Conspiracy, Confusion & the Resurrection

A Case Study from Matthew 28

Last week, I posted links to a podcast series on conflict and what it means to have an enemy from a biblical perspective. Much of the conversation draws from Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount. They are powerful words that I believe serve as an essential manifesto for Christians for all time, but especially in our time. I have more to say about the topics we took up in that podcast series, specifically about Jesus’ words to “love your enemies and pray those who persecute you”. It feels like we might benefit from an up-close look at the way persecution is being wielded in the Church today, and how Jesus framed persecution in his day. But before we can move in that direction, I think there are related dynamics that merit our attention.

I am currently reading a book called The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory | American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Timothy Alberta. The author is an award-winning journalist and chief political correspondent who grew up in the Evangelical church as a “pk” (pastor’s kid). As an adult who now rubs shoulders with key figures within the worlds of religion and politics, Alberta’s attempt to unravel the seemingly absurd relationship between these two groups is documented in 452 pages of thought-provoking reporting. And he is reporting. It is important to remember that Alberta is a journalist, not a theologian.

In some ways, this book is an autobiography of his own life that has involved a hefty dose of the world of both religion and politics.

But for today, I want to begin not with Alberta, or a book, or political reporting, but with Matthew. The one who documented those powerful words from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in the first gospel in the New Testament.

One morning a few weeks ago, my daily reading was the final chapter of Matthew’s gospel. As is often the case, it is tempting to whip through a familiar passage, take little if anything new from it, close my Bible and move along. But that morning, it was as if I was seeing this passage in a whole new light. For starters, the heading in my Bible (and most Bibles I would guess) on the first 10 verses of this chapter is “Resurrection”. Verses 11-15 are titled “The Guards Report”, and finally, verses 16-20, “The Great Commission”. Perhaps these headings are familiar to you as are the verses that follow. But as I read, I saw Matthew’s account of the resurrection with fresh eyes.

A Curious Contrast

Are verses 11-15 merely a “guards’ report”? And are the final verses the confident commissioning we’ve held to? I think there is more to see. What I see is – yes! – the resurrection of Jesus, but the conclusion Matthew captures for us is not merely a guards’ report and a commission to the disciples.

What Matthew seems to capture for us is an intentional contrast between two distinct groups of people who were responding to the news of the resurrection.

The first group contains the chief priests along with some members of the Roman guard. A comingling of religion and politics we might say. And the second group includes 11 doubtful disciples whose commissioning may exhibit less confidence than meets the eye. It is from this perspective that I would like to invite us to pull up a chair for a closer look at the end of Matthew’s gospel. Feel free to grab your Bible and flip to Matthew 28 so you can follow along.

Let’s start with what isn’t up for grabs: the resurrection. It happened. And Mary Magdalene and the other Mary are the women who are charged to bring the report back to the disciples – the ones who Matthew later tells us were doubting.

“After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the tomb. ² Look, there was a great earthquake, for an angel from the Lord came down from heaven. Coming to the stone, he rolled it away and sat on it. ³ Now his face was like lightning and his clothes as white as snow. ⁴ The guards were so terrified of him that they shook with fear and became like dead men. ⁵ But the angel said to the women, “Don’t be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. ⁶ He isn’t here, because he’s been raised from the dead, just as he said. Come, see the place where they laid him. ⁷ Now hurry, go and tell his disciples, ‘He’s been raised from the dead. He’s going on ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there.’ I’ve given the message to you.” {Matthew 28:1-7, CEB}

Jesus entrusts to these women a very important word for “the brothers”. The message must have made it safe and sound as verse 16 confirms that the disciples indeed went to Galilee, to the precise mountain location Jesus told them to go.

⁸ With great fear and excitement, they hurried away from the tomb and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹ But Jesus met them and greeted them. They came and grabbed his feet and worshipped him.  {Matthew 28:8-9, CEB}

¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Go and tell my brothers that I am going into Galilee. They will see me there.”

We’ll pick up the mountain meeting in a bit. For now, I’d like to flip to the first scene: the chief elders and the guards.

REPORT: Just the Facts?

I am a journalist by trade. Well, I majored in Communications with a Broadcasting emphasis in college. And if Timothy Alberta and I have anything in common, it’s that a good report is supposed to capture just the facts. No spin. These days, that kind of reporting is hard to come by. But it’s not a new problem. The guards were supposed to give a report. What was the report? The details the women ran from the empty tomb carrying: Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified as a Roman criminal on a cross just 3 days earlier, had risen from the grave. The stone where two other Roman guards had been posted to keep watch was rolled away, and now the tomb was empty. That is the report. And now, we find a few guards who bring this message to the chief priests, telling them “…everything that had happened.”

It seems these guards are reporting just the facts. But the very next verse makes an abrupt shift.

We are about to move from “report” to conspiracy in one monetarily motivated move. By the way, most reports that turn into conspiracies involve some cold hard cash. Money talks, you know. And it rarely tells the truth. In this case, the chief priests (read: religious leaders of Jesus’ day) met with the elders and “decided to give a large sum of money to the soldiers”.  Here comes the conspiracy:

“They told them: ‘Say that Jesus’ disciples came at night and stole his body while you were sleeping. And if the governor hears about this, we will take care of it with him so you will have nothing to worry about.’ ” {Matthew 28:13-14, CEB}

And there you have it folks. When religious or political power is threatened, conspiracies start to sound like good ideas.

In this case, both groups were in danger of losing, so they worked together to come up with their own report. The chief priests and elders thought they had taken care of Jesus with his blasphemous claims once and for all. After all, they were the ones who turned him over to Pilate in the first place to put him on trial for treason. And it was the Roman guards who were supposed to make sure the entire plot would be carried out to completion. Once it was, it was their job to keep watch so no one **would** steal the body (which they apparently thought was likely).

But never in their wildest imagination would the real story be that body theft would not be necessary, because Jesus would rise from the grave in his own power.

And THAT power put theirs in jeopardy.

Quick! Time to come up with a story. One that keeps them both in the clear. And the chief priests were more than happy to supply that story along with a nice chunk of change. The result? The conspiracy went viral.“And this report has spread throughout Judea to this very day.” {Matthew 28:15, CEB}. Remember, Matthew is documenting this account years after Jesus’ resurrection. What he is telling us is how the conspiracy about the resurrection of Jesus came to be, what was behind it and how it is still alive and well as the ink is still wet on his gospel account years later.

It should be obvious that the “report” contained in these 4 verses holds much for us to think about today:

• What motivates conspiracies?

• What can we learn about the response of religious and political leaders when their power is threatened?

• And how might that help us stick to the real story even when other versions go viral? 

As for the final 4 verses of Matthew’s gospel account, they aren’t entirely free of rough edges either. But at least they are more honest and rooted in real authority.

Thanks for stopping by Post ’22.  I hope you’ll come back next week for more on Matthew’s curious account.