I was amused by a cartoon of two Roman soldiers guarding Jesus’ tomb on the first Easter morning. Each is holding a mug of tea in his hand, and the sun is just rising above the horizon. One is encouraging the other. "Cheer up, it’s Sunday morning. As I see it, we have one more day of guarding the tomb. By Monday the whole thing will blow over."
Perhaps these were the last words spoken before what we have reported in Matthew 28:2-4.
"Suddenly there was a great earthquake, because an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and rolled aside the stone and sat on it. His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was a white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint." (NLT)
I have occasionally wondered what the guards said to each other after they regained consciousness.
"Hey Claudius-do you believe in aliens now? Just how far are we from Roswell?"
Or "Oh man, can you imagine how much the National Enquirer will give us for this scoop?"
"Captain, did you notice that you’re lying in a puddle? I don’t remember any rain."
Although Matthew tells us about the guards - (the other gospel writers do not) - he doesn’t really tell us a whole lot about them - no names - no numbers. Although he does say in verses 12-13 that they accepted a bribe to spread the rumor that Jesus’ disciples came during the night and stole his body.
Frankly, the whole thing strikes me as rather peculiar - not just that they’d put their careers in jeopardy by lying and saying that they allowed a bunch of wimpy Jewish fishermen to steal a body - but that they had this experience. They were there when the earth shook. They saw the stone roll. They saw the beaming opalescent angel. And they were so shook that they swooned.
They were witnesses of the resurrection. And yet they chose to NOT believe - to NOT let it affect their lives. They could have become the chief spokesmen for the gospel! Instead they took a bribe to deny the very thing they’d seen - as awesome as the whole event was. That doesn’t make good sense.
Some people say, "Seeing is believing. Give me some undeniable proof that all this God stuff is real and relevant." Or "How come all of these stories happen way back when and none of this ever happens to me? Let me see with my own eyes and I’ll believe."
But the soldiers make me wonder if there is not more to it than simply seeing and experiencing.
The current issue of the Focus on the Family magazine has an interview with cartoonist Johnny Hart who draws BC. And they reprinted one of his cartoons. The caveman is on his knees praying and he says "It’s not easy to believe in you, God. We never see you. How come you never show yourself?"
Then in the next frame he asks: "How do we know you exist?" - just as a volcano blows up in the background, a daisy sprouts from the ground and topples a rock, a wave washes over him, two meteors converge in the sky to form the image of a cross.
Finally the drenched caveman stands up and says: "Okay, Okay...I give up!" And as he walks by a burning bush and an empty tomb, he mutters, "Every time I bring up this subject all we get is interruptions."
How is it that some people see and others do not? How is it that some people with little personal evidence are quick to turn their lives over to Christ and others with a tremendous first hand experience of God’s power turn on him? Judas the betrayer is another example.
Now, of course, there were the two Mary’s who came to grieve and pay their respects to Jesus. They saw the angel, too. And they were afraid. Remember verse 3; the angel takes a look at the two Marys and sees how white they’ve become. The first thing he says to them is "Don’t be afraid."
And you know the rest of the story. The angel says, "Hey, I know you’re looking for Jesus who was crucified, right? Well, he’s not here. Have a look-see in the tomb. His body was over there. But he’s gone because he’s been raised from the dead-just like he said he’d be. Go tell the other disciples and he’ll meet you all in Galilee."
Verse 8 says The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy-and they rushed to find the disciples to give them the angel’s message.
The women are filled with joy and they run off to become witnesses of the resurrection to the disciples.
The soldiers, however, rush into the city where they, too, are witnesses-of sorts. Verse 11 reads, "They went to the leading priests and told them what had happened."
Both parties went and told but only one party believed. They had both experienced the results of the resurrection. But only the women responded with faith or trust.
"Oh, sure," the skeptic says, "The women were predisposed to believe that this earthquake and the angel were significant because they were, well, predisposed to believe. They only saw what they expected to see and then they put the spin on it that they wanted."
Maybe. But that’s not really the case if you follow the gospel writer. The women weren’t going to the tomb expecting it to be empty. In Mark’s account of the story the women were going there to embalm Jesus’ body--to anoint it with spices!
They weren’t look for the resurrection. This whole thing was a shock. The angel had to remind them in verse 6, "He has been raised from the dead, just as he said would happen."
No, these women were not really predisposed to the resurrection. However, I would suggest that they were open to it.
Now, we don’t know a whole lot about the soldiers. Perhaps they were really pretty decent fellows. Maybe they were even religious in some way-kind to animals, or even Rotarians! Certainly they were patriotic members of the military.
