Life of Christ – Part 19 – The Crucifixion and Burial(11) – The Guard at the Tomb

Text: Matthew 27:62-66

Now on the next day, the day after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise again.’ Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.” And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone.

In ancient world terms you could not have put better security on the tomb of Jesus.  The centurion would have been charged with this task the day after preparation day for the Sabbath.  This is actually the Passover Day itself and the fact the Jewish leaders are coming forward to ask this on the Passover Day itself indicates their concern was great.  I want to note here that they are specifically concerned with the disciples stealing the body so this guards is placed to specifically to prevent this.

Roman soldiers are taught early that the penalty for falling asleep on guard duty is death.  To further prevent this guards are always placed in fours and rotated regularly even during the night to keep fresh guards on duty.  The likelihood of these men falling asleep on duty was almost nil.  You might get one but to have all four fall asleep would indicate a great dereliction of duty.  Added to this is the fear factor of breaking the Roman seal which is placed on the tomb.  To do so meant that stealing the body would not only result criminal charges but the death penalty.

Matthew is the only writer that pays specific attention to the only real eyewitnesses to the actual resurrection and that is the four soldiers from the Roman army that would have seen it.  He also chronicles the interaction with these soldiers and the religious leaders because at the time he writes the story was that Jesus’ body had been stolen by the disciples was circulating.  Matthew writes all this to show how silly a notion that was and at the time anyone could have confirmed this simply by looking at the Roman records of the time.

Next: The Resurrection