"ON EASTER MORNING, GOD GAVE TO ISRAEL’S CHURCH LEADERS THE SIGN TO PROVE THAT JESUS IS THE CHRIST"

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Hymn 26:1,2
Psalm 103:1
Psalm 85:3
Psalm 119:39,40,42
Hymn 29:1,2

Beloved Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Early on that Easter morning of long ago, two small groups of people rushed into the city of Jerusalem. The one group was made up of women, the other of soldiers. Both had witnessed the same thing; both rushed to report what they had seen. The one group was propelled by fear and great joy; they hastened to the disciples. The other group was propelled by fear and terror; they speeded to the chief priests.

Of the two groups who reported in Jerusalem on that Easter Sunday of long ago, it seems to us that the more important of the two groups is the women. After all, these women belong to the circle of the saints, their report is foundational for the church that sprang up as a result of the preaching of Christ’s resurrection, their report is the one that we believe. From the soldiers’ report, on the other hand, arose the false rumor that Jesus’ disciples had stolen the body while the guards slept.

How surprising, then, that Matthew does not tell us about the women; that’s left to other evangelists. Matthew pays attention to the report of the guards and the reaction of the Sanhedrin. We wonder why? Of what benefit is this information to us?

Through this paragraph in the Gospel according to Matthew, brothers and sisters, the Lord our God is telling us that the church of the Lord’s days rejected the sign God gave to prove that Jesus was the Christ. It is important that we are aware of the response of the Sanhedrin to the sign God gave, lest we also should reject the evidence of the gospel as we hear it. Christ has risen from the dead; that’s fact. But: what are you going to do with that news? How shall you respond?

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

1. the sign God gave
2. the response of the Sanhedrin

The Sign God Gave

On the day after Jesus’ resurrection long ago, Jerusalem’s newspapers (if such there were) will have proclaimed the official explanation of the empty tomb: "Disciples Steal Master’s Body at Night!" And the smaller print will have made clear that this was the considered opinion of the church leaders, the official version. One wonders: did the chief priests and the elders not know any better?

They did. Matthew relates that "some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened." Given what the Lord has told us in Scripture concerning the experiences of the soldiers on that Easter morning, we can reconstruct rather precisely just what it was that the chief priests heard from these soldiers. Consider.

In the course of the Sabbath day, a number of soldiers were instructed by the chief priests and elders to guard the tomb of a man crucified and buried the day before. The reason for the guard on the tomb of a dead man was –said the chief priests and elders- that there were some fears that disciples might raid His tomb, steal His body, and tell the public that their Master had risen. To prevent such nonsense from becoming public fodder, the chief priests and elders deemed an ounce of prevention better than a pound of cure. We may imagine, then, that the soldiers were faithfully on their post at the sepulchre of the Lord, alert throughout the night from sounds of approaching thieves (cf 27:62ff). But the night had passed without event.

Just about at dawn, though –listen!- there were sounds! Through the semi-darkness the soldiers saw figures approaching – the threatened attempt to rob the tomb?? But no, ’twas only a number of women approaching the tomb…. They could relax again…. As they eyed the approaching women - suddenly- an earthquake! And no small one; the ground under them rolled and heaved! At the same time, over there, another man! No, not a man! An angel!! In an abundance of light he came down from heaven like lightning, dressed in clothing white as snow. And look! He has no regard for the soldiers, he approaches the tomb, breaks the seals of the stone in front of the tomb, rolled it back and sat triumphantly upon it. And the soldiers: so stunned were they by the majesty of what they saw that they had no strength to attack this tomb-disturber; overcome by fear, they trembled and became like dead men. They lay flat on the ground, without strength….

