The Saturday of "Holy Week"

Usually we think of Saturday as being a quiet day during the Passion Week...a day where nothing happened, but if you study the scriptures carefully, you will find something that many miss...

READ MATTHEW 27:62-66

It was the next day, the day after the preparations, that the religious leaders went to Pilate and asked him to please set a guard before the tomb of the "King of Israel" so that no one might come and steal the body from the tomb, and declare that this "Messiah" had arose from the dead as he had foretold.

Everyone knew that people couldn't raise from the dead whether he was a "Wondermaker" or not, nobody had ever risen from the dead (save Lazarus and a couple of others but mind you in the minds of the world those were just mistakes). 

But just to make sure that Jesus stayed inside the tomb and that everyone else stayed out, Pilate allowed them to block the entrance of the tomb and seal it so that nobody except Pilate could break the seal.

How many guards were at the tomb? This is a difficult question to answer. Most pictures we see show only two soldiers, but the Bible tells us that 'some' of the soldiers went to tell the religious leaders that the body was gone. 'Some' indicate two or more, so certainly they would not leave the tomb unguarded! Others argue there were four which makes this argument a little bit better...but even in the book of Acts Peter is followed by four 'troops' of four men each so he is guarded by 16 soldiers! If one man needed to be guarded by 16 soldiers how many would be needed to guard the body of Jesus from 11 men?!?

Not to mention the fact that one of those men was flailing a sword just a few nights before like a madman! Or also the fact that all of Jerusalem just a week before had been praising this man who had ridden into Jerusalem on the back of a colt, what could happen if they were excited and stirred again?

According to a 1st century historian Flavius Josephus Pilate placed 30 roman guards at the gate, but do you suppose that the Jewish leaders were happy with only 30? No they were not, so in addition to the 30 roman guards, the religious leaders also placed there 1,000 Jewish guards! So all together there were 1,030 men guarding the tomb of a dead man! And as we will see tomorrow, not even THEY could keep Him in the tomb! PRAISE THE LORD!

But what about us? This blog this past week has been an attempt to be both interesting, but also applicable.

We praise the Lord that Jesus Christ died upon the cross of Calvary and paid the punishment for our sins...but the world went to so much trouble to keep him in that tomb!

Why is it that often times in our lives, even though we have been bought by the precious blood of Christ, and we look to Him for our Salvation and forgiveness of sins, as well as our daily provision and abundant blessings...why can we say sometimes that we are guilt of trying to keep God in our lives locked up in a box?

Have you ever noticed that? Many people today seem to keep God in a box and only allow Him into their lives at certain times. Times of discouragement, times of despair, times of "Church Worship"...have you ever noticed this? So often we don't allow God to interact with us all day long, but only when we seemingly want Him to.

Much like a genie in a bottle, we only allow him to come out when we want him to come out, otherwise we keep him locked up in the bottle.

The guards were trying to keep Jesus in the tomb and not let him out...are we guilty of not allowing Jesus to come out into our entire lives?

Back when I was in college, I was required to read a little booklet called, "My Heart Christ's Home" by Robert Boyd Munger. In the little short read, it portrayed the idea of what a visit from Christ might be like, should Christ one day ring the bell of your home and ask to be invited in. What might He find there? Books you were ashamed of owning, television shows you shouldn't be watching? Objects in your home that shouldn't be there, internet sites that should not have been visited? Friends that you don't want to introduce to Christ... You see too often we are guilty of only allowing God to be apart of our lives when we want Him to.

When we need Him to heal us, when we need Him to intercede for a loved one, when we need Him to give us direction and guidance, or often most when we go to church. It is during those times that we let Him out of the box.

From this day forward may we resolve to allow Christ every area of our lives, not just when its "convenient for us".




30 Romans and 1,000 Jews