You’ve got to hand it to the chief priests and Pharisees: They did their best. They did their level best to keep Jesus in his tomb. After successfully overseeing his execution, they remembered that he had not only predicted his death but also spoken of some kind of resurrection. Wanting to make sure his disciples didn’t manufacture a way of sneaking his body out of the tomb, they asked Pilate to guarantee the situation. “Order the tomb to be made secure until the third day,” they demanded, “lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first” (Matthew 27:64).
Pilate reminded them they already had access to troops they could assign to the task. The soldiers who guarded the temple could also guard the tomb. “Go, make it as secure as you can,” he told them (27:65). “As secure as you can” could almost have been words of prophecy. “So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard” (27:66).
And I can’t help but wonder: Did the angels laugh? Did the angels laugh aloud when they saw these religious leaders satisfied that a stone and a seal and a couple of soldiers could in any way thwart the purposes of God? Did they laugh in disbelief that these little beings thought they could stymie the Creator’s plan to save a people to himself? Did they laugh at the arrogance of it even as they wept at the sorrow of it?
They knew then what we know now, that even the best efforts to seal the tomb would be as futile as posting men on a beach with orders to stem the tide. The best efforts to keep that tomb closed would be as senseless as tying a rope to a rocket and telling a child to keep it tethered to the ground. The best efforts to keep Jesus in the grave would be as effective as telling an ant to wrestle an elephant to the ground and make him beg for mercy. Never in all of human history had man attempted something so daft, so senseless, so utterly impossible. Never in all of human history was man so obviously destined to fail.
Never in all of human history had man attempted something so daft, so senseless, so utterly impossible.
Man was destined to fail because God had spoken and God’s word cannot be broken, it cannot be negated, it cannot be invalidated. The Father had said that his holy one would not see corruption and the Son had said they would all see “the sign of Jonah.” There was no version of reality in which Jesus’ body would remain in the tomb to decompose and no possibility he would remain there any longer than Jonah had been in the belly of the great fish. God had spoken and it would come to pass, despite the most valiant efforts of the chief priests and Pharisees.
It is a wonder and a blessing to know that God has spoken equally clearly about the resurrection of his people. It is as unthinkable that we will remain eternally in the tomb as it was for Jesus and as impossible that our bodies will remain forever in the dust as his, for God has promised that “the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). He puts us under divine obligation to encourage one another with these words and with this beautiful reality. Because he has spoken, it is guaranteed to come to pass. Because he has said it, it cannot fail. Because he has proven it through Jesus, we can have every confidence that we and all those who love the Lord will rise to live forevermore.
