We Were There - The Soldiers
Bible Reading:
Matthew 27: 45-54, 62-66; 28:1-15
PREPARED BY
KEN GEHRELS
PASTOR
CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH
NEPEAN, ONTARIO
It was a rather non-descript assignment. Certainly not one of the tougher ones they’d ever faced. The group on shift before them had a much trickier assignment - more action. They’d been the ones who maneuvered through the frenzied holiday crowd with three convicts; done the execution just outside of town.
But now there’s this assignment.
A grinding chore. Task: sit outside a tomb and make sure no one tries to break in. So a seal is placed on the tomb stone, declaring this piece of real estate to be Imperial property. Anyone caught breaking the seal would have their neck broken.... – death for tampering with the authority of the empire.
Even getting to the seal would be a real task. Any fool wanting to do so would have to get past the guards - Roman legionnaires who worked for Pontius Pilate, a man with a reputation for cruelty. People who got in his way often just disappeared. Not every prisoner made it to trial...... if you get my drift.
Those guards would be on duty, and wide awake. Some of you know that I worked for a time as a security guard during my student days. Most of that was night shift. Once, doing guard duty at a factory where a strike was in progress, I nodded off. Was woken up by the glare of the sergeant’s flashlight in my eyes. A smirk on his face. A rather embarrassed apology from me. And the incident was forgotten.
If any Roman soldier fell asleep on guard duty, things were not so easy.
The penalty was immediate execution.
Romans simply didn’t fall asleep.
Big, strapping guards.
What today we’d consider special forces material. Veterans of combat.
Conquerors - feared throughout the world.
Superb guards.
Under personal orders from Pilate.
Put into position by request of the leading Jewish figures of the day.
Just for the weekend.
When the threat was over, they could leave.
It all seemed simple enough.
Flex the muscle of the Empire for a few days.
No problem.
After all - they were the last word in town.
Settled. Right?
The pharisees and chief priests feel satisfied and check out for the weekend.
The soldiers of Rome settle in for what promises to be a real yawner.....
......And the soldiers of Heaven prepare to go to work.
So Sunday morning breaks.
With it comes a confrontation between ground troops from the Empire of Rome and the.... well, let’s call them the "airborne" troops from the Empire of Heaven.
Please understand that the confrontation which occurs has absolutely NO bearing on the status of Jesus.
He was long gone before these two war parties meet.
The confrontation between them is over the stone and the seal.
It is about claiming ownership of this piece of ground. Rome vs Heaven.
It is about keeping things closed and dark.
Or opening it up for all to see, and for light to stream in.
That’s the issue.
So.....
Gotta love that angel. If anyone doubts whether there is such a thing as heavenly humor they just need to consider this scene:
The last chases of darkness whisping away, mist rising over the garden, bored guards ready to be relieved, fed up, trying to think of new ways to pass the time
until
earthquake
blinding light
the seal is cracked, stone is moved
and.......
Well, these fellows had been all over the world.
Fought in Gaul. Chased Huns. Marched through North Africa.
No one had been able to stop them.
But this light.
And the figure in it.
Too much!
They scramble to get away.
Quivering. Falling. Trying to get up. Collapsing.
Eventually recovering enough to hightale it out of that garden faster than a cat with a hound on its tail.
And the angel quietly settles back on the stone,
just watching.
I can picture that heavenly being:
Hands folded. A hint of smile beginning to show. "Bye guys."
Oh, the mighty Roman Empire.
Oh, the ruthless ruler Pilate - who had said to Jesus, "Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" and who had heard from the lips of the Son of God, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above....."
Oh, you ever so confident soldiers.
Your seal has been broken. The turf you claimed as indisputably yours has just been claimed by another power, far higher than your own.
And you, Pharisees and Scribes - who so desperately wanted to contain religious sentiment and spiritual energy, coralling it in for yourselves..... your worst fears have been confirmed.
You can’t manage it, can you?
It’s far bigger than you, isn’t it?
There was something none of you counted on.
Something you were unable to prepare for or figure into the equation.
Something far bigger than you had ever expected.
That something is heavenly power.
The divine power of Creator God who did not allow His holy Son to decay away, dust to dust, but reached down to raise Him from the dead.
Jesus is raised out of the tomb.
Before the earthquake.
Before the light.
Before the angel.
The angel is sent merely to prove the point;
to roll the stone away so everyone can see for themselves.
Pharisees are left to come up with some lame excuse and cover for guards that otherwise would be quickly executed for desertion.
Pilate - we’re not even sure he’s ever brought into the loop. It was a small assignment. And there was the hush money.
The soldiers - well, we’re never really told what happened to them. Nightmares for a while, at the very least.
And beyond them another power, far more bewildered and now alternating between terror and sheer rage.
