Matthew is the only gospel writer who seems to remember that, following the crucifixion, the chief priests were still a little anxious about Jesus—only it wasn’t the resurrection that concerned them. No one in their right mind honestly believed that that was ever going to take place.
What worried the chief priests was not that Jesus might actually be raised from the dead … but rather, that his disciples would steal Jesus’ body, and then start a wild rumor that he had been. And, apparently, it was enough of a concern that they were willing to break the fourth commandment—namely, that no work be done on the Sabbath—by going to Pontius Pilate (on the Sabbath, mind you!) and asking that he station some guards down at the tomb, just in case.
However, since Pilate was hardly in favor of crucifying Jesus to begin with, you can imagine how he reacted to the request that valuable military personnel be assigned to babysit a corpse. “Don’t you have you own guards?” he asked the chief priests, rather sarcastically. “Well, knock yourselves out. Go and make it as secure as you can.”
Of course, what they didn’t realize is that, in the case of this tomb, the security issue was not going to be keeping the disciples out; it would be keeping Jesus in. And on Easter Sunday morning, when the Risen Christ shook loose the shackles of death and strolled right out of the cemetery, the chief priests quickly decided to start spreading their own wild rumor.
According to Matthew, they bribed the guards, and instructed them to say, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.” In fact, to this very day, says Matthew, there are still those who claim that the resurrection was all a great conspiracy.
Now, admittedly, I don’t know a whole lot about conspiracies, but from what I can tell, those who start them usually do so either to get rich, or to protect themselves. Hence, the question we need to ask is how exactly the disciples benefitted from making up a story like this? They certainly didn’t get rich, that’s for sure … nor are they any safer. On the contrary, by sharing the good news that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, they get harassed, ridiculed, persecuted—some of them even wind up getting killed!
So what do I believe actually took place on that first Easter Sunday morning? Well, I’ll tell you—what I believe happening is that Jesus Christ got up from the grave. Don’t ask me how—I can’t explain it, let alone comprehend it. But, somehow, he got up!
True, I wasn’t there to see it for myself. But then again, I wasn’t there to see the sun rise this morning either. And yet, I affirm that it did for the same reason that I believe Christ did—because, as I look around, the world has been flooded with light!