Morning Devotionals

by Don Emmitte

 

March 15th, 2008

 

"Saturday of Passion Week, 2008"

The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. "Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first." "Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how." So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard. (Matthew 27:62-66 NIV).

Jesus died on the cross. If there was any doubt as to that being true, the piercing of his side with the Roman spear is certainly a clear indicator. In fact, that the Pharisees come to Pilate and ask that the tomb be sealed and guards placed around it also points to the truth of Jesus’ death. They knew he was dead. They just didn’t trust his disciples. Their thought was that somehow they would come and steal the body form the tomb and later make the claim that he had been resurrected.

Like so many people today, the Pharisees were worrying about the wrong people. The disciples had no intention of stealing his body away. They were in the depths of mourning for a friend like none they had ever known. And, even though Jesus had told them many times before, they still didn’t understand that no tomb, no seal, no guard could contain the living Lord! God would raise him and the King of kings would be alive forevermore!

That reminds me of the many other smaller seals and guards that are placed on the life Jesus intends for us. The world would have us believe that we cannot overcome the obstacles placed before us. We are buried under the anxieties and fears of the world, it is sealed and guarded by our enemy, yet when we trust our future to God nothing can hold us. Even the greatest enemy of man has been defeated. Listen to the Apostle Paul:

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:51-57 NIV).