“So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.”
~ Matthew 27:66
Hi James and Ellen,
The news spread quickly. A News Alert that was on JEWN TV had kids, dads, mas, grandpas and grandmas, magnetized to a TV set in their homes. Breaking News on KJEW radio had guys and gals who had been driving cars in the city pulling over to street curbs so that they could listen intently to what purportedly had taken or was taking place. Within about an hour, hawkers for Jerusalem News were on the city’s streets to sell an exclusive News Flash bulletin to a growing throng of guys and gals who wanted more news about the rumors that were flying all over town. Guys, gals and kids wanted to get their arms around what they were seeing on their TVs, hearing on their radios and reading in their newspaper. What they had seen, heard and read was that the self-proclaimed king of the Jews – a guy by the name of Jesus, had one of his associates turn him in to the authorities. A TV news crew – who had been given a heads up that something was going to go down, had telecasted throughout the evening the kiss that Judas Iscariot – who was the associate of Jesus, had planted on Jesus to identify Jesus as the guy who a frenetic pack of sword swingers and club wavers had been looking for to jail and kill. Your grandpaa thinks that after that fateful evening nearly 2000 years ago – the evening when Jesus was waylaid by an unruly mob of thugs, that that night turned into a long night for every guy and gal who lived in the city of Jerusalem. Per the Jewish law – which applied to Jesus and to the guys who were charging him for heading up an insurrection, everything had to be put on hold until daybreak the next day. The news had been that the chief priests – which involved the Sanhedrin, had decided that Jesus had to go – that he had to die. Because they could not be the ones who could actually kill Jesus, the chief priests turned the bound Jesus over to Pilate – who was the governor over the guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem, to have Pilate make the call to do what they wanted. There were guys and gals – such as Jesus’ ma and His disciples, who probably were really hoping and praying that Jesus would not be killed but . . . Jesus had through His words and actions infuriated so many Jewish elders in the Sanhedrin and so many Pharisees that . . .
The news was electric the next morning. Judas Iscariot – who had been identified as Jesus’ betrayer, was the first to make the ‘news alert’, the ‘breaking news’ and the ‘news flash’. The street rumors were about Judas Iscariot having had remorse about what he had done. Street reporters were reporting that Judas Iscariot had shown up in the temple of God that was in the city of Jerusalem with the thirty silver coins which had been given him as a reward for turning in Jesus. The news was that Judas Iscariot wanted to give the money back, that he claimed that he had turned in an innocent guy and that when no guy would take the thirty silver coins back from him, he had thrown the coins on the temple floor and then hung himself. The street reporters then began to report that the chief priests who had been assigned to the temple of God in the city of Jerusalem had taken the thirty silver coins – which these guys called blood money and which they could not put back into the temple’s treasury, and used the thirty silver coins to buy a potter’s field – which was a place where foreigners who died in the city of Jerusalem and who did not have any money could be buried. The news about Judas Iscariot was soon forgotten when everyone saw or heard Pilate giving the guys and gals in the crowd who had gathered to help Pilate make the right choice – which was a choice of who to release back on the street – Jesus or a notoriously bad dude by the name of Barabbas. It was obvious to the pool reporters at Jesus’ hearing at the governor’s palace that Pilate seemed more supportive of Jesus than he was with the uproarious, out of control gang of envious Jewish religious leaders. All the guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem had been glued to their TVs and radios as Pilate had no other choice but to let Barabbas go and to turn over Jesus to his persecutors – who were guys and gals who were demanding that Jesus be hung on and nailed to a cross.
Picture yourselves today watching the news on a TV or listening to the news on a radio or reading the news in a newspaper. Would you keep on watching a TV report or listening to a radio broadcast or reading a news release of the day – the day when Jesus was humiliated, mocked, crowned with a thorn crown, spit on, flogged, hit and brutally hung on and nailed to a cross – that was between two robbers, that had been stuck into the ground on a stubby hill that was known as Golgotha? If you had been watching a TV transmission or been listening to a radio broadcast or read later newspaper accounts, you would have witnessed and internalized fresh intimate details of the death of an incarnate man – Whose name was Jesus, that would forever affect your lives and the lives of every guy, gal and kid who would be assigned by God – as God the Father, to live on planet Earth. As kids who were growing up in the city of Jerusalem on that historic day, you would never forget the sudden darkness, the rumbling earthquake, the veil that was in the temple of God being ripped in half, graves being opened with no evidence left of any guy, gal or kid having been in the graves and Jesus being entombed. Matthew 27 verifies the details of probably one of the most terrifying days in the history of the city of Jerusalem for the guys, gals and kids who were living in the city. This day came to an end with what verse 66 says, “So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.” Do you think that guys and gals would be okay today with a guy being battered like Jesus was?
Matthew 27 (875)