Resurrection Reactions - a Study in Contrasts

This is getting monotonous! Every year, about this time, the news media takes another swipe at the Easter story, which is the heart of Christianity. Major news magazines like TIME and Newsweek do cover articles on whether Jesus ever existed, whether he really said the things he is supposed to have said, and whether he really rose from the dead.

Doesn’t this strike you as rather strange? Is it not unusual that today, 2,000 years after Jesus is said to have risen from the dead, people are still struggling to explain it away? After all, if the critics are right, and the whole thing is just a myth—a story made up by gullible Christians—then why spend so much time and effort trying to disprove it? Let it collapse of it’s own weakness.

Nobody writes books and articles trying to disprove the claim that Elvis Presley is alive and well and has appeared to many people, as the tabloids have often suggested. That’s obviously bogus, and you only have to go to his tomb at Graceland to prove it.

But there’s something very tenacious about the Easter Resurrection story. For 2,000 years doubters have been trying to shoot holes in it, explain it away, prove it to be untrue, and yet it’s still here with us. It just won’t go away.

The effort to demolish the Resurrection got an early start. In fact, it began on the very first Easter Sunday. Listen to how it happened. I’m reading from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 28…

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”

So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

Now I want you to notice that there are three groups of people in this narrative: the women, the guards, and the chief priests. And each group reacted differently to the evidence that confronted them.

First, let’s look at the women. Matthew only mentions Mary Magdalene and “another” Mary. However, the other Gospel writers tell us that there were actually no less than five women in the group. Salome, the mother of James and John, was there. So was a woman named Joanna. And Luke tells us that there were still others, though he does not name them.

Now why were these women going to the tomb early that Sunday morning? Were they going to see whether Jesus had risen from the dead? Were they going in hopes that they would find an empty tomb?

No. They were going there for funeral purposes. They were on an undertaker’s errand to finish embalming Jesus body. There had been not enough time to complete that job on Friday evening before the start of the Sabbath. So the women made plans to go early on Sunday morning to finish the task. And as they went, they were wondering how they were going to get that big stone away from the entrance to the tomb.

Imagine their shock when they got there and found that the stone had already been rolled away. And then, as they came to the entrance and hesitantly peered in, to see—not the body of a dead man—but the shining figure of a very live angel who told them “He is not here. He has risen from the dead.”

Now at this point, the women have been given three pieces of evidence that something extraordinary has happened. They have two pieces of material evidence: the stone has been rolled away, and the tomb is empty—Jesus body is no longer there. And then there is the testimonial evidence: an angel has told them that Jesus has risen from the dead.

So what do they do with that evidence? What is their reaction? Matthew tells us that they ran from the tomb to tell his disciples, feeling a mixture of fear and joy, and they ran smack into Jesus himself. Their reaction to the evidence was to believe it and to act upon it. And at that point, they met Jesus.

But the women weren’t the only people doing some running that morning. Let’s look at what happened to the guards. What were they doing at the tomb anyway? Well, Matthew tells us just a few verses previously, at the 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.

Ironically, Jesus’ enemies—the chief priests and Pharisees—had a better grasp of his teaching than his own disciples. They remembered that Jesus had predicted that he would rise from the dead after three days. And they were apprehensive about the possibility of Jesus’ disciples coming and stealing the body and “staging” a resurrection, using the empty tomb as their chief prop.

They needn’t have worried! Stealing the body was the last thing on the disciples’ mind that weekend.

But Pilate granted their request for a guard. So a squad of Roman soldiers was stationed at the tomb, and the stone was sealed with the governor’s imprint. Any tampering with that tomb would now be an offense against Rome.

