[Footnote 13: John ii., 18-21.]
[Footnote 14: John x.. 17-18.]
These are only samples of the frequent and public declarations made by our Lord to the same effect. And it was so well known among the Jews that he had staked his entire cause on his resurrection, that they came to Pilate, immediately after his crucifixion, and said to him: "Sir, we have remembered that that seducer said, while he was yet alive: After three days I will rise again. Command therefore the sepulchre to be guarded until the third day." [Footnote 15]
[Footnote 15: Matt. xxvii., 63-64.]
Here, then, is the grand test of the truth of Christ's doctrine—the grand sign of his divinity; the public challenge which he gives to all his enemies. We have it on the testimony of the most desperate haters of his name and doctrine; the very men who nailed him to the Cross. They were resolved to prove his prediction false, to show that he could not, and would not, rise again, and thus to manifest him to the world as a seducer. At the sepulchre of Jesus Christ, then, is the trial of strength between them. The dead body of Jesus is on one side; the Jewish rulers, the Roman governor, and a strong watch of soldiers on the other. And Jesus Christ overcame; he actually did rise, as he had foretold: "resurrexit sicut dixit;" and all their precautions only served to furnish so many brilliant testimonies to the fact, that he had fulfilled his word.
II.
Picture to yourselves, if you can, the scenes of those three memorable days! The Sun of Justice, the Light of the World, has gone down in darkness. Jesus Christ is dead; he is buried, and a great stone is rolled to the door of the sepulchre. The disciples are scattered here and there, buried in the most profound and bitter disappointment, consternation and grief. The multitudes have fled hastily from Mount Calvary, some beating their breasts with contrition, some blaspheming, but all in terror. The heavens are overclouded and black, the thunder moans, and an earthquake shakes the earth. The frightened inhabitants of Jerusalem, as they return to their homes, are met in the streets by the pale corpses of the dead, who have left their graves, and are wandering about among the living. In the temple, those wicked and unworthy priests are startled at the sudden tearing, by an invisible hand, of the thick and heavy veil which hangs before the Holy of Holies. An ominous stillness sinks over the city of Jerusalem after that dreadful, tragical day. It is the eve of the greatest Sabbath of the year. The Sabbath morning dawns once more; all is apparently quiet, and God does not appear, to take sudden vengeance on his guilty people. Annas and Caiphas, and those other wicked priests who have sacrificed the Lamb of God, with their souls all black and turbid with remorse, but with a grim and diabolical exultation in the success of their horrid work, prepare themselves in splendid vestments for the sacrifices and the ceremonies of the day. The countless multitudes of Jews, gathered together from every part of the world to keep the Passover, crowd the vast courts of the temple. The disciples remain shut up, in silence and in fear. The Roman soldiers guard the shut and sealed sepulchre of Jesus. The day passes and the night, and nothing occurs. The first streaks of the dawn begin to appear in the sky on Sunday morning. The disciples have forgotten the promise of their Master to rise on the third day, and have lost heart entirely. Mary Magdalene, and the other pious women, have planned to steal out early to visit his tomb, and to bring their spices, and perfumes, and fresh flowers, to cast upon his dead body. They set forth together; while still in the distance, they are frightened by the sight of torches and armed men in the garden. They have not courage to go on; and they remember that a great stone is at the door of the sepulchre, which will hinder their entrance. Only the courageous and loving Mary Magdalene has the hardihood to press forward at all risks, leaving the others hovering about in the neighborhood of the garden. As she approaches the sepulchre, she sees the stone rolled away to one side; she pays no attention to the soldiers who are lying on the ground, apparently stunned and insensible, but goes in, and the body of Jesus Christ is not there; his grave-clothes are lying in the spot where his body was placed, and an angel is watching the empty sepulchre. Bewildered and surprised, and occupied only with the thought that the body is gone, she runs hastily back to the place where John and other apostles are staying, tells them in breathless haste what she has seen, and without waiting for a reply, returns as speedily as possible to the sepulchre. Meanwhile, during Magdalene's absence, the other women observing that the soldiers have left the gar-den, come also to the sepulchre, see the stone rolled away, go in, and find two angels sitting, one at the head, the other at the foot of the place where Christ was laid. The angels tell them that Christ is risen, and bid them go announce it to his disciples, and direct them to meet him in Galilee, as he had commanded them before his death. They now leave the garden to return to the city, and Magdalene arrives once more, and while these things