That is the spiritual evil power of Satan.
Past Friday he’d thought that Jesus was gone. Executed. Finished.
Death won.
But Friday wasn’t the end of the story, Paul Harvey.
Praise God it wasn’t the end!
Now it’s Sunday.
And the last details of God’s great plan of salvation are laid in place; the piece of the puzzle that no one could really imagine as possible.
Sin had been paid for.
Guilt had been shouldered on behalf of humanity by the Son of God.
The curse had been carried by Christ.
Divine justice had been satisfied.
Death had received the victim that sin demanded so rightly.
All that was Friday.
The cross.
But now it’s Sunday.
The bars which death had so smugly put in place over Christ’s soul were torn apart. An old hymn puts it this way:
"The powers of death have done their worst
But Christ their legions has dispersed.
Let shouts of holy joy outburst.
Alleluia!"
Indeed - alleluia!
This, fellow believers, is a day like no other..... ever.
If there ever is a day to celebrate, a day to laugh, a day to rejoice and party...
THIS IS IT!
The Lord is risen indeed.
So, laugh along with the angel.
Rejoice in the grand, marvelous, victorious power of heaven.
Share in Jesus’ last laugh over death and evil.
Forget Pilate, or Caesar for that matter.
Jesus is the victor! He is the Emporer!
No doubt.
And that victory is shared by the risen Saviour with others.
With the women, for a start.
Who ever said they need to be at the back of the Gospel bus?
They get the first word.
Amazed. Overjoyed. Frightened a bit - I mean, we’d all be.
This is simply too overwhelming.
Empty grave.
Angel.
Heavenly message.
It’s all too much for limited human senses.
Until......
Until guess who is suddenly there in front of them, giving the standard Jewish greeting - "Shalom."
What we today would say as, "How’s it going?"
And everything comes together.
Fear melts away, replaced by an overwhelming sense of peace and awe.
It is real.
Take it to the bank kind of stuff.
And this topper - Listen to Jesus’ words:
"Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."
Hear it?
Do not be afraid.
Go and tell..... my brothers.
My brothers.... can you believe that?
Relatives of Jesus.
That means - his power would be their power, his Father their Father, his home their home, his resurrection a foretaste of their resurrection.
The Father of Creation becomes the Father of all believers.
The power that busted Jesus out of death’s prison begins to pulse into the lives of all believers. It will follow them throughout their lives, and beyond – guaranteeing them an existence beyond an earthly grave and into eternal life in the very presence of God.
......No wonder they don’t need to be afraid.
They.......and you! Me! Us!
For we who believe are also brothers and sisters of Jesus.
That victorious overcoming power is the power at work for the Kingdom of God today.
Ultimate power.
Ultimate power greater than any earthly army.
Ultimate power unleashed by Jesus.
Which is why one of Jesus’ followers later could write:
"Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4)
Oh, I know.
The enemies of the gospel will contest it. The devil, even though he knows he is defeated and that his doom is certain, will continue to go around like a prowling lion, looking for some unsuspecting victim to devour, some victim not covered by the strength and power of the Risen Jesus Christ.
He’ll try to convince us in our emotions and minds that the stuff of Easter is all myth. Without historical basis, or at best some grand mistake. But don’t buy it. The Resurrection has more historical evidence going for it than the existence of Homer or Plato.
Question is - will you accept it? Are you willing to consider it? Or do your biases short circuit honest spiritual inquiry?
And then, perhaps even if you accept the fact that historically Jesus DID rise from the dead, Satan will still come along to tug at your heart strings with distractions and temptations. He’ll try to get you forgetting about ultimate realities and priorities and instead become all consumed with today and tomorrow..... that the gain of this world is greater than anything God would have to offer. He’ll try to distract us from that power.
Which is why I give thanks for this day each year.
A chance for us to refocus and remember this great fact of history.
That there IS an empty tomb.
And try though they might those pharisees and chief priests were never able to do the one thing that would have cinched it all - come up with Jesus’ body. Instead, they were faced with hundreds of people who once had been scattered in disarray, now suddenly strong and bold, proclaiming that they personally had seen a risen Jesus, and willing to die for that fact. Claiming that death would have no final hold over them, anyway.
They were faced with more miracles than ever before.
They lost.
The armies of heaven won.
My friends - that heavenly power is here this morning.
The power of the Resurrection is here for your life.
Today. And forever.
Are you open to it?
To power that shrinks the power and importance of a grave marker to nothing more than a pebble on the beach; that spreads the horizons of your future right into eternity.
Undisputable power.
Surrender to the Risen Christ of Easter.
For to be with him is far better than to be in the camp of those scattered Roman soldiers.
And ultimately - you’ll have to choose. It will be one or the other.
Which is it for you?
