Saturday, April 16, 2022

Easter Vigil, 2022

 We got through Good Friday. Now we just have to wait for Easter morning to rejoice in our Savior’s resurrection. If you have kids – or are a kid at heart – you might be coloring eggs today. Maybe you are getting ready for a big dinner with the family tomorrow, cooking and cleaning house. It’s Saturday, so you are probably busy with something.

But all those years ago, that first Saturday after Jesus’ body was laid in the tomb, all good Jewish families were honoring the Sabbath that day. No work was being done; they were attending worship, reading the Psalms, singing hymns, and saying prayers. The followers of Jesus were doing all that and more. They were lost in their thoughts, having lost their Teacher and Leader. They wondered if they would see Him again, if it were possible He would rise from the dead the following day.

Matthew chapter 27, verses 57 - 66, New King James Version

Jesus Buried in Joseph’s Tomb

Now when evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him. When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb, and departed. And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb.

Pilate Sets a Guard

On the next day, which followed the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, saying, “Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead.’ So the last deception will be worse than the first.”

Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go 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.

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