September 29th

September 29th -- Matthew 28:8-15

It's just short, so please read the passage!

I think most of us have undoubtedly seen those movies where there's a good guy and a bad guy, and the bad guy just seems unbeatable. He seems to hold all the strings and be able and willing to pull them at will to get what he wants and keep his position of power. When anything that threatens his power appears, he wipes it out. It's one of those movies where everything returning to good seems hopeless. But, there's suddenly a good guy. He pulls of something nobody has done before - he actually starts to take some of the bad guy's power and drives the bad guy to desperation, which he shows by acting out of that desperation.Then, though, the hero seems to vanish for ages. People tell stories of him, talking of the hero who overpowered the villain. Few believe, most falling back into the power of the villain. However, normally at the end of the movie, the hero suddenly magically appears out of nowhere and takes out the bad guy and all his baddies for good. It's a somewhat common movie plot, really.
It's a lot like God and the devil, or more specifically in the instance of this passage. The religious leaders really were a bit like a dictatorship or an aristocracy. Jesus was the hero who came out of nowhere. He drove the religious leaders to such desperation that they bribed their soldiers to lie. For thousands of years so many people have believed that lie that it Jesus never rose - his disciples merely took his body from the tomb. However, it's not the end of the movie. The movie ends when Jesus returns. That's when he'll wipe out the bad guy, being the devil, for good.

Pardon my weird comparison, that's just what it made me think of...
God bless! Shalom!