The day   after Jesus was crucified and buried in the tomb must have been another terrible day for his disciples. The Bible says nothing about them on that day, but surely they were in complete shock and traumatized by Jesus’ horrific execution. They were afraid for their own lives and devastated by the hope that they had placed in Jesus to bring about an earthly kingdom. Their Teacher, Friend and Master was gone and they were terrified.

Some  information about Saturday, the Sabbath, is given is in Matthew 27: 62-66. The chief priests and Pharisees demanded that Pilate set a guard before Jesus tomb so that His disciples would not steal the body and claim Jesus had risen.

“So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting a guard.”

Sealing the tomb is telling. Even after Jesus’ death, the religious leaders still hated Him. Having rejected Him as Messiah, having conspired for His barbaric death and witnessing the crucifixion, they still wanted assurance there would be no possibility of His resurrection. Self righteousness and justification for Jesus’ execution were, I believe, no more than the deepest fear that Jesus was truly Messiah and would rise on the third day, as He said He would.

Why seal the tomb, if they were not worried? A seal was a legal sign attesting to what the seal was set to. In this case, it meant that the body of Jesus present in the tomb was truly dead. If the seal were broken, then someone had disturbed the tomb.

Perhaps the request for a seal was less apparent. If Jesus did rise from the dead – something they vehemently denied – but just in case….just in the slightest case He did?   How would He get out of the tomb? They had heard of Lazarus walking out of his tomb when Jesus called him forth. Would Jesus not also have to come from the inside of the tomb outward? And thus, break the seal? Thereafter, they could still claim that someone had broken into the tomb and stolen the Lord’s body. They could still deny Christ had risen from the dead.Tthey were still thinking like Pharisees.

Jesus was not held by the tomb, nor the seal on it, nor the guards set outside. Resurrected, He simply came forth. Overcoming death, nothing on earth restrained Christ.

The disciples did not know what had taken place and refused to believe the women who reported Jesus had risen. John says that they were in hiding from the Jews. The doors were shut. They had sealed themselves into a tomb of fear. But then…

Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them,”Peace be with you.” John 20: 19.

The risen Lord  appeared  among them, in a sealed room, offering them His Peace. Then He  spoke and sent them out again, from their hiding place:

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” John 20:21.

Just as it did with the disciples, the power which rose Jesus from the dead  has the power to break through all  seals  which try to keep us entombed. Moving into the hours before Easter morning, I pray God removes the seals of self righteousness and blindness from our minds and hearts. May His resurrection power destroy all fears which seal us into dark tombs, “and that believing you may have life in His name.”

Friede Gabbert