Listen: the angel speak, talk with the women they had earlier seen. Unreal; he’s telling these women that the Jesus who had been buried in that tomb was not in the tomb anymore, but He’s risen from the dead! And of all things the angel invites the women to enter the tomb and see for themselves that the tomb was empty! Then the instruction to go tell the disciples about this resurrection and that He would appear to the disciples in Galilee! Then the sound of running feet; the women running off with great excitement to do as the angel had said! So: news would be in the city in a moment that Jesus had arisen! Small wonder, then, that the soldiers, as soon as the women had gone, gathered themselves together and some of them also ran, ran to inform the chief priests of what had happened. And panting at the door of the chief priests, they gushed out their story…, reported "all the things that had happened" – says vs 11. That means, brothers and sisters, that the chief priests were among the first to hear of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

That brings us to the question critical to today: why? Why was it that the chief priests were among the first to hear of Christ’s resurrection from the dead? To formulate the question better: why is it that God so directed circumstances that the chief priests receive straightaway an accurate eyewitness report of the resurrection?

The answer, brothers and sisters, lies in the portion of Scripture we read from Mt 12. It’s recorded there that "some of the scribes and Pharisees" asked a sign from Jesus, some evidence that Jesus was indeed sent to earth from God Himself. (These scribes and Pharisees, we should know, were part of the same elite group as the chief priests of ch 28.) Well now, in our text they sign they sought was actually given. To appreciate the significance of the sign, we need to come to grips with Mt 12.

The request of the scribes and the Pharisees for a sign was not made because they were searching for a final clue as to this Rabbi’s origin. Had that been the case, they would have seen numerous signs in the work that Jesus did, as well as in the words that He spoke. They knew that He healed the sick, fed the hungry, forgave sins. And Jesus had said to the disciples of John the Baptist that precisely these actions were sufficient proof to anyone who believed the Old Testament Scripture to be convinced that Jesus was the Christ of God. The Pharisees and the scribes could know.

But the Pharisees and the scribes were not searching to find out if indeed Jesus was the Christ. They had their minds made up. I say that because the request for a sign occurs right after the Pharisees had accused the Lord of being in league with Beelzebul, the prince of demons; that’s what the verses before the part about the sign are all about. Well, if the Pharisees and scribes maintain that Jesus was in league with Satan, and then still ask for a sign to prove His heavenly origin, it is evident that that request is made in bad faith. That’s why the Lord told these leaders of the people that no sign would be granted to this evil and adulterous generation; with the mindset they had, all the signs in the world would help them nothing.

Yet even as the Lord declines to give them the sign they seek, He does promise to give them one last chance. Says He: "no sign shall be given..., except the sign of the prophet Jonah." And He explains how Jonah would be a sign:

"as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

The point is this. To the sailors who threw Jonah overboard, Jonah was dead. To Jonah himself while he sat in the belly of the great fish, he was as good as dead. To the inhabitants of Ninevah, to whom Jonah undoubtedly told his story, the prophet had been as good as dead. Yet, miraculously, on the third day Jonah had been released from the pangs of death; upon command of the Lord, the fish vomited Jonah out upon dry land. So the inference of Jesus’ words to the Pharisees in Mt 12 is clear: He, too, would spend three days in the heart of the earth. And as Jonah, so also He, would be released from the heart of the earth after three days. And that release from the heart of the earth would constitute a sign to that generation that Jesus was indeed the Christ sent by God.

But with the promise to give such a sign, Jesus gave also a warning. Jonah spent three days in the belly of the great fish, and all the while was as good as dead. The men of Ninevah were warned by Jonah that yet 40 days and God would overthrow their city. That warning will certainly have come coupled with an account of Jonah’s own experiences; here was a God not to be trifled with. If this God could preserve Jonah in the belly of the fish for three days and nights, and then have him coughed up on dry land, surely this same God was able to destroy the city as He threatened. So it was that the men of Ninevah "repented at the preaching of Jonah."

But now "something greater than Jonah is here." How much more than ought the scribes and the Pharisees to repent at the preaching of Jesus, let alone once that sign of Jesus rising from the heart of the earth is given! Israel’s leaders have been warned; if ever that sign should come, they shall have to repent - lest the men of Ninevah rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it.

