Matthew 28

Easter Sunday

Covering things up happens all the time in our world. It's usually for the benefit of the people doing the covering up.

In this passage, we see another cover-up.

The Truth

Jesus had died and was buried. Most of His friends had gone into hiding, except a group of women. Their love for Jesus meant that they were brave enough to go to Jesus’ tomb. They went as soon as they could so they could respect Him with a proper burial. Because of their love the truth of Jesus’ resurrection was revealed to them first.

The angels told them the glorious truth - Jesus was not there, He had risen!

They saw Him there and worshipped Him, holding onto Him so they could be sure He was real. His message was one of joy and reassurance to the disciples, whom He called brothers.

Why draw all this attention here? This all happened because the resurrection is as important as the crucifixion and so it needed to be proved, seen, and proclaimed.

We see in God's word that to choose to sin means to choose death, and that sin brought death into the world. Death and sin are tied together as an outworking of each other. For Jesus to defeat sin meant that death must also be beaten. And so He could not stay dead. That there was proof that sin was beaten and there is life for those who choose Jesus instead of sin.

When we doubt, we must look to Jesus. Jesus whom the disciples were willing to take the gospel to the world for.

This truth should bring us great joy - a joy that outweighs all our fears and gushes out to all those we meet.

The cover-up

The guards also reported the news of Jesus’ resurrection (you could consider them evangelists!).

The high priests produced a plan to suppress the truth. They obviously believed the guard's story and so were afraid of the consequences of a resurrected Christ.

They tried everything in their power: bribery, lies, and corruption.

This is such a contrast between the disciples. They obeyed and worshipped instead of sinning. They did everything in their power to tell people the truth, as Jesus had commanded. Jesus was clear that His evangelists should be proactive and without fear proclaim what they know to be true. He has the highest authority over everything and everyone meaning that we who love Him have nothing to fear.

When we first believe, we are baptized. This is a proclamation of the truth we know and that we have died and rise again with Christ. With that comes a change in lifestyle where we do not want to sin any longer.

As we go on that journey, we continue to learn from God's word and as we become like Jesus, we obey God's commands and love Him more.

To teach others this truth, we need to share our lives with them. How else will they see the change in our life and how else will we be able to teach them?