The Guard

The strict rest of the great Sabbath day of Passover, prescribed by the law, bound, as we have seen, the most ardent of Jesus’s admirers to inaction; but it could not put an end to the wretched activity of His hardened enemies. Malice, in this case, showed itself to have, at times, a longer memory than love: if Jesus’s disciples’ minds had, as if by some miracle, forgotten His repeated predictions of His own Resurrection from the dead, the Pharisees and scribes had not forgotten them, and took measures to keep this prediction from actually coming true. Accustomed to acting in an unclean manner, prompted by their own passions and interests, Caiaphas and his confederates imagined that Jesus’s disciples, to avenge their Teacher’s death, would surely make use of just such a prediction—that is, would secretly carry His body off from the tomb, tell the people that He had risen from the dead, and thereby stir up an uprising dangerous to the Sanhedrin. His burial, by a member of the Sanhedrin, in that man’s own garden and tomb, seemed to open every possibility for such an act. And so, in Caiaphas’s own secret council, it was resolved at once to take every necessary measure, and, to this end, to surround Jesus’s tomb with a guard for three days. Such a guard the chief priests had no lack of; yet they did not resolve to act on their own, and thought it best to turn once more to the procurator, however burdensome another meeting with him seemed, after the events of the previous day. Besides relieving themselves of responsibility for the consequences of this fresh measure, a Roman guard was far more reliable than a Jewish one, owing to its strict discipline and its complete detachment from any popular unrest over Jesus. Appearing before Pilate, the chief priests and scribes once more assumed the air of zealous guardians of the public peace and of the interests of the Roman government: «We have remembered—so these hypocrites said—that this deceiver, while still alive, said: after three days I will rise from the dead. Give orders, then, for the tomb to be guarded until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and tell the people that He has risen from the dead. In that case the last deception would be worse than the first».

The proud Roman knight, so cruelly humiliated only recently by these very same men before the whole people, was least of all inclined to believe in their concern for the public good; yet it was not in the spirit of Roman authority to openly oppose a proposal that seemed the fruit of far-sighted caution and untiring care for the people’s peace. And so Pilate at once agreed to the proposed measure, though he expressed his own distrust of the Sanhedrin’s sincerity by taking no direct part in it himself.

«You have a guard—Pilate answered—(this was the name for the military watch kept at the temple) go, take as many men from it as you like, and guard the tomb as you see fit».

Against such feigned trust there was nothing to object, and the chief priests, taking the number of soldiers they needed, went off to Joseph’s garden. There, no doubt, they carefully inspected the entire interior of the burial cave, to make certain Jesus’s body was intact, and that there was no other way out of the cave besides the one now sealed by the great stone. After this inspection, the stone was again rolled up against the entrance and, for greater security against any attempt to enter the cave, sealed with the Sanhedrin’s own seal. The guard now posted was, no doubt, likewise duly instructed, given orders to watch, without sleep, over that on which, as the chief priests put it, depended the peace of all Judea, of Pilate’s own praetorium, and of Caesar himself.

In this way, the malice of Jesus’s enemies did, for its own part, everything needed to bear witness before the whole world to the truth of Christ’s Resurrection!.. Providence showed, in this case too, how, without in the least suppressing human freedom, it wisely makes use, for the fulfillment of its own purposes, of the very men who insolently defy its holy decrees.

Jesus’s disciples and admirers, except perhaps Joseph, to whom the garden belonged, knew nothing at all of the guard the Sanhedrin had posted at Jesus’s tomb; otherwise, once the Sabbath day had passed, they would not have been preparing to go to that tomb to anoint His body with fragrant ointments, since this was now, in fact, impossible.

«It is time for God to act: for they have broken Your law» (Ps 118:126)! So, out of the fullness of his own grief, David once cried out, seeing how the cup of iniquity overflowed in the hands of certain men. A hundred times over ought this cry to have been repeated by whoever stood at Jesus’s tomb. Here, above all, it was time for God to act—for God Himself—for it was not the law alone that had been broken, but the Lawgiver Himself who had been mocked! Mankind had never seen so much that was great, beautiful, and divine as it had seen in the brief span of Jesus’s ministry. And all that was great, beautiful, and divine now lay shut up in a tomb, sealed with Caiaphas’s own seal! What would have become of mankind, had this seal not melted before the fire of God’s own justice—had the flesh of the Righteous One seen corruption (Act 2:31)? The divine world, opened for a time, would have closed again—forever. The kingdom of God, brought down to earth, would have soared back up to heaven. After this divine illumination, a night still darker than before would have fallen.

Particular acts of goodness might have remained. Zacchaeus would probably have gone on being generous; the forgiven sinful woman, chaste; Josephs and Nicodemuses might have kept their conviction that the Teacher had come from God (Jn 3:2). But the great work of mankind’s salvation would have remained buried together with Jesus. Comfortless were the disciples’ own words: this is now the third day since these things happened (Lk 24:21). But how terrible these words would be, had it been necessary to say: «this is now the third day since these things happened» (Lk 24:21). But how much more terrible these words would be, had they had to sound like this: «this is now the third year, the third century, the third millennium since these things happened!»

Without Jesus’s own «Rejoice!» (Mt 28:9) there would have been no joy in the apostles’ hearts; without Jesus’s own «peace be with you!» (Jn 20:19), peace would not have spread over the face of the earth. The risen Teacher first had to be told: My Lord and my God! (Jn 20:28)—and only then could one go on to die for one’s own Lord and God. The Resurrection confirmed the disciples in their faith, «begetting them», as St. Paul puts it, to a living hope. And without this, the voice of apostolic preaching would never have been heard, and the world would have remained without the cross—Athens and Rome still with their idols, still with their «unknown god» (Act 17:23).

And so, it was time for God to act—for God Himself! This was the most decisive moment, not only for the whole human race, but for the very governance of the divine order of the world—a moment when it had to be shown, solemnly, before the eyes of the whole world of angels and men, that «the good and the evil, the righteous and the wicked, do not share one and the same end» — that «there is a God who judges the earth!» And so: «Arise, O God! Judge the earth! For You» — You alone — «shall inherit all the nations!»