Some local leaders, who did not believe in Jesus, bribed the soldiers who guarded the tomb where the body of Jesus lay, so they could spread a rumor that “His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep” (vs. 13). They circulated the lie, but it never caught on.
Years ago, Charles Colson, of the Watergate debacle, said this about the lies of Watergate and the lies of the bribed soldiers.
I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Everyone was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world, and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.” (From an article by Marty Angelo entitled, “How Chuck Colson’s Legacy Of Hope Lives On (at https://www.prisonfellowship.org, April 16, 2018)
Colson makes an excellent point, doesn’t he? Why would these men live and die for a lie? It doesn’t make sense. Nevertheless, I suppose, that each of us must decide what we shall do with the witness of the disciples. One of the most entrenched Jewish men of his day, upon meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus, could no longer deny the reality of the resurrection. A few years after that encounter with Jesus he wrote,
I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also (I Corinthians 15:3-8).
Back in 1914 John Henry Jowett wrote these powerful words in a volume called, My Daily Meditation.
Everything is transfigured in the Risen Christ. Everything is lit up when “the Sun of Righteousness arises with healing in His wings.” Life is lit up, and so is death, and so are sorrow and daily labor and human friendships! Everything catches the gleam and is changed. “We are no longer of the night, but of the day.” “Walk as children of light.” “Awake, thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee” (April 10 devotional reading).
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