So it was that the Roman soldiers were on duty early that Sunday morning when the ground began to shake. And a blinding light shone as an angel appeared and rolled back the stone. And the guards—these battle-hardened veterans of the Roman army—were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

We don’t know how long it took them to regain their composure, but when they did, they had to come to grips with not three, but four pieces of evidence. First, there had been an earthquake. Second, a terrifying supernatural being had appeared at the tomb, the sight of whom had caused them to faint with fright. Third, when they awoke, they found that the stone had been rolled away. Pilate’s seal had been broken, and it had happened on their watch. And fourth, the body they had been commanded to guard was now gone. The tomb was empty.

What did they do with that evidence? What was their reaction? Well, they certainly acted upon it. And they did something very extraordinary for Roman soldiers to do. They abandoned their post. That was a capital offense in the Roman army, as it is in most armies to this day. As a professional soldier, you do not abandon your post.

In all of the various Gospel accounts of the disciples coming to the tomb on Sunday morning, there is no mention of the guards being there, or of the guards challenging the disciples in any way. That’s because the guards were no longer there. They were gone—they had abandoned their post.

And Matthew tells us that some of them hurried into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. Now if nothing had happened at the tomb that Sunday morning, there wouldn’t have been any reason for them to run away, and nothing to report. But report they did.

And they reported to the chief priests. Why the chief priests? The chief priests were not in the command structure of the Roman army. They were not the ones these soldiers were supposed to report to.

I believe that the soldiers were too afraid to report to their own superior officers for fear of being disbelieved and punished. You see, they were in a desperate situation—they had failed their mission; they had abandoned their post, their nerves were shot—and now they were desperately trying to save their own skin. So they went to the chief priests.

Which brings us to the third group in this story—the chief priests. Remember, they were the ones who had asked Pilate to put a guard on the tomb in the first place. And they did so, not because they believed that Jesus might actually rise from the dead, but because they suspected that Jesus’ disciples might try to steal his body and then claim that he rose from the dead.

So what do you suppose would be their reaction when all of a sudden, at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning, these Roman soldiers burst in on them? These big tough soldiers, huffing and puffing, in a high state of agitation, looking like they’ve just seen a ghost.

Well, it wouldn’t take a genius to realize that something very unusual has happened. Just the fact that the Roman soldiers have come to talk to them had to be a tip-off to the priests that something extraordinary has happened.

So the chief priests heard the soldiers out. They got the whole story from the soldiers—the earthquake, the angel, the stone, the empty tomb.

There was not a word in that story about Jesus’ disciples mounting a daring raid in which they made off with the body. The bottom line was that the soldiers were at the tomb the whole time, until something happened to make the tomb come up empty.

So now the chief priests have some very weighty evidence in front of them. And they have not three, not four, but five pieces of evidence to consider. They know about the earthquake, the angel, the stone, and the fact that the tomb is now empty—the body of Jesus is gone.

And they know that this is reliable evidence because these soldiers have nothing to gain and everything to lose if they’ve just made this story up. And that’s the fifth piece of evidence—the lives of these soldiers themselves. The fact that the soldiers came desperately to report to the priests is a powerful witness that something supernatural has happened at that tomb.

So what did they do with the evidence? How did they react?

They reacted by making up a false story and bribing the soldiers to spread it. They gave the soldiers a large sum of money and told them “You are to say ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’”

The priests knew that this story was false. And the soldiers knew that this story was false. They all knew that the disciples had done no such thing. What’s more, they knew that the story was pretty flimsy. It had holes in it. How could the soldiers know what happened if they were asleep at the time? As alibis go, it was pretty weak.

I’m sure that the soldiers were very much aware of the fact that this story made them look like utter fools. What Roman soldier worth his salt would go around proclaiming the fact that he had fallen asleep on duty and failed his mission? If his commanding officer heard about it, he’d be dead.

That’s why the priests went to great lengths to assure the soldiers that, if word of this ever got back to the governor, they’d take care of it.

So that’s the story that went out on the street. The soldiers took the money and did as they were told. And Matthew says that this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day, meaning the time that he wrote his gospel, which, as best we can tell was about 20 or 30 years later.

