Voices around Easter 7 - Easter Day - the High Priest tries to understand what has happened

We are back in the High Priest's study. He is there on his own, recalling his concerns of a few days ago, and wondering what the consequences of the events of Easter Day will turn out to be. 

It has turned out worse than I feared. We did have to proceed against Jesus, and we did succeed in getting Pilate to condemn him. That was quite a performance. We had to threaten the Procurator with a charge of disloyalty to Caesar. So he had to find a way to save face by releasing Barabbas instead of Jesus. So Jesus was crucified and died, and was buried. Job done. 

But it's what happened after that I'm worried about. It looks as if my spies have not been doing their job. Joseph of Arimathea is a disciple of Jesus – a secret one, but he’s come out now by asking Pilate for the body to bury. And, to my surprise, Nicodemus helped with the burial and he is one of our Council. What was he doing? How had he got to know Jesus?

Then some in the Council remembered that Jesus’ preaching suggested that he might rise from the dead in three days. Impossible, quite impossible, I know, but just to be sure we had sentries placed by the tