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

So closes chapter 27!   And that is exactly what the priests and rulers of the Jews demanded of the Roman ruler, Pilate. Close the books on this Jesus!  He is dead.  Make sure that is the end of the story!  They knew that a whisper was going around that Jesus promised that after three days he would rise again.

The Jewish rulers did not know, nor did they want to know, that Jesus’ disciples were nowhere to be found and that they had no intention whatsoever to do anything but hide.

Pilate gave the Jews all the freedom they wished to make sure that Jesus remained, dead, in that tomb.  “So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.”  The Jews could finally sleep comfortably.  Jesus, “the deceiver” is now dead, he is no longer a factor.

I find this fierce anger against Jesus hard to comprehend.  Their own scriptures predicted his appearance.  Yet, when he did appear, they hounded him until that cruel death on a Roman cross.  John wrote, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”  John 1:11

I suppose I should not be astounded, it is still like that today.  For people who do not know the grace of God, Jesus is an imposter and must be disowned. May we stand with the women who believed against all odds.  In a few hours, their faith will be sight!