Saturday gives us little to read, but much to ponder.
Remembering that Jesus said He would rise from the dead after three days, the religious leaders went to Pilate to commission a guard and seal the tomb to make sure that the disciples wouldn’t steal Jesus’ body and perpetuate a story that He had risen from the dead.
Notice how closely the Pharisees paid attention to Jesus’ words. They did a better job of listening than His own disciples. However, they had rejected Jesus as their Messiah. After the resurrection, when the guards reported what they had witnessed, the Pharisees paid the Roman soldiers for their silence and spread a conspiracy that His disciples had stolen the body. They even suggest that they will bribe the governing officials if that is what it will take to deny the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection.
There was no reason to oppose Jesus other than they didn’t want to forfeit their own power in the kingdoms of this world. They could not argue with the evidence of His miracles, or debate with His teaching. Jesus had revealed the sin in their hearts and exposed the corruption in their religious hierarchy. In order to protect their status and control, they had resorted to murder and deception. They were blinded by their own sin.
In the two thousand years since Jesus' death, secular scholars have tried to make excuses for how a prominent religious system, Christianity, could spawn from a hoax. Most of them will acknowledge that it is highly unlikely that our faith could have survived the first century with all of the persecution they endured, particularly if it was based on a lie. They may not be able to explain the perseverance of the Church, but those of us who have come to know the miracle of Christ’s work can testify with the Apostles that our faith is based on the evidence of the resurrection, not the perpetration of a lie from the Pharisees.
Strengthen your faith today. Contemplate the power of Christ over death. “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).”