But they were wearing ARMOR. That’s the biggest difference - the armor - not unlike the armor that some of us wear. Of course, they had on some literal armor but I’m speaking more metaphorically. I’m talking about the layers of defense that we’ve put on-the things that protect us from God-the hard shell that we wear.
Now, I’m not sure that we intentionally put the armor on to keep only God from getting to us. We wear armor to protect us from all kinds of invasions. If you’ve watched the news this week you’ve seen all of these distraught refugees fleeing from their homes in Kosovo. These are very troubling pictures - and if they were your children or your next door neighbor’s children you’d be out there throwing your arms around them.
But they are halfway around the world and so you feel mostly helpless. I’m not saying you are but that’s how most of us feel. And so we tend to raise our shields so these pictures don’t penetrate too deeply into our souls - least we become overwhelmed and lose our ability to function. This is how we protect ourselves.
Sometimes, though, this shield also filters out God. The other day I was playing with the filter system in my email program. I was trying to set up a filter that would save me from some of the spam or unwanted email I get. The only problem is that when I set up a particular filter it ended up inadvertently filtering out all of my email. I was trying to protect myself from one thing and it ended up isolating me from everything.
That’s what happens with our relationship to God. In our quest to protect ourselves from over stimulation by the world we filter him out or we build shells around ourselves. At Good Friday day camp (which by the way was outstanding - our best yet!) I was watching the children as they covered eggs with little pieces of colored tissue paper. They applied layer after layer of thin tissue, gluing it on to egg shells until it were completely covered with a new shell. And that’s the way it is with us. We keep adding these layers of tissue to protect ourselves.
Now, some of the hardness in our lives, that which would numb us to the power of the resurrection, is a different kind of armor. Another type of armor that keeps the good news of the resurrection from having an impact on our lives is SIN-the sin of others and ourselves.
Sometimes we get hardened by what other people do. "If that’s the way people who say they believe in God act--well I’m not going to have anything to do with God."
Or perhaps it’s our own sin. Augustine, the great Fourth Century Christian thinker of North Africa had been exposed to the gospel from his childhood. But he never quite got around to jumping all the way into the water. He dabbled for years and years--sticking his toes in the water off and on. And along the way he had acquired a mistress--which he was really hesitant to give up. He became addicted to his passions and they kept him from taking God seriously. And this went on for years until finally he gave in to God.
Now, I’m not suggesting that sexual sin is the only or even the most powerful armor when it comes to protecting ourselves from God. People that wallow in bitterness use unforgiveness to protect themselves from the Lord. Hate can harden us. Self indulgence causes us to tune God out.
God isn’t a prude when he lays down the law. He’s not trying to spoil your fun. He’s trying to save you from the things that can be used to harden your life.
I wonder if the hardness of the soldiers wasn’t related to their split, or I’d say cluttered, allegiances. It was their job to guard against incursions into that tomb. And they were sworn to follow orders. How could they keep their commanders happy, save their jobs, continue to make a good living for their families, and at the same time acknowledge the reality of what happened that morning at the tomb?
I wonder if this isn’t the greatest challenge for most of us. The women had nothing to lose. What would the women have to lose if they let the resurrection affect their lives? But the guards - well, it could actually mean their lives or at the very least their reputations. "Oh, YOU’RE guys who saw the aliens!"
If they let this whole resurrection episode affect their lives it would be major disruption of their current patterns of life. Now, the gospel writers would argue that it would be a positive disruption. But still, sometimes those with the worst lives work the hardest to maintain what they have. That is human nature in a fallen world.
We work hard to protect our small pieces of moldy bread when God is standing there offering new and fresh. We want to hold on to our old dangerous way of life when God is standing there trying to talk us into joining his witness protection program.
Because of the resurrection you can have a new identity and a new life that outshines anything in the past. That’s the power of the resurrection! But there is a limit to that power. God will not force himself on anyone.
Sure he could blow away your armor. You think NATO has firepower! But that’s not his way. He wants to be invited in. He wants you to let your shield down-not so he can clobber you for your sins, but so that he can come shake your hand and in doing so share with you the power of the resurrection. It really all comes down to a willingness to be open and receptive.
The women were receptive to the in-breaking power of the resurrection. The soldiers were not. It was as simple as that. And it still is. Either you are open to being changed or you are not. And you, my friends are the ones who decide.
Won’t you decide today that you are going to let the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead have an impact on your life?
Copyright 1999 by Brad Boydston. All rights reserved. Permission granted for non-commercial use. Permission granted for SermonCentral.com use.