So here we have three groups of people, presented with three sets of increasingly convincing evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, reacting in three totally different ways.

The women believed the evidence—even though there were still some doubts and confusion in their minds. They responded positively to the strength of the evidence, and they met the risen Lord.

The soldiers knew that something supernatural had taken place at the tomb which caused Jesus’ body to no longer be there. There could be no other explanation for it. And they knew that.

And that is what they told the priests. But then the priests persuaded them to suppress the real story and embrace a false story, and they made it worth their while to do so.

The chief priests, for their part, had to confront the strongest evidence of all—especially when you recall that they were the only ones who seemed to understand that Jesus had predicted his own resurrection. If any group should have been alert to such a possibility, it should have been them.

And yet, in the face of overwhelming evidence, they refused to even consider that Jesus might actually have risen from the dead. Instead, they concocted a half-baked lie to cover up the truth, and they began to spread it abroad.

Why did they do that? Because if Jesus had really risen from the dead, it would have totally demolished their position. They would have had to admit that they had been wrong in their theology, wrong in their beliefs, wrong in their opposition to Jesus, wrong in their understanding of God and His ways.

And I guess they couldn’t bring themselves to even consider that possibility. They couldn’t admit they were wrong.

Now what does all this have to do with you and me today? Well, simply this: the evidence is still there. It hasn’t gone away. God is asking you today: “What are you going to do with the evidence for an empty tomb?”

Are you going to be like the guards who knew in their heart of hearts that it was true, but were willing to pretend that it was not? Are you going to say “As long as my needs taken care of—as long as my pockets are lined, my nest is feathered, my life is comfortable—then it doesn’t really matter how the tomb got empty?

The guards sold their integrity. They exchanged the truth for some short-term profits. And there are a lot of people like that today. They don’t care much about the truth about Jesus, they just want to have a comfortable, enjoyable, prosperous life.

Or are you more like the priests? You’ve carefully put together a philosophy of life, a theology, a set of beliefs, a world view—whatever you want to call it—that seems to be working for you. And you’ve achieved a certain amount of success, and privilege, and recognition in the community. You’re doing fairly well for yourself—you’ve got your life pretty much together the way you like it.

And then one day God comes along and kicks in the door and confronts you with the fact that Jesus is alive, He is the Son of God, and he has a right to your total loyalty and commitment and worship.

But that’s not something that fits into your categories. To admit the truth about Jesus, you would have t to admit that basically, you’ve been wrong all this time. So what do you do?

You suppress the truth You slam the lid back down on it. You try to explain it away somehow. Jesus couldn’t have risen from the dead. He couldn’t be alive today. There has to be some other explanation.

That’s what the priests did, and that’s what a lot of people do today when it comes to Jesus Christ. Even though they know that the tomb is empty, they don’t want to conclude that he’s alive. They don’t want him knocking on the door of their life today, alive and powerful, and ready to come in and make radical changes.

They would just as soon he be dead—a forgotten footnote of history. But he’s not dead; he’s alive.

And that’s what the women believed when they were confronted with the evidence. Their belief wasn’t wishful thinking—they were shocked by the fact that the tomb was empty. And their belief wasn’t perfect—they had doubts and confusion. Remember, they ran from the tomb feeling a mixture of joy and fear. They didn’t have it all figured out, but they believed the evidence. And that’s when they ran right into Jesus.

I’m always impressed by the fact that Jesus chose to meet the women. On that Easter Sunday morning, he could have walked out of the tomb and presented himself to the soldiers, but he didn’t.

He could have walked into the Temple and confronted the priests. But he didn’t do that, because he knew their hearts. He knew that the priests wouldn’t believe even if he stood before them in person.

No, he showed himself to these humble women who had the courage to believe the evidence that God could do something they thought was impossible. And Jesus wants to meet you on the same ground today.

It all boils down to your reaction to the evidence—what you do with the empty tomb.