Good
religion is never convenient. It calls
upon its adherents to sacrifice what is easy so that they may listen to a call
that is more real. So it was with the Jews’ religion. Of all the observances that were observed
with meticulous care throughout the year, none was more frequent than the
weekly Sabbath. Shabbath was sacred. The
Torah said so. The prophets said
so. The rabbis said so.
By the first century, Judaism had developed to the point
where all kinds of regulations attended Sabbath observance, but over them all
was the basic directive of the Ten Commandments: Six
days you shall labor and do all your work, but on the seventh day you shall not
do any work. Almost anything could be construed as work, and that rule
certainly included caring for the dead.
So, it was a long Saturday for the women who had stood near the cross of
Jesus late Friday afternoon. Sabbath began at sundown on Friday evening, and
after Joseph had secured permission from the authorities to bury Jesus’ corpse,
there was barely enough time to complete the simplest of details. The
traditional anointing that the women had wanted to perform had to be
postponed. By the time darkness had
fallen, they had left the garden tomb, pausing only to watch as the huge
rolling stone was fixed over the entrance.
Later, of course, it was sealed with a heavy Roman seal and placed under
guard.
It must have seemed strange to the soldiers at the tomb.
They had been called many times to guard prisoners, but this may have been the
first time they had ever been called to guard a dead man. Meanwhile, at home
the women prepared spices and perfumes. Their intentions were clear. When the
Sabbath ended, they would go back and complete what they had been forced to
postpone on Friday evening.
So,
it was a long Saturday. They
determined to return to the tomb in the gray of Sunday morning before full
daylight. The Sabbath ended at sundown on Saturday, but there was little they
could do in the dark. In the half-light of early Sunday morning, they would be
able to do what they could not have done on Friday night. One thought,
above all others, occupied their minds.
It was the huge rolling stone that blocked the entrance. Whether or not the women even knew
about the guards at the tomb, we don’t know, since the guards were more-or-less
an afterthought. But they knew
about the huge rolling stone. They
had watched as it had been rolled into place. Could the three of them move it? They weren’t sure. The
sun was just breaking over the Mt. of Olives as they entered the garden. They asked each other as they went,
“Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” When they arrived, they discovered to
their amazement that the stone was already rolled away. Upon entering the tomb, they discovered to their further
amazement that the body of Jesus was not there. While there, they were confronted by a young man who said, “Don’t
be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus
the Nazarene, who was crucified. He’s
not here! See the place where they laid
him.” Trembling, bewildered and
afraid, the women fled from the garden and ran to tell the others.
The problem
of the rolling stone is one of those small intersections between faith and
history that is often overlooked but that give the account the ring of truth. All four gospels speak of this great stone. Stones
large enough to cover the entrance to a tomb would weigh several hundred
pounds. The problem of moving one of them is obvious. Yet, the stone had been
moved! Who had done this?
Skeptics,
as we all know, have had a field day with the resurrection narratives. All sorts of suggestions have been offered as
alternatives to the biblical account. Perhaps Joseph of Arimathea secretly
removed the body to another place. But
why would he? The tomb had been
sealed and protected by a Roman guard. In any case, the garden tomb had been
selected by Joseph in the first place.
Why would he want to change the burial site? Maybe the authorities moved
the body, some suggest. But again, the
question looms. Why should they? Pilate had no reason to do so, since, after
all, he ordered the guards to protect the tomb. In any case, Roman prefects
were not known to be fearful of dead men! And as for the Jewish authorities,
the last thing they would want to do would be to move the corpse. This
crucified man was the one who said he would rise again, and the worst possible
course of action would be to remove their very proof that he was still dead!
Then, there is the “passover plot” theory that crops up every few years or so. Here, Jesus did not really die. His disciples drugged him, or he drugged
himself, and later he would revive in the cool atmosphere of the tomb and stage
a resurrection. The really surprising thing is that anyone with a knowledge of
Roman crucifixion would ever buy such a thin argument. Romans were not known
for bungling their crucifixions. The executioners were consummate professionals
in the most grisly sort of way! Then there is the suggestion that in the
darkness the women went to the wrong tomb.
This version sounds suspiciously like a subtle form of the chauvinism
that Jesus rejected—the three women were so stupid they couldn’t be trusted to
find the same place twice in a familiar city.
So, who moved the stone? No one had
even the slightest reason to move it!
Not Pilate, not Caiaphas, not the disciples, nor anyone else. It is
Matthew, of course, who tells us that an angel of the Lord came down from
heaven, and going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. He is the young man that the women mistook
for the gardener. Regardless, even for someone who doesn’t believe in angels,
the remarkable fact that the stone was rolled away is a single feature of the
story that is never debated. Sometime between the hour that Joseph and the
women left on late Friday evening and sunrise on Sunday morning, this great
blocking stone had been moved!
I do
not think it has been sufficiently realized how this simple circumstance—this
one indisputable fact, unimportant as it may seem at first sight—contributes to
the veracity of the story. The sealing of the stone had been a Roman action, prompted
by the high priest but ordered by Pilate on Saturday. The women knew nothing of
it, since it had occurred after the burial and on the Sabbath itself, when the
women and the other disciples were sequestered in their homes. Had they known
of the guard, they might never had gone to the garden tomb on Sunday at all. But
they didn’t know—and their only concern was about the great rolling stone and
how they might move it! But before they arrived, that stone had been moved! The
Roman guards were no longer there. They had fled into the streets of Jerusalem
early on Sunday morning to report to the high priests that something was amiss
at the tomb of the Nazarene! Indeed, it was this feature of the story that
years ago drove the English reporter, Frank Morison, to reexamine the gospels’
Easter story in such meticulous detail. And Morison, who began with the
assumption that the accounts rested on very insecure foundations, found that in
the end he had landed on an unexpected shore—a firm and unshakeable conviction that
Jesus had truly risen from the dead.
Now,
I don’t for a moment expect that faith in the resurrection of Jesus rests only
on a single issue, the issue of who moved the stone. Nor do I suppose that those who do not
already accept Jesus’ resurrection necessarily will be persuaded to do so in
view of this small point. At the same time, this is one small window of
credibility in the witness of three women who came to the garden tomb early on
Sunday morning. While their witness may not have carried much weight in the
patriarchal culture of their own times, it has carried considerable weight in
the judgment of Christians ever since! And it is surely in keeping with Jesus’
revolutionary evaluation of women that he would choose them to be the first
witnesses of the gospel. And so, I say as Christians have expressed it since
the very beginning: Christ is risen! He
is risen, indeed!
A great Easter post, Dan.
ReplyDeleteI am especially challenged by the point you make about how the accuracy of apparently incidental details in the Gospel stories speaks loudly of the authenticity of these narratives.