Reluctant as they undoubtedly were, the soldiers were the first witnesses who spread word that Jesus, who had been crucified, dead, and buried, was now alive and on the move.
In the following days, Paul reports (1 Corinthains 15:6) how Jesus appeared to more than five hundred of His followers at one time. But none of them had been hiding in the bushes that Sunday morning to see whether He would come out of the tomb. How do we know that an angel rolled the stone away? Only the soldiers themselves knew what had happened. The angel scared them stiff (Matthew 28:4). Matthew is not completely clear whether the women witnessed the earthquake, but the other three gospel accounts indicate the tomb had been blown open by the earthquake and the angel before they arrived. The guards at the tomb are the first witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, labeled the King of the Jews.
Soldiers get executed for deserting their posts. They do not do such a thing lightly. Their fear of whatever had just happened to that stone overpowered their fears of punishment for going AWOL. Did the soldiers simply flee and tell their story as they went? Or did they hurry to the Jewish leaders to relate their experience? No, the record reveals what happened, but this detail of the story indicates how we must presume the soldiers talked. They let others know what had happened. An earthquake and an angel, and then an empty tomb. They did not borrow the narrative from other Jewish literature. They had never gone through something like this before. They had only their experience on that early morning of the first day of the week to tell: Jesus is not in the tomb because of an earthquake and an angel. Not a good excuse, and not a plausible justification for their not fulfilling their mission. The soldiers could only tell what God had been up to (up to accomplish) on that first Easter morning. His distaste for tombs expressed itself dramatically. Jesus left Joseph of Arimathea’s quarters to be at large in His world, soldiers or no soldiers. Yes, indeed, reluctant as they undoubtedly were, the soldiers were the first witnesses who spread word that Jesus, who had been crucified, dead, and buried, was now alive and on the move.
The Jewish leaders helped confirm the story as in the following days and weeks they made every effort to eradicate those disciples who spoke about their risen Lord in public. Among the Jews in the Roman province of Judaea there were a variety of parties with their own take on what the people of Israel really were to believe. The Pharisees were quite prominent, and the Sadducees held the most affluential positions in society. One party believed in the resurrection of the dead, and the other did not. But they did not try to use what power they had to suppress each other. The Essenes stayed sufficiently out of public discussion to avoid being hounded by the more powerful Sadducees and Pharisees. The various streams in inter-testamental Judaism had learned to live and let live. All the more noteworthy is how the officials in Jerusalem went looking for those who were telling that Jesus had returned from death. They imprisoned Peter and executed James and Stephen. This was an implausible message which attracted many, with potentially explosive implications for the old way of living as God’s chosen nation.
This was an implausible message which attracted many, with potentially explosive implications for the old way of living as God’s chosen nation.Jesus Himself did not return to His public proclamation of the coming of the Kingdom of God. In the weeks after His resurrection, He restricted His movements to those places where He would encounter those who knew Him already. Even some of them had not really thought the rumors were true. Mary Magdalene sat weeping before the tomb because she could only come to the conclusion that the leaders in Jerusalem wanted her to come to: They have taken His body and laid it elsewhere. Then Jesus appeared, and she believed. Thomas trusted his fellow disciples for the most part, but a tale so fantastic as someone coming back from the dead took more than pious hopes and dreams. And then he had to say, “My Lord and my God.” The scars in His hands, feet, and side were real. Thomas was feeling real flesh and seeing dried blood and scars on this man whom he had believed was the Messiah and now knew it for sure.
Thomas knew that those who only heard the rumor were also receiving the blessing of hope bursting out of a tomb, in which only the sins of His people and a couple of pieces of cloth were left behind. Blessed, indeed, are those who have heard and who keep the message echoing into the enclosed tombs of those living in the valley of the shadow of death throughout the following two millennia and as far beyond as beyond will go. Mary Magdalene and Thomas joined Peter, John, and the disciples from Emmaus in wondering, “Why did we not recognize that?” He had given them fair warning: “It is necessary for the Son of Man to be handed over into hostile hands and killed, but He will be back, alive” (Matthew 17: 22-23, Mark 9:31). So, the word went out.
It still meets raised eyebrows and dismissive grins. But Jesus’ promise of sharing in His resurrection belongs to those to whom it is given to believe He is the Messiah, the deliverer promised to Israel for the sake of the entire world, the Son of God in mortal flesh, in His own resurrected body (John 20:31).
We can tell others what the guards at the tomb must have told others. There was a flash and a sound like a thousand trumpets from the forces of the other side, and before the eye could blink twice, the stone had rolled aside. The tomb had spewed out its inhabitant because death had been swallowed up by the Author of Life, and He was poison for Satan’s poisonous death.
This is what is promised to happen to those whom the Holy Spirit has brought to believe that this Resurrected Jew is the deliverer who conquered death in His resurrection. For believing in Him brings life in His name. The handing out of life in the form of trusting this Messiah and His promise of life abundantly on the basis of His dying and rising keeps echoing through the earth. The shepherds from Bethlehem’s hills could not help but make known what they had heard and seen. Likewise, anyone who hears a repetition of the experience of the soldiers and the disciples that morning of His resurrection cannot shut it in. News of new life bubbles out. Yes, indeed, it was necessary for the Messiah to be turned in to the authorities and to suffer execution. That is not, however, the whole story. He came back from the tomb, leaving death dead and our tombs nothing but entry ways into life with Him forever.
More from 1517
