Guarding the Tomb

Do you ever wonder about the soldiers guarding the tomb? I mean, if anyone was ever a minor character in a Bible story, it’s those guys. They only show up in the Gospel of Matthew. The other three Gospels never even mention them. We never learn their names. We don’t know how many there are. They have no lines to say. They’re just standing around at a tomb with a big rock over the entrance. When the angel shows up to announce that Jesus is no longer there, Matthew says they “shook and became like dead men.” Then later, when they tell their superiors what happened, they get paid off so they won’t tell anyone else. And that’s it. That’s their whole story. We never hear from them or about them again. They disappear from history.  

I imagine most of the guards weren’t even told the reason they were there. They’re soldiers. They’re ordered to keep watch, so they keep watch. And if they were told why they were guarding a grave, it probably wouldn’t have made much sense to them. The religious and political leadership of the day had Jesus executed. But then there was some rumor this guy might come back to life, so they ask for guards. They’re worried that some of his followers might steal the body and then make up some wild story about resurrection.  

So the guards have one job: keep a dead body in a grave. Prevent resurrection. And Matthew tells us that not only do they fail: they fail spectacularly. No one comes to get Jesus out of the grave. An angel rolls away the stone that seals it up and he’s already gone. While the guards were standing there, watching nothing happen, somehow life had returned. The tomb is empty.  

All four gospels agree on certain parts of the Easter story. In all four Gospels, it’s early in the morning, before sunrise. In all four Gospels, women go to the tomb. In all four Gospels, they find the body gone and they tell others. In all four gospels, Angels are involved one way or another. The guards, though, like I said, the other three versions of the story don’t even mention them. So why is Matthew telling us this? 

One answer might be that he’s trying to deal with rumors that said Jesus was never resurrected at all; that some of his followers did come and steal the body and just made up the whole resurrection thing. And sure, maybe Matthew wants to include the story about the guards so people will know that couldn’t have happened. But I think it’s more than that. I think the guards are included in Matthew’s story to pose a question for us.  

For centuries, really since before the beginning of Christianity, back into the Jewish roots of our faith, it’s been recognized that the stories of scripture are not just stories about something that happened two or three thousand years ago. They’re not just poetry or song or history. They are that. But they’re also about us, and very often they’re also metaphors or insights about our inner lives.  In the first creation story, at the very beginning of the Bible, when God looks at the first human being and says, “it is not good for the man to be alone,” that’s not just a statement about that human being. It’s about us: we’re built for community. We’re built for relationship. It’s not good for us to live our lives alone, cut off from other people.  

When the ancient prophets called out the rulers of their day for enriching themselves by condemning others to lives of grinding poverty, that’s not just about ancient Israel 2700 years ago. That’s about us. It’s about God’s desire for the communities we create here and now. And maybe too, it’s an insight about our inner lives. Maybe in addition to talking about inequality and the evils of poverty, those prophets are asking us: what parts of ourselves do we ignore and impoverish in our relentless quest for things we think we can’t live without?  

When Jesus embraces the marginal people of his day and recognizes God’s image in those who were ignored and despised; when he offers food to the hungry and healing to the outcasts; when he creates a new way of life and a new kind of community to counteract the culture of death and despair and violence in which he lives; that’s not just about him, two thousand years ago. That’s a challenge to us, now, about the kind of lives and communities we’re called to create. And when Jesus is resurrected and given new life, that’s not just about him: it’s an invitation to all of us to be recreated, to awaken to the new life that is being offered us in the image that we bear. Christians have always recognized that the stories of scripture are not just history, poetry, theology, song; they’re about us, and they can be powerful metaphors for our own inner life.  

So maybe the real question we need to ask is not why there are guards in Matthew’s story. Maybe the real question is where are the guards in our story? What are the guards in our story? What is guarding our tombs? What is guarding against our resurrection? What is working to prevent us from emerging into the morning of new and beautiful and abundant life?  

Sometimes we guard each other’s tombs. I wish it wasn’t true, but it is: there are lots of people who find it very difficult to emerge into new life because they’re judged by their ethnicity, or the color of their skin, or their gender, or their mental health history, or their past decisions and criminal history, or their physical ability or sexual orientation or politics. There are lots of people who struggle with crippling poverty and lack of housing and can’t ever seem to catch a break. I talk to them every week; they call the church office for help with rent and prescriptions and school supplies for their kids or transportation. Poverty and bigotry like that can be guarding all of our tombs, trying to ensure that we stay divided, that we view each other as enemies, so that we can’t emerge together into the lives God dreams of for us.  

And I think sometimes we guard our own tombs. We tell ourselves that fuller lives are not possible. We resign ourselves to a world that will never be just, that will never allow us or others to fully live. There’s a line from a Malcolm Guite poem that has resonated with me since the first time I read it. He writes about people who are “…trapped in trappings at the door they never opened, life just out of reach…” That can be all of us, sometimes: unwilling to even try to open the door, or climb out of the tomb because we believe it’s not even worth trying, that resurrection and new life are just poetic dreams and can’t be real.  

I imagine each of us might answer those questions about what’s guarding our tomb a little differently. But I do think our answers might have a few things in common. A lot of us are just tired, right? We’re exhausted and overwhelmed, and there never seems to be an end to it. Our schedules are too much and we can’t keep up. Or maybe some of us have the opposite problem. We feel irrelevant and alone, like the world is passing us by and no one even cares what we think.  

I know that many of us are afraid and anxious. I think our country and our world are afraid and anxious. We’re afraid of each other. We’re afraid of the consequences of climate change and resource destruction and migration and what those things may bring. We live in a country where there are more guns than people, and according to surveys taken of gun owners the overwhelming majority of those guns are bought for self-defense: we buy them to protect ourselves against each other. Racist hate groups are on the rise. Some people are openly threatening armed revolution and the murder of those they believe are their political enemies. The level of rage that’s present in our country, the level of rage present in this election year, can be sad and exhausting all by itself, leaving aside anything else we might have going on in our lives. It can prevent us from even trying to come out of an old way of life and into a new one, no matter how much better new life might be.  

But I think Matthew doesn’t just pose the question of what’s trying to prevent new life. I think he also points to a way out of despair and sadness and surrender, and his answer might be surprising. The story says that at the moment of resurrection, all the guards are powerless. Even as they stand watch, the resurrection has already happened. The tomb is already empty. And as those frightened and joyful women run to Jerusalem to tell their friends, they meet Jesus, who says, “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me.” 

In a way, it’s a strange thing for Jesus to say. Jesus has just told his followers that if they want to find new life, if they want to see him in his newly resurrected life, they need to go back to where they’re from. Go back to Galilee. Instead of trying to escape their lives, or retreat from them, or shut their eyes, or throw up their hands, or leave town and go somewhere they can make a new start, instead of doing those things, go back to Galilee. Go back to your ordinary, everyday lives in the world that guards our tombs, that tries to convince us that renewal is not possible. But go back believing the story the women tell: daring to believe that what seems impossible is within reach. Then – and there – you will meet the risen Christ.  

Christ is risen. In our everyday, material, physical lives, where schedules are too full and our politics are screaming at us and we’ve lost our phone and spilled our coffee and our neighbor is carrying concealed and the Venezuelan newcomer is flying a sign in front of Home Depot and the car won’t start, there, in Galilee, we will meet him.  

Christ is risen. No matter how well guarded our tombs may be, hope can still break through. New life can still break through. New life will break through. No amount of guards can possibly stop it. So Happy Easter. May you meet the risen Christ on your journey, in your Galilee, wherever it may be.