DAY SEVEN:  SATURDAY

The Guarded Tomb

Right after Jesus was crucified, some of his followers wanted to ensure the body had a proper burial, unlike the unceremonious discarding of most crucified bodies. One person in particular, a wealthy man named Joseph from the city of Arimathea, asked Pilate if he could care for the body. He got permission and took Jesus’s body to a new tomb he had recently cut out of rock. Once the body was in the tomb, he rolled a huge stone in front of it.

On Saturday, Jesus’s body laid in the tomb, and his disciples and followers observed the Sabbath in sorrow and mourning. In addition to grieving, the disciples likely spent the day in hiding. After all, if their leader was killed by the powers that be, it wouldn’t be long before people would be coming after them.
In the meantime, the Roman government wanted to make sure nothing would happen to that body. After all, Jesus had alluded to the fact that he would rise again. Now, to be sure, no one expected what was going to happen on Sunday. Still, the religious leaders who wanted Jesus gone in the first place wanted to be confident there would be no sort of uprising. If anyone took that body out of the tomb, they knew the stories about Jesus still being alive would spread like wildfire.
Listen as Matthew recounts what transpired the day after Jesus’s death.