When Personal Benefit Sways One From Truth (and Life)

Matthew 28:12-15:  "When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, 'You are so say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.'  If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.'  So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed.  And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day."

Every time I read this account of the events following the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I am quite perplexed concerning the actions of the soldiers in their interaction with the chief priests in Jerusalem.  These guards had been placed at the tomb by the Pharisees, who knew that Jesus had promised that after three days He would rise again.  So troubled were these religious figures at the possibility of the One they called "the imposter" having his body stolen by His disciples and then venerated into the very divine one He claimed to be, that they requested that Pilate approve the posting of guards at the tomb.  Pilate agreed to the Pharisee's request, and they made haste to seal the stone and to set guard over it.

All four gospels record the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave, but only the gospel of Matthew records the events that occurred at the time of the stone's removal.  The soldiers had seen the angel of the Lord, who had come down from Heaven, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it (John's gospel uses the Greek word, hermenon, which suggests that the angel adorned with brilliant light, lifted and threw the stone away . . . a pretty powerful scene for sure!).  The events were so overwhelming to the soldiers that they shook in fear and fainted, becoming like dead men.  One would think that this spectacular work of our Redeeming Lord would have made such an indelible mark on the guards, that they would have at that instant given their lives to Jesus Christ as their Savior and King.

What we do find in Matthew's text is that SOME rather than all of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened (Matt. 28:11).   The chief priests immediately assembled the elders for a counsel meeting and determined to manipulate these guards with fear and bribery.  So darkened were these religious leaders, that rather than investigating the veracity of the events as shared by the guards, they resolved to put an end to the rumor of Jesus' resurrection.  Specifically, the religious leaders told the guards present to tell people that Jesus' disciples came in the night while they were sleeping and stole the body.   The priests then told the guards that they would go and appease the governor so that nothing terrible would befall them for their not fulfilling their responsibility to guard the tomb.  And then to sweeten the deal, the priests offered a some of money to these guards to incentivize their lying about the circumstances.  These measures by the chief priests were as dark as their prior response to Jesus raising Lazarus from the grave, when they determined to kill Jesus and to kill the raised Lazarus as well to get rid of the miraculous evidence of Jesus as the true Messiah (John 11:53; 12:10).

The fact that the guards would accept the bribe and perpetuate the lie about the events of the resurrection says much about the sinister nature of these guards.  Rather than celebrating the hope of the promised Messiah, coming into the world and fulfilling the prophecies of the Old Testament (see Psalm 16:10 as an example), these guards were opportunists and self-preservationists.  They saw the opportunity to exploit the situation for monetary gain and they took the offering.  They too realized that their very lives could be on the line if the governor believed that they had failed their post, and so they seemed to appreciate the "graciousness" of the priests in offering to go and assuage the anger of Pilate in response to the dereliction of their duties.  The consumption of "self" superceded their supportive response to Jesus as Lord.  Their actions revealed who really was on the throne of their lives!

This is a good word for us today.  We know that Jesus has risen from the grave; and by doing so, He has conquered sin and death.  It is by His death and resurrection that we have the hope of eternal life, if we would surrender ourselves to His Lordship over us, repent of our sins against Him, and receive His offering of grace through His death and resurrection.  Sadly, there will be those self-consumed opportunists who will refuse the truth because it does not bring the personal benefits that they desire most of all.  Those who seek to exalt themselves and satisfy their desires above the King of kings will reply much like those certain guards who believed that the better option was to gain personal wealth and protection rather than profess Christ as Lord. 

May we never find ourselves like the guards mentioned in this text; for we know that they again would see the exalted, risen Lord in eternity.  And if they never yielded themselves to Christ as Lord, then the Christ that they would see would be the wrathful Judge over all, who would pronounce damnation for their cosmic treason against Him and their forsaking His offering of mercy and grace that would have saved their souls from eternal death.