Command therefore that the sepulchre be made secure.
The Jew and the Roman watching the sepulchre
I. This passage of sacred history illustrates the truth that God has “made all things for Himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.” “There is no counsel, nor wisdom, nor understanding against the Lord.”
II. Some Christians are chosen of God to display by their great trials His power and wisdom, as Christ was by His death and burial and resurrection.
III. Bad men should be objects of pity rather than of fear or anger.
IV. Everything relating to the resurrection of Christ is unspeakably interesting for this reason, “He was raised again for our justification.” (N. Adams, D. D.)
Sabbath-breaking
It is a poetical justice that they who have so often accused the Saviour of Sabbath-breaking, now themselves finally desecrate this day. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
Anxiety on account of Christ, even when dead
It is a common proverb, “Dead men bite not.” But here Christ, though dead and buried, bites and beats hard upon these evil men’s consciences. They could not rest the whole night before, for fear He should get out of the grave some way, and so create them further trouble. Scipio appointed his sepulchre to be so placed, as his image standing upon it might look directly towards Africa, that being dead, he might still be a terror to the Carthaginians. And Cadwallo, an ancient king of this island, commanded his dead body to be embalmed and put into a brazen image, and so set upon a brazen horse over Ludgate for a terror to the Saxons. It is well-known that Zisca, that brave Bohemian, charged his Taborites to flay his corpse, and head a drum with his skin; the sound whereof, as oft as the enemies heard, they should be appalled and put to flight. And our Edward
I. adjured his son and nobles that if he died in his journey into Scotland, they should carry his corpse about with them, and not suffer it to be interred till they had vanquished the usurper and subdued the country. Something like to this the prophet Isaiah foretelleth of our Saviour (and we see it here accomplished), when he saith, “In that day the root of Jesse shall stand up for an ensign to the people, and even his rest (or, as some read it, his sepulchre) shall be glorious (Isaiah 11:10). There are that think that these words, “The day that followed the day of the preparation,” are put ironically, or by way of a jest against the hypocritical sabbatism of the high priests, who would so workday-like, beg the body, seal the sepulchre, and set the watch on that Sabbath, for the which they seemed to prepare so devoutly before it came. (John Trapp.)
Unavailing precautions
Now they seemed to dance upon Christ’s grave, as thinking themselves cock-sure of Him. So did those bloody tyrants of the primitive times make no other reckoning, but to raze out the name of Christ from under heaven. Therefore, also, they did not only constitute laws and proclamations against Christians, but did engrave the same laws in tables of brass, meaning to make all things firm for ever and a day. But He that sat in heaven, and said, “Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion,” laughed at them; Jehovah had them in derision. Look how Daniel was innocently condemned, cast into the lions’ den, had the door sealed upon him, and, to see to, no hope or means of life was left him; and yet, by God’s good providence, he came forth untouched, and was made a greater man than before. So our blessed Saviour was innocently condemned, cast into the grave, sealed up among the dead, and to common judgment left as out of mind; yet early in the morning, at the time appointed by the power of His Deity, He raised Himself from death, and gloriously triumphed over it and hell. (John Trapp.)