Now a group of soldiers –reliable eyewitnesses to what happened at the tomb at dawn- gush out their report of women, an earthquake, a heavenly angel, his words of Jesus’ resurrection…. That is: God confronts the church leaders with a report of what really happened; God through heathen soldiers sets before Israel’s leaders the gospel of Christ’s return from the dead. Their peers had once asked for a sign, and Jesus had told them that there would be no sign except that of Jonah. The soldiers announce that precisely this sign is fulfilled! This can only mean that the Word of that detested Rabbi had come to pass after all! Think, O chief priests, think! This must mean that Jesus was in truth sent by God! Here is the sign you asked for; work with it! Draw the only possible conclusion, and believe! This Word can be for them –as Paul says it to the Corinthians- either a fragrance from life to life or from death to death. They must respond; this Word from the Lord through the soldiers shall not come back empty.

And the matter is the more urgent because of Who this resurrected Christ is. Death, said God in the beginning, is the wages of sin. This Man broke the power of death; that can only mean that He broke the power of sin. It was to pay for sin that God had sent His Son into the world; this Man had overcome sin – and so demonstrated both that He was the Son of God as well as that God in Him had reconciled sinners to God. In a word: Jesus’ resurrection was evidence that He was the Savior sent by God to deliver sinners from Satan’s clutches.

But how do the leaders of the church-of-those-days respond? That’s our second point:

The Response of the Sanhedrin

The chief priests respond to the message God delivered by the mouths of the soldiers by immediately convening a meeting of the Sanhedrin. That’s to say: they consider the report of the soldiers to be of sufficient importance to warrant what we would call a consistory meeting – immediately. Note: the reaction of the elders with the chief priests is one of accepting the report of the soldiers. The text tells us nothing of doubting it, tells us nothing either of cross-examining the soldiers, tells us nothing either of accusing the soldiers of sleeping on the job…, so that the disciples could steal the body and that they now dream up this report to save their own skins. There is no such reaction, because the evidence stares them in the face; they have no grounds to deny the report as fact.

So what do they decide to do? Admit that here is the sign of Jonah, and conclude that therefore the Rabbi of Nazareth must come from God – with all the glorious consequences of that conclusion? Do they respond to the preaching with faith? Do they, as the elders of the church of their day, send out a message to the sheep of the flock: Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world? Do they tell the people of Jerusalem that all which they had earlier heard from their elders about Jesus had been wrong? Do they tell the people of God in their charge that they’ve now seen the conclusive sign, that therefore they now believe in Him, and urge the people of the city to believe in Him too lest the men of Ninevah arise at the Judgment to condemn you? Is that what they say?

We know it. Such is not at all the reaction of the Sanhedrin. The facts are laid out before them so plainly that they cannot deny them. Yet they adamantly refuse to conclude that which they have to conclude! They cannot deny the resurrection, and yet they refuse to admit the resurrection. And they refuse to admit the resurrection because they refuse to believe that Jesus Christ came from God. And that is the bottom line: they do not want to believe. They do not want to believe because in their hearts is a hardened unbelief. It was callous unbelief that had prompted in Mt 12 the charge that Jesus was in league with Beelzebul. It was cold unbelief that had given rise to the request for a sign from heaven. It had been stubborn unbelief that had driven the chief priests to have the innocent Jesus put to death. It was now the same hardened unbelief that made it impossible for the chief priests and the elders to accept at face value what God told them that Easter morning through the report of the soldiers. For faith comes not through signs and wonders; faith comes only through hearing the Word.

The gospel as reported by the soldiers was not accepted by the Sanhedrin, it did not meet with faith in the hearers. That callous and deliberate unbelief could not but bring forth evil fruit. The evil fruit these chief priests and elders brought forth was a satanic plan to keep the good news of the resurrection from reaching the people. So they formulated a counter-story, and instructed the soldiers to tell people that His disciples came by night and stole Him away while they had fallen asleep. We understand: this official explanation of the events around the tomb was the fruit of the blatant unbelief of the leaders of Israel. They rejected the gospel of Jesus’ resurrection, and so must end up telling lies. For their true father is a liar and the father of lies. And as is the father, so are the children.

