The graveyard shift on any job can be long and tiresome.
The Roman soldiers who were assigned to guard the tomb where Jesus was buried were on the graveyard shift. They were there because the religious authorities, namely the Chief Priests and Pharisees, remembered that Jesus had said after three days He would rise from the dead.
The Chief Priests and Phaisees had demanded from Pilate, the Roman governor, that a squad of soldiers be sent to guard the tomb to prevent the friends of Jesus coming in the night to steal the body and proclaiming He had risen from the dead. (They seemed a bit paranoid about Jesus escaping from the grave.)
Pilate consented and sent them away with these ironic words, “Make it as sure as you can.”
It was getting to be a rather boring Saturday night. How could soldiers pass the night hours? By talking? Telling stories? Playing cards? If only they could listen to CFAR on a portable radio!
Occasionally, one went to check the huge circular stone that covered the entrance to the tomb. The report was that the seal was in place – all was well.
It may have been a boring night, but at least it wasn’t dangerous. Those friends of Jesus were nothing but a bunch of ragtag fishermen and frightened women. Soon the shift would be over, then they could all go home, and this business would be finished.
Finally, the light of dawn was beginning to show in the East. Suddenly a great earthquake rumbled and shook the earth, then a blinding light – splendour beyond comprehension!
Terror filled their hearts. The soldiers fell to the ground and lay like dead men. (How secure was the tomb? Can a pop-gun hinder the sunrise?)
An angel of the Lord – seeming quite at ease – rolled the stone away from the entrance and sat on it, as if anticipating the arrival of the women who were on their way.
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, identified as the mother of James and Joseph in Matthew 26:56, arrived and were terrified by the sight of the angel, who calmed their fears then announced the Resurrection: “He is not here; for He is risen as He said. Come see the place where the Lord lay.”
The women hurried away to tell the friends of Jesus. The guards revised, and some of them also hurried away to report to the Chief Priests.
The soldiers were given a large amount of money to tell a big fib. They were to spread the story that the disciples had come in the night and stolen away the body while they were sleeping.
Can you detect something suspicious about that story? If they were fast asleep how would they know who stole the body? But that was the story that began to circulate in Jerusalem.
What are we to believe about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ now in 2012? Accept some form of the story that the disciples stole the body and hid it? Or interpret the resurrection story as a “spiritual metaphor,” as a clergyman was quoted as saying in the religious section of the Winnipeg Free Press on Saturday, April 15, 2006, the day before Easter Sunday?
(“What a comfort that would be to a dying person at the scene of an accident!” You will be all right. Jesus’ resurrection is a “spiritual metaphor,” and this accident is just another “spiritual metaphor,” i.e. it didn’t happy in reality – not in real time and real history.)
Or should we embrace the record of Matthew, who lived at that time in history and was himself an eyewitness of the Resurrected Jesus, and who faithfully recorded the events of that early morning of the night shift at the tomb of Jesus?
The message of the Angel of the Lord has been recorded for all time: “He is not here; for He is risen as He said.” Christ is risen – He is risen indeed.
Lorne Moorhead is a retired pastor living in
Flin Flon