are happening the sun has risen, the sun of the first Easter Sunday, the type of the Risen Sun of Justice. Mary Magdalene goes into the sepulchre again, and begins to weep, still too much occupied with the thought that the body of Christ is gone, to reflect on any thing else. She sees the angels; but to the questions: "Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?" she answers distractedly, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." She turns around, and sees the figure of a man, whom she takes to be the gardener, and asks him where they have taken the body of Jesus. The well-known voice exclaims: "Mary!" She suddenly recognizes the Lord, and utters a cry of joy: "Oh, my Master!" She tries to clasp him by the feet, but he forbids her, and bids her go, announce his resurrection to the disciples. She sets off immediately, and in a few moments Peter and John arrive, visit the sepulchre, and see that the body is not there. They also return to the city. Immediately after his interview with Mary Magdalene, the Lord appears also to her companions, while they are returning to their homes. He was also seen by Peter some time during the day. Toward evening he joins two of the disciples, who were going to Emmaus, a small village near Jerusalem, and explains to them the prophecies of the Scripture concerning himself, but is not recognized by them, until he blesses bread and gives it to them, and then disappears from view. So the day passes. First one arrives at the coenaculum, and relates his story, then another, then others; the day passes in comparing these different accounts, in conversing together, in expectation of what is going to happen. When night draws on, the apostles and disciples are gathered together for prayer; the two from Emmaus come in just then, and relate their interview with the Lord, when suddenly he appears among them, and says: "Peace be unto you." So passes this day. The four Evangelists give no regular and methodical account of it. All these occurrences are related by some one or more of them; and I have strung them together in an order in which they might have happened, and which reconciles all the accounts with each other.
Such is the narrative of the Gospel. Is it true? Did these things really happen? In regard to one fact, Christians, Jews and Romans were agreed. The body of Jesus Christ was removed from a closed and sealed tomb, guarded by Roman soldiers, by early dawn on the morning of Easter Sunday. It was removed either by Divine power, or by human ingenuity. The rulers of the Jews circulated the report, which they have repeated to this day, that his disciples came and stole him away, while the guard was sleeping. "What!" exclaims St. Augustine, "you will prove your cause by sleeping witnesses?" If they were asleep, they knew nothing of the way by which the body disappeared. And if they were awake to see the disciples steal it, why did they not kill them on the spot. The guard were sleeping! A guard of Roman soldiers. Who can believe that? For a Roman soldier to sleep at his post was an extraordinary and most disgraceful thing, and here we have a whole band of them, with an officer at their head—sleeping. The punishment was death. In this case especially, no mercy could have been expected, where both Roman and Jewish rulers were so deeply interested in putting an end to the religion of Christ. How did they dare confess their sleeping, unless they were in connivance with the authorities, and bribed to repeat this story. Why was no trial held? Why were not these soldiers examined before a tribunal? Why was no search made for the body of Jesus, and for his disciples? Why is the whole matter hushed up by common consent between Pilate and Caiphas? There is only one possible supposition. And that is: that the soldiers saw the resurrection of the Lord—that they related it to their rulers, and that by bribes and threats their testimony was suppressed. I will not pause to accumulate arguments. I will not speak of the impossibility that Jesus Christ should be able to predict that his disciples would attempt such an incredible task as the removal of his body, and succeed in it. I will not speak of their timidity, and their perfect want of all plan of action, all means of carrying out any project whatever; of their complete perplexity and helplessness; and of the utter madness of sacrificing all their worldly goods and their lives, to carry out a manifest imposture. These things are so plain, that reasoning only seems to weaken the effect with which they strike conviction to the mind at the first statement.
I return to this simple fact, that the tale circulated by the soldiers, in common with Pilate and the Jewish rulers, is a complete and irresistible proof of the Resurrection. And there are evidences in abundance that it was so regarded at the time, that this incredible tale was only believed by the most stupid and besotted portion of the populace, and by those who knew nothing of the matter, except what they heard by vague rumors. We have the testimony of Tertullian that even Pilate was convinced of the truth of the resurrection, "Ea omnia super Christo Pilatus, et ipse pro conscientia sua jam Christianus, Tiberio renuntiavit." [Footnote 16]