Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Hello, I'm Josh.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: And today on reading the Gospel, we are studying sealing the tomb. This is found in Matthew, chapter 27, verses 62 through 66.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Follow along with us the next day.
That is after the day of preparation.
The chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, sir, we remember how that imposter said while he was still alive. After three days after will rise, therefore.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people he has risen from the dead and the last fraud will be worse than the first. Pilate said to them, you have a guard of soldiers.
Go make it as secure as you can.
So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and. And setting a guard.
So Jesus is crucified on Friday.
He's taken down from the cross and he rests in the grave. Over the Sabbath day, His followers rested over the Sabbath. They kept the Sabbath because, you know, they wrapped him, they put him in Joseph's tomb, and then we find them Sunday morning, coming to finish the burial process.
What are the Pharisees doing? You know, these are the religious leaders. What are they doing on the Sabbath?
[00:02:02] Speaker B: They have no rest.
Because that rest comes from our relationship with our Creator and our Redeemer.
It is the outcome of spending time with him. And that was the purpose of the Sabbath to be like a channel of communication with God. Every day of the week, we connect with God, but we have to go to work, we have to put food on the table, and our minds are there right to fulfill our work responsibilities.
The Sabbath is a day set apart by God when we can connect with him.
We can see here is, even if they have accused Jesus Christ of breaking the Sabbath, they are not fulfilling the purpose of the Sabbath.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah, they had so many laws on how to keep the Sabbath. You could only walk so far. You can't work on the Sabbath, can't light a spark, all these laws. And so on this Sabbath day, they're going to court and they're going to meet with Pilate. And then not only are they going to court, they're going to the tomb and they're sealing the tomb and. And setting guards. And so they're not at peace. And I know in my life, when I was a teenager, I was getting in a lot of trouble, and my mom was my conscience. Like, she was the one. When I'd come home, she'd tell me, you know, you shouldn't be doing the things you're doing.
And I was getting mad at my mom, thinking, well, my life would be easier if my mom wasn't around.
And I wonder if this was the Pharisees, like their conscience was pricking them and thinking, if Jesus is not around, our life would be easier. And so they finally get what they wanted. They crucify Jesus, but the conscience doesn't go away, and they're not satisfied.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: So Sigmund Freud, one of the greatest psychologists, analyzed this conflict between ourselves and our conscience.
And he, as others, realized that our conscience is being fed by our beliefs.
And he said, the best way to have peace between your conscience and yourself is to stop feeding your conscience with religious beliefs. So this is why do away with religion in order to have peace in your life.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And so this is the Pharisees, they're not at peace, and they're trying to make sure Jesus stays in the tomb.
So they send guards to seal the tomb to be present.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: This priest and the Pharisees, they are in a very similar position with Herod, King Herod, who had no peace knowing that another king was born, as the wise men from the east told him.
So he decided to kill all the babies in Bethlehem who are 2 years old or younger.
Later, his son, who decided to kill John the Baptist.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: And to put John's head on a plate to serve it to his, you know, new wife.
And after John the Baptist died and Jesus Christ started to preach the Gospel, he was afraid that Jesus is John resurrected.
And now John will be on a tour of revenge against him, and he will, you know, be punished for what he's done.
My point is that all these people who kill, who reject God's plan for them, who choose violence, they have no peace in the heart.
And this is why on the day when they are supposed to experience peace, in fact, they experience restlessness.
And the day before, they stay away from Governor's mansion, not to tint themselves, not to touch something that was considered in their religion, unclean.
But the next day, this tormented thoughts were so strong that they went to Governor's mansion. They even touched the tomb to seal it.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
I want to go back to your comment on Sigmund Freud doing away with religion. Because that might. Is that the answer? Like, if. If we don't have any convictions, we're gonna live in peace?
Would it be right for the Pharisees just to stop believing in everything? And then who cares what Jesus does?
[00:07:07] Speaker B: So we have this experiment of atheism.
Right?
Atheism is by definition, a life without God.
And do they have peace for everything.
Another experiment is humanism.
The tagline of the American society of humanism is being good without a God. It used to be being good without God. Now they want to be more inclusive.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Being without a God.
Can we achieve the purpose for which we have been created?
To live in harmony with ourselves, with the people around us, with nature, and of course, with the divine.
Can we achieve this without God?
And the answer is no.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And so taking this a step further, when people come and start personal Bible studies with me, I think oftentimes one of their biggest fear is God is going to ask them to give up something they like, and so they don't want to learn.
Ignorance is bliss. There's that saying, if I don't know it's wrong, then don't tell me it's wrong.
And I think we find that attitude among Christians.
I, I don't want to know more about God because he might tell me I need to give something up.
And it all comes down to that same thought.
But really, in my life, I found the closer I grow to God, yes, I see things wrong in my life, but as God changes my character, changes who I am, and I no longer desire those things, there's a peace, there's a deeper peace, a happiness, a joy that, that I never had before. And, and I think there's nothing that God has asked me to give up that looking back on it years after, where I wish, man, I wish God had let me still do that. I wish, I wish, wish I could still do that. There's nothing in my life that I wish I could do, but God doesn't want me to do.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: So. This is why the first to be changed is the heart.
Because it is the fountain of desires, intentions, plans for the future.
If the fountain of life, that is the heart, is cleansed after that, the process of change is easier. If not will end up reacting the same way as it was described by Jesus in John chapter three, that when light comes, some people will decide to remain in darkness because they're afraid of having a spotlight on them. They didn't want to change.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: So it's easy to look at the Pharisees and say, yeah, those were evil people.
But honestly, we need to realize that if we're not careful, we do the very same thing.
And our goal should be daily getting to know God more, getting to see his face and drawing close to him, loving him more.
And he will do that work in us. Because if not, we get to a place where we start running from God. We Start hiding and we don't find peace.
You know, ultimately get into the place where we, we want to seal the tomb and make sure Jesus stays out and stays away.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Not only that, we then find peace, but we experience fears.
And this is what drove them to Pilate on a sacred day, to break the their own rules of keeping that day.
And they remember just one of the words of Jesus Christ, one of his sermons, one of his prophecies.
He said that after three days, I will arise.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: And they ask for a guard only for three days.
It's also interesting how Pilate is playing with their fears and say, look, I have a guard for you.
But. But you can use this soldier to make the tomb as secure as you can.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: So they decided what to do and they secured the tomb by sealing the stone and also by setting a guard.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Technically they said we've done everything we could.
And because it was in their hands, it was not. The details are not executed by Pilate, but by them.
Now, they had no excuse on the day of resurrection when Jesus Christ rose and they couldn't find him there.
So they are forced to lie.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: So we see how evil is snowballing.
First the Pharisees decided to reject the message of Jesus Christ and his Messianship and his divine origin.
After that, they decided to annihilate his voice, to isolate.
And he went away from Jerusalem, preaching in the northern territories, even in the Jordan kingdom today.
And eventually they decided to kill him.
And now, after using Pilate as a dirty hand to execute their plans, now they are doing everything possible to secure the tomb, but for no avail. Because the power of God is, is always stronger than the power of evil.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: We can find ourselves in that same thing where, where we start with a white lie, and then we have to build on that white lie, so we have to outright lie. And then we, you know, you, you, you can find yourself in this path down to evil and destruction and destruction by allowing little things to happen.
Let's pray.
Father God, I pray that our eyes are on you and that we don't fear getting to know you.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: I pray, Father, that you will fill us with the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: I pray, Father, that you help us to turn from evil and that we follow the conscience. When your Holy Spirit guides us, may we never be satisfied with turning from you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Amen.
