal and bloody reprisals.
So, you see, we had to stop him,
and we did,
though that weasel Pilate made things harder than they needed to be.
At least he’s come up with what we need now –
a guard of soldiers to watch the tomb –
for he knows as well as any that we can’t afford the body to go missing
and his followers spinning some cock-and-bull yarn about him being
alive after all.
No, he’s dead alright –
we stayed to the end to make sure of that –
and his body was cold when we sealed it in the tomb.
There’s a boulder against it now,
and it would take an army to shift it,
so even his most devoted followers will have to accept that it’s over,
finished,
time to go home.
Jesus is staying put, right where he is,
unless, of course, he can defeat death itself,
and somehow I don’t think that’s likely.
Do you?
Prayer
Sovereign God,
thank you that when evil had done its worst,
when darkness seemed victorious and death to hold sway,
you were supremely at work.
Thank you that though hatred appeared to have crushed love
and truth to have been destroyed by falsehood,
even and especially there you were working out your purpose.
Thank you that every effort to thwart your will was futile;
that nothing and no one could conceal the triumph
you won for us in Christ.
Whatever we face,
in life or in death,
teach us that nothing will ever separate us from your love in him.
Amen.