Saturday in Holy Week
Posted on April 16, 2022 by under
Scripture: St. Matthew 27:57-66 (NKJV)
27:57 Now when evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. 58 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him. 59 When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60 and laid it in his new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb, and departed. 61 And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb.
62 On the next day, which followed the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, 63 saying, “Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ 64 Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead.’ So the last deception will be worse than the first.”
65 Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard.
Devotion
The stolen body hypothesis has been in circulation among the Jews since the first days of the Christian Church. Even as early as the writing of Matthew’s Gospel, the Jews were spreading this story. The Pharisees themselves started it when they said to Pilate, “…lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away.” A medieval Jewish anti-Christian work called the Toledot Yeshu perpetuated this slander for centuries.
We see in the next chapter of Matthew’s Gospel how the chief priests were the first author’s of this slander when they bribed the guards and said, “Tell them, ‘His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.’” This two thousand year old conspiracy is disproved simply by pointing to the Apostles’ actions. What turned these scared and confused disciples into evangelists that could not be stopped, even with threats of death? Eusebius and others tell us of the martyrdom of most of the Apostles. Do men who perpetrated a hoax go willingly to gruesome deaths over something they know to be a lie? No! They believed that they would be resurrected, just as they witnessed Jesus’ resurrection.
Prayer: O God, Who didst enlighten this most holy night with the glory of the Lord’s Resurrection: preserve in all Thy people the spirit of adoption which Thou hast given, so that renewed in body and soul they may perform unto Thee a pure service; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Collect for the Season of Lent
Almighty and Everlasting God, Who hatest nothing that Thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of Thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with the Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
