At The Tomb

Exodus 13 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

Exodus 13

14 "In days to come, when your son asks you,

'What does this mean?' say to him, 'With a mighty

hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the

land of slavery.

15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go,

the LORD killed every firstborn in Egypt, both

man and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the

LORD the first male offspring of every womb and

redeem each of my firstborn sons.'

16 And it will be like a sign on your hand and a

symbol on your forehead that the LORD brought us

out of Egypt with his mighty hand."


What does this mean, is the question that is to
be asked and answered each year when the Passover
is celebrated. Not only is the question asked at
each Passover, but the question surfaces every
time there is a consecration of the firstborn.
Every hebrew boy grows up surrounded by the
question, What does this mean? It's a common
question. It's not at all unusual that one of my
sons ask me, Dad, what are you doing, or Dad, why
are you doing that. Sometimes, it is a source of
irritation to answer all the questions because,
being as they are, they think that dad is just
off the reservation. He just doesn't know any
better. They watch too much TV.
When I was their age, I watched too much TV.
Some of the images never want to fade. That
should be a warning that you don't want your kids
to spend too much time with a TV. I've made
every effort to keep my kids away from TV, but
it's a losing battle. Now, it's video games.
It's like serving pop and chips three meals a
day. They love it, but it's not a good diet.
Sorry, I digress.

The annual celebrations and routine rituals are
there for a reason. Sure, they were instituted
as commands or laws, but they serve a definite
purpose. They are there to inform and to educate
the children and to remind the adults that there
is something to be seen in the past, present and
an anticipation of future events. Another word
that comes to mind is indoctrination. In a
nutshell, time is under the direction of G-d. To
the theist, that's not a startling conclusion,
because it's implied by the celebrations and
rituals. To the non-theist, it's an annoying
reminder that he is mistaken. That results in
one tension of modern life, the effort to remove
every trace of 'religious' observance from public
life. In fact, it just replaces one religion
with another, because we will worship someone.

None of this is new. I just want to point out
that the celebration of Passover is a forward
looking reminder of past Providence. There is a
G-d in heaven. Don't let the modern mood distort
his image. There aren't many men left.

All the same, when Jesus arrived on the scene,
the genuine Passover Lamb of G-d, you can't help
but notice that the public image was so distorted
that he was not recognizable to many. Many fail
to recognize him today for the same reason. It's
the job of the 'church' to make him recognizable
not the main stream media.

Matthew 27 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International

Bible Society

Matthew 27

The Burial of Jesus

57 As evening approached, there came a rich man

from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself

become a disciple of Jesus.

58 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus' body, and

Pilate ordered that it be given to him.

59 Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean

linen cloth,

60 and placed it in his own new tomb that he had

cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in

front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.

61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting

there opposite the tomb.

The Guard at the Tomb

62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day,

the chief priests and the Pharisees went to

Pilate.

63 "Sir," they said, "we remember that while he

was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three

days I will rise again.'

64 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."

65 "Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the

tomb as secure as you know how."

66 So they went and made the tomb secure by

putting a seal on the stone and posting the

guard.


At the time it seemed like a good idea to place a
guard at the tomb. What they didn't expect is to
be the ones who would provide solid evidence of
the resurrection. They made absolutely certain
that there was no question about the facts
surrounding the resurrection. The guard proved
to be the eyewitnesses to the event. We have
their eyewitness account.


Matthew 28

The Resurrection

1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of

the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went

to look at the tomb.

2 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.

3 His appearance was like lightning, and his

clothes were white as snow.

4 The guards were so afraid of him that they

shook and became like dead men.

5The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid,

for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who

was crucified.

6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.

Come and see the place where he lay.

7 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."

8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid

yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his

disciples.

9 Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said.

They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped

him.

10 Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go

and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they

will see me."

The Guards' Report

11 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.

12 When the chief priests had met with the elders

and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a

large sum of money,

13 telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples

came during the night and stole him away while we

were asleep.'

14 If this report gets to the governor, we will

satisfy him and keep you out of trouble."

15 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.


This passage brings to mind another Keystone Cops
image. Soldiers, being soldiers, are not
prepared for an encounter with angels rolling
back the gravestone. They were terrified. They
were probably thinking that whatever this was,
they were going to die. They are keenly aware of
the fact that they are expendable. It's the life
of a soldier. Except there was no Geneva
Convention or other modern military view of
justice. They were expendable. They were there because
someone wanted to be sure that nobody went in or
out of the tomb. They had no concern about any
of the events surrounding the crucifixtion. It
was more or less, a routine part of their life as
soldiers. Like Sargeant Shultz on the old
Hogan's Heros show, they knew nothing.
But they were the eyewitnesses, they weren't
going to die. At least not there.

But do you think that it is something that they
would never talk about around the guardpost at a
later date, among their fellows? One of the
favorite topics of conversation is those events
that you will never forget as long as you live.
You talk about the close calls. You can bet that
once word got out about the strange goings on at
the tomb, every member of the local garrison
wanted to hear the story. And at the end of the
story was the qualifier that 'we can't talk about
it'. 'They did as they were instructed.' The
scandal blew over eventually, and was forgotten,
except by those who were there. There
was the official version, and there was what
really happened. Not much has changed over the
years.

Don't get me wrong. There is no inference that
soldiers lack honor. The inference is that they
were in no hurry to die, and that was the
possible fate of a guard who was found derelict.
I'd expect that they were happy enough just to
escape that judgement, let alone receive a bribe.
But I have to imagine how the story circulated
through the Roman Legions. There's the rest of
the story. You might imagine that at least some
of them became converts.

So, the first thing that the guard did was to
cover their backside. They reported to the chief
priests. Their only hope was to get into
circulation a cover story that would release them
from liability. Generating a cover story was
beyond their pay grade. But you can bet that
they were eager to cooperate in the
misinformation campaign. Their neck was on the
line. Just follow the lead of the higher-ups and
by all means, don't ask any questions.

Altogether, there isn't any reasonable way to
deny the resurrection. It answers the question,
What does this mean. 'With a mighty hand, the
LORD brought us out of Egypt', is a metaphor for
the release of the soul from the bondage of sin.
The resurrection of Christ was a display of the
mighty hand that is able to remove the curse of
slavery to sin. The celebration of Passover is
looking forward to the hand of Providence. The
metaphor of the lamb and the release from slavery
that is embedded in the Passover celebration
provides an unmistakable cue for what took place
in Jerusalem some 1600 years after Moses, during
the time of the Passover celebration. It was
staged so that it couldn't be missed. But many
were/are not paying attention to the script.