The alternative responses to Easter

I’ve always been baffled by the other response to the resurrection. The response we think about is, “Rejoice! He’s risen from the dead! Have a chocolate bunny!” and so on. That part makes sense (part of it, anyway). But what about the other guys?

The Bible says that on the next day – the day between crucifixion and resurrection – the priests went to Governor Pilate and said, “Hey, that Jesus guy said He was going to rise in three days.” Funny they remembered it, because the disciples forgot. “So will you put a guard on the tomb so no one can steal the body and claim He’s alive again.” So Pilate gave them a guard, which presumably meant four soldiers on four-hour rotating shifts. So we have the priests and the guards working together to keep the body in.

Then, the Bible tells us when an angel appeared to roll away the stone and reveal an empty tomb (Score: Jesus: 1, Guards: 0), the guards collapsed and lay on the ground like dead men. The scene plays out, and once everyone else is gone, the guards get up and run into town. The question is, where do they run, who do they tell, and what do they say? This is where everything starts not making sense.

First, they’re Pilate’s soldiers (Roman), but they run to the priests (Jewish). I can follow the logic in this. If they ran to Pilate the penalty is death. At least it’s death for letting a live prisoner escape. I doubt they actually had a legal contingency for dead prisoner escapes. But they go to the priests, thinking these are the guys who know what’s going on.

The next thing is even more confusing. The priests, who remembered His words that He would rise again, now confronted with the evidence that He did in fact rise again, offer the soldiers money to say the disciples stole the body. And the soldiers took the loot!

Now, at some point here, doesn’t someone say, “Wait, the truth here might be more important than money?” Don’t the priests say, “He said He’d do the impossible, and then He did the impossible; maybe we’d better reconsider?” Don’t the guards wonder why the priests – who are supposed to be the good guys – are paying money to cover up the truth?

I raise all these questions as if I don’t know the answer; but I think I do. My real reason is to see if you’ll agree with my conclusion. They accepted the lie because they didn’t want to believe the truth.

Easter is over; the resurrection has happened. Choose to live a life that shows you believe it to be true.