(Text and Audio)
Title: Inside the Mind of the Enemy, OR Why God’s Favorite Fighting Style is Akido
Today we are going to have some fun, and I’ll tease you with this: One lucky person in the congregation today will get a chance to punch me in the face! (I last covered this passage…one of my favorite in the Bible, and it was Landon Enns that sprinted forward for the opportunity to punch me.
(Read/Pray)
Parallel Study:
There isn’t one! Matthew is the only Gospel to record the request, most likely because it serves as a background for what will happen in the next Chapter of Matthew with the soldiers being bribed to say Jesus’s body was stolen
“Day of preparation” was Friday. It was called this because this was the day before the Sabbath (which started at sundown of Friday) for them to prepare the food and meals so that they would not violate the Sabbath by working.
“The Day after the Day of Preparation” was therefore Saturday, and the request was being make by the chief priests and Pharisees to seal the tomb. Evidently, they had already suspected that Jesus’s followers would attempt to steal the body in order to create a myth of Jesus resurrecting from the grave as he had predicted.
They only ask for the tomb to be guarded until the third day, after that, if Jesus’s body was stolen, it was irrelevant because at that point Jesus would not rise on the day that he predicted, making him a false prophet and of no consequence. So they are not asking that Pilate order Roman soldiers to stand guard forever, just for the next 48 hours, that will be sufficient to protect the tomb and prove Jesus a liar. It’s a reasonable request.
Mark 8:31-32a
31 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke this word openly.
This occurs right after Peter’s great confession “Thou are the Christ!” So we note a transition of Jesus speaking in parables, to Jesus being much more direct about his destiny. Now, while he was doing so, the disciples were still very much confused as to what he meant, there was no way Jesus was saying he was going to literally die and rise again, right?
But this brings something interesting to mind for me. A few months ago, when we were in the midst of Jesus’s trial, do you remember, after hours of false testimony, what the two witnesses before the high priest Caiaphas did actually agree that Jesus said, making Jesus a blasphemer and a threat to Rome? What was the charge against Jesus?
Matthew 26:61 “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and build it again in three days.’”
Which makes Jesus a threat against Rome, a terrorist, which won’t fly because of the greatest law of Rome which was:
Pax Romano (The Peace of Rome)
So at this point I think there are two distinct possibilities:
Option One:
The Chief Priests and Pharisees thought Jesus was speaking literally about the Temple being destroyed at first, but then it began to come together for them as they watched Jesus die on the cross, and they realized, “He was talking about himself! He’s doing to try to somehow rise from the grave to demonstrate that he’s immortal! How could he pull that off? (If the body is stolen, the disciples of Jesus could create a resurrection myth!) We must stop this, at any cost!
Option Two:
They knew all along that Jesus was speaking metaphorically. He was no terrorist, he believed he was the Son of God and that death could not hold him. They manipulated and twisted his words to make sure he died, and the next step was to make sure he wasn’t going to rise from the dead. (Good luck with that, btw.)
Pilate’s Response:
(I love Pilate’s response.)
“You have a guard (Roman Soldiers); go on your way, make it as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard.
Do any of you know anything about the Japanese martial art of Akido? Let me offer a demonstration, it will help illustrate my point. I need a volunteer. Come one, once in a lifetime opportunity to punch your pastor!
Aikido is a martial art that uses the opponent’s momentum to defend against an attack and throw them.
If you think about it, the chief priests and Pharisees, while trying to seal Jesus in a tomb, actually seal themselves into a situation where only ONE explanation makes any sense.
Now, we already talked two weeks ago about the nature of the tomb “Hewn from Rock” that Joseph of Arimathea gifted to Jesus got give him a place of honor to rest, but also a place of solid rock that would be impossible to sneak into any other way except the “front door” where the stone was. There was only one way in an one way out.
But think about the Pharisees! If they had NOT been so diligent, if they had not been so comprehensive, if they had NOT requested the stone or the guard, then the COULD have played the “his body was stolen by his followers!” card. (A Card they will indeed attempt to play in the next chapter of Matthew)
But their own diligence does them in. By sealing the tomb with a stone, by posting a Roman guard, there is only ONE explanation left, that Jesus did (supernaturally) exactly what he said he was going to do!
My conclusion: I think God is a fan of Akido.
And I even have scriptural proof.
Anyone sharp enough to think of a Scriptural reference to this concept?
Joseph, speaking to his brothers, years after they sold him into slavery in Egypt:
Genesis 50:20
20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people[a] should be kept alive, as they are today.