No, no, not the kind you’re thinking. Not the kind where people say the Bible is just a bunch of stories that man came up with and put together to fool all of us ‘poor’ Christians into believing something that isn’t true. Most all of you that know me know where I stand on the Bible – it is Holy, infallible, inerrant and perfect.
The kind of conspiracy I’m talking about is the kind we find recorded in Matthew 27:62-66, and 28:11-15. In the first passage, the chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate and asked him if they could set up soldiers at the sepulchre to prevent the disciples from stealing Jesus’ body and claiming He had risen. They called Jesus a ‘deceiver’, and didn’t want His final, most important claim to appear to be true, so they guarded the sepulchre to keep the disciples away.
What’s astounding to me is that they were so blinded by their disbelief that they didn’t even stop to consider the possibility of His actual resurrection. Of course, there is nothing they could have done to stop it, but they were so concerned about a possible conspiracy about His resurrection that they didn’t even consider it.
We know how the story goes – Jesus rose! There was a great earthquake, and an angel descended from Heaven and moved the stone away from the door of the sepulchre, and sat on it. The guards were scared out of their skin and fainted. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the sepulchre and found the angel there, sitting on the stone. He told them Jesus wasn’t there because He had risen as He had said.
In the second passage I mentioned earlier, Matthew 28:11-15, the guards went to the chief priests and told them what all had happened. Knowing that Jesus’ promise of His resurrection had been fulfilled, they were bribed to tell anyone who asked that the disciples had come and stolen away His body while they slept.
Rather than accept Jesus’ resurrection, and believe on Him as their Savior, they did everything they could to cover up His resurrection. Why? Really, we can only speculate, but I’d imagine it involves pride, power and control, among other things no doubt.
How many people do you know who haven’t received Christ as their Savior? Sure, their pride, their own self-attained power and their supposed control seem to get in the way a lot of times. But how many have possibly never heard a real, clear presentation of the Gospel? We may be surprised to find out how many haven’t heard the good news! How about we share it with someone?