"62 The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate 63 and said, “Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise, his disciples may go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception would be worse than the first” Matthew 27: 62-64.
This text above from Matthew’s Gospel is not often remembered or discussed. But I am intrigued by the chief priests and Pharisees returning to Pilate after the death and burial of Jesus to request that Jesus’ tomb be made secure so that Jesus’ disciples cannot steal Jesus’ body and pretend that He has risen from the dead. What intrigues me is that they call Jesus an “imposter”. Jesus is, in other words, not who He says He is. He is a fake. A pretender. An imposter. What they are telling Pilate is that the true Jesus in His heart and soul, the true Jesus on the inside, you might say, is not at all how He projected Himself to be externally, in His words and actions. He is two people, a liar who wishes to project Himself externally in a way that conflicts with His true, internal self.
But sometimes I have been an imposter, projecting externally to others who I am not internally. That’s what sin can create in each of us, moments in our life when we hide who we truly are sometimes. We can project externally a person who is sure, deliberate, kind and strong, a success in every way, while internally we know we have let Jesus down by pushing Him away from our life. Our internal, private failures we sometimes hide. Our fears and insecurities we keep hidden.
I thank God, however, that He knows us as we are and still loves us. The apostle Paul said it so well when He acknowledged that “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” Romans 5:8. I cannot imagine that the disciples of Jesus would have ever stolen the body of Jesus and then lied about His resurrection. They loved Jesus. They were His friends. They would have agreed with C. S. Lewis who wrote centuries later, “Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a good fire” (From The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Vol. 2, to Dom Bede Griffiths on Dec.21, 1941)?
So today Invite you to join me in an honest look at who you are when you welcome sin into your life. Pray that you will shed forever the imposter that sin creates in you. Be the person god created you to be because you are beautiful, a most fabulous creation of God. Give God thanks and follow Christ! Follow Christ!
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
From the Bible:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” John 3:16.
“27 So God created humans in His image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” Genesis 1:27 & 31.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith” Ephesians 2:8.
“Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” Hebrews 10:24.
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