That’s why the chief priests and the elders could not even see that their story made no sense. Just think:

For soldiers to admit that they slept on the job was not only humiliating for these soldiers (for it meant that they reneged on their responsibility); such an admission meant for themselves a certain death sentence; the soldiers knew that, and they knew that the people knew it. Small wonder that a considerable sum of money was needed to encourage the soldiers to tell this lie; they’d be faced with all kinds of embarrassing questions! And small wonder too that the soldiers needed some protection from Pilate.

Furthermore, if it were really true that the disciples had stolen the body, why were the disciples not arrested? For robbing a grave was a serious offense. But the Sanhedrin took no action to have the disciples arrested.

You see: their actions and their story is the foolishness of unbelief. And fools do not sense their folly.

How evil it all was, beloved. The chief priests and elders knew the truth when they heard it, but so strongly does unbelief hate faith that these leaders of the people purposely set out to deceive the people in their charge. Quite on purpose they shut the kingdom of heaven against men; they themselves don’t enter, nor did they allow those who would enter to go in…. Truly, how evil…. They hardened themselves in sin, and hardened sin must breed more sin.

You, my beloved, have heard the gospel of Jesus’ resurrection many times. And I don’t suppose there’s anyone in church here today who would actually deny the Lord’s resurrection, would actually adopt the attitude of the chief priests and the elders. But that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing for us to learn from the text before us this morning. The chief priests and the elders had their mind made up about Jesus; to their minds Jesus was a fraud and a liar, and that was that, He was in league with Beelzebul. With a mindset like that, all the proof in the world that Jesus was in fact the Christ sent by God could never persuade them that their own thoughts were wrong.

Here’s a message we need very much to keep in mind. Whether we deal with any aspect of the Bible, or whether we’re dealing with any aspect of daily life makes here no difference; to the degree that our mind is made up that we’ve got the facts right (and their interpretation too), to that same degree all the evidence in the world will not convince us that we’re wrong. What the chief priests needed was a willingness to acknowledge that they were wrong. Without such humility, the truth of what did in Jesus Christ could not prevail in their hearts.

At the same time, congregation, we need to realize that the efforts of the chief priests and the elders to deceive the people were futile. Sure, at least till the day when Matthew wrote his gospel, the lie cooked up by the leaders was "commonly reported among the Jews." But it did not stop the truth from spreading through the city and around the world. The book of Acts tells us, for example, that thousands of the Jews came to faith in the resurrected Jesus; yes, even many of the priests embraced the gospel.

The devil would dearly love to bury the glorious news of Easter under a cloak of lies. But your God, congregation, would not let that happen! With a view to your salvation and mine, the response of Israel’s consistory to God’s work on Easter Sunday had to shown to be the lie it was – and the glorious truth of Christ’s triumphed preached nevertheless.

So it is with all lies, and with all truth. The Christ who triumphed at Easter is the God of truth. His truth shall always prevail, no matter the lies Satan may scatter through the world. Today, like long ago, the lie of the Sanhedrin is still repeated, be it in the form of numerous variations on the theme. It be so. That is not a cause for alarm, for Satan is defeated and the gospel of our Lord shall triumph.

One day soon every one who has embraced a lie about the good news of Easter will see the resurrected Lamb of God return on the clouds of heaven, and all shall recognize Him to be the Son of God He is. You see: the truth shall prevail, at God’s good time – no matter how hard the human heart.

It was an adulterous generation that refused the sign of Jonah. But the Greater-than-Jonah appeared, risen from the dead. The chief priests and the elders refused to believe that the risen Christ was the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, and consequently, in the judgment on the last day, the men of Ninevah shall condemn them. Now the question is this: will they rise in judgment over us as well, as we respond to the preaching of Christ’s resurrection?

Forget not: the chief priests and the elders were very faithful church goers. Amen.