Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
(Matthew 28:1)
Jesus was dead. There was a guard outside His tomb to make sure that His disciples didn't come to steal the body. What was Jesus doing? The same thing He did at the end of the first week of time: "And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done" (Genesis 2:2).
The Creation account continues: "So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy" (Genesis 2:3). Jesus, being the Second Person of the Trinity and God incarnate, certainly would not use the Sabbath day as the day of resurrection. Why? The Jews, who honored and worshipped the Sabbath day of rest, would never accept Him as their Messiah because He would have broken the Sabbath. After all, if picking up sticks in the yard on the Sabbathwas considered work punishable by stoning (Numbers 15:32-36), obviously raising one's self from the dead would be considered work and not rest.
But the Sabbath was made for rest. That's what God had designed it to be. Just as He worked six days, on the seventh day He had finished His work of Creation. Jesus had spent the bulk of Holy Week in Jerusalem teaching or suffering for the sins of the world. On the seventh day, He rested from His work that He had completed when He cried out with a loud voice, "It is finished! and gave up His ghost (John 19:30).
Jesus rested on the Sabbath after His death so that He could rise again on the first day of the week--symbolizing the newness of life and creation because of God's plan of salvation. More on that when we get to Easter. Amen.
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free