SHARING BREAD
11 While the women were on their way, some of the guards
went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had
happened. 12 When
the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the
soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling
them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away
while we were asleep.’ 14 If
this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of
trouble.” 15 So
the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has
been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.
Matt
28:11-15 (NIV)
They paid money to kill Him, they paid money to cover the
Truth and they began a lie that circulates to this very day…..really, what kind
of desperate people were these religious leaders anyway? While the women were running to tell the
good news of Jesus’ resurrection, the roaches remained ridiculously romping about
to keep the Truth from being revealed.
Yet you can’t shut the Truth up nor keep it in a tidy little box. God has a unique way of removing the lid and bringing
the Truth to life no matter how hard the darkness seeks to keep it
covered. Truth will always stand.
Therefore
love truth and peace. Zech 8:19 (NIV)
4 Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; 5 guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are
God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Psalms 25:4-5 (NIV)
“He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his
end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” Blaise Pascal
“To
do what is right is to side with the truth of God. And never doubt it, the truth of God will
always prevail.” “To do what is right is
to join the winning side of the fight, though the battle will not be without
pain or struggle.” Chuck Swindoll
In our verses for today we discover the macho Roman
guards going to the chief priests and telling them everything that
happened: the earthquake, the descent of
the angel, the rolling away of the stone and the coming alive of Jesus from the
grave. Surely they had to have been
breathless over the scenes they had just been eyewitnesses to. Seriously, these were no ordinary every day ho-hum
happenings. Indeed, these events were
the greatest means of conviction that could have been given. It would stand to reason that these religious
characters would now seek to embrace Christ yet they stand staunchly and
stubbornly in their faithlessness and unbelief and were therefore remained sealed
in it. The clearest evidence will not
persuade people without the Holy Spirit enlightening that evidence which begins
with faith. Pharaoh hardened his heart
and hardened his heart until at long last God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. God is patient and long suffering but He is
also just and He sets limits – just read about Sodom and Gomorrah:
20 But
the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go. Ex 10:20 (NIV)
“Faith
is reason at rest in God.” C. H. Spurgeon
“Faith
is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what
you believe.” Augustine
When we hear Truth we are called to respond. It is our time of opportunity and who knows
if we will have another? Paul tells us
in 2 Corinthians:
1 As God's
fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. 2 For
he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I
helped you.” I tell you, now is the time
of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.
2 Cor 6:1-2 (NIV)
Next, the religious elite make the
decision to seek to cover the Truth.
They themselves chose not to believe the account and sought to keep
others from believing it as well. They
decided to bribe the soldiers and instructed them to tell tales. They wanted them to deliberately lie against
their own consciences. They very
extravagantly pursued their malicious intentions by placing a large sum of
money into the hands of the soldiers to silence the Truth and put a lie into
their mouths – as sorry as that lie was.
How would the soldiers know if the Lord’s disciples stole Jesus’ body if
they were asleep? Why all of a sudden
did the fearful disciples who fled Jesus’ death become fearless and take His
body – and for what reason, so that they could preach a lie of a feigned resurrection. Seriously???
I think it is also interesting that these teachers of the law would so
go against the law in offering these bribes.
Did they believe they were above what was commanded? God is a God of justice and Truth not of
bribery and lies. We find in Exodus and
Deuteronomy the following:
8 “Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who
see and twists the words of the righteous.”
Ex 23:8 (NIV)
19 Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not
accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of
the righteous. 20 Follow
justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the LORD
your God is giving you. Deut 16:19-20
(NIV)
“No resurrection, no Christianity” Michael
Ramsey
What I glean from this:
· Truth will
stand.
· God is patient
and long suffering but He is also just and He sets limits.
· A bribe
blinds.
