Sealing The Tomb Of Jesus
Or
Still Blinded By Fear
Sunday August 20, 2023
Scripture To Consider:
“On the next day, which followed the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, saying, ‘Sir, we remember, while He [Jesus] was still alive, how that deceiver said, “After three days I will rise.” 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 is risen from the dead.” So the last deception will be worse than the first.’”
“Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.’ So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard.” Matthew 27.62-66
Something To Consider:
We are told that on the day after the Preparation Day, the religious leaders gathered together, and once again approached Pontius Pilate. This reveals to us that the next day was Saturday, the Jewish celebrated Sabbath day. Even after convincing the people to crucify Jesus, these Jewish leaders could not rest even on their own Sabbath.
But rather, they chose to speak evil of Jesus whom they envied and whom they still feared though Jesus was dead and buried. They feared Jesus while He was alive and that same fear still filled their hearts and minds even after He was dead. They were spiritually blinded by their overwhelming fear. What is it that we too fear to the point that we have become spiritually blind to the truth of the Word of God?
Paul writing to young Timothy in 2 Timothy 1.7, proclaimed; “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but [a spirit] of power and [a spirit] of love and [a spirit] of a sound [and clear thinking] mind.” And as mentioned in another lesson, fear blinds a person or a group of people to the truth just as fear blinded these mistaken so-called religious but murdering leaders.
These religious leaders were so filled with hatred and jealousy of Jesus that it blinded them to the truth He was manifesting to them. John wrote in 1 John 2.11; “He [or she] who hates his [or her] brother [or sister] is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and does not know where he [or she] goes, because that darkness has blinded his [or her] eyes.”
Something Else To Consider:
The only claim to fame that these religious appearing leaders are entitled to is that they remembered that while Jesus was alive He said, “After three days I will rise.” The disciples heard Jesus on several occasions repeat the same prophetic proclamation, but they did not remember Jesus saying, “After three days I will rise.”
What is it that we do not remember when trouble, difficulty, calamity, or disappointments of life darken our horizons? Do we remember the words of Jesus? Do we remember or do we recall Him saying, “Let not your hearts be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in Me.”
Or do we remember His calming words of comfort, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you.” What is it that we remember when we are in need? What is it that we remember when we are fearful? The many words of Jesus should be remembered in our times of stress, fear, or outright unbelief!
Do we remember Jesus’ words He spoke in John 8.31-32? “If you abide [continually live] in My Word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” The truth concerning Jesus, the Word of God, makes us free from stress, fear, and outright unbelief. As we continue to abide in the Word of God, we are spiritually made free from whatever attempts by the enemy or by our flesh that is made to enslave and to overwhelm us.
Have we ever been made free from our fear and blindness by the truth of the Word of God and or the words of Jesus? And if not, why not? According to Jesus, later in John chapter 8 and verse 51, Jesus declared; “Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps [or obeys] My Word he [or she] shall never see death.”
And a few verses later Jesus explained that thought process by stating, “If anyone keeps [or obeys] My Word he [or she] shall never taste death.” To those seeking first God’s kingdom by abiding, keeping, and obeying Christ’s words, we have His promise of not seeing and of not tasting death. And is not death the most fearsome subject for us humans to contemplate?
Jesus rose from a sealed and guarded tomb because death could not hold Him. The fear of death should not hold us back while we are alive on this earth and yet abiding in His Word. We must not allow ourselves to be blinded by fear.
Something More To Consider:
Reading, studying, and remembering the words of Jesus will go a long way in dispelling the darkness and blinding influence of fear. Fear has sealed tight many hearts and minds to the truth of God’s Word, just as was the tomb of Jesus sealed. But no amount of sealing and no amount of setting of the enemy guards will eternally seal a person’s heart.
If the Word of God and the Holy Spirit is at work behind the scenes and below the surface of a person’s life, fear must flee! For both the Word of God and the Holy Spirit are mightily working out the perfect plan and providential purpose of God the Father. Our role is to forever desire to endure to the end of our lives or to the end of this age.
We must be found as those who overcame the enemy and their flesh by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony concerning Jesus Christ. Though we may not understand what it is God is doing in our lives at any given interval, we must overcome, and we must endure to the end of our lives and or to the end of this age. Therefore, let us not be blinded or sidelined by fear!
Our calling is not to understand, but to believe and to walk by faith as we abide in and as we keep or obey and observe all the things Jesus taught while He was alive and overcame the enemy. We are to follow the example Jesus left us concerning our enduring to the end of whatever, by faith in our not seeing and not tasting death.
A Few Final Words:
Yes, the enemy has attempted to seal the tomb of true life in Christ for many in every generation since Jesus rose from that borrowed tomb. But Jesus is no longer dead and no longer buried in a cold darkened death-ridden tomb. He is alive and He is awaiting our entrance from this life into eternal life!
The sealing of the tomb and the setting of the guard was no earthly match for the all powerful Word of God inside that grave. How much therefore of the power of the Word of God resides in us?
Prayer:
Our Father in heaven, work out Your wondrous plan and purpose in our lives, and drive away any blindness and fear by way of the Word of God. Teach us to allow the words of Christ to abide in us and to awake us to His blood-bought overcoming power. In Him Always, Amen!
According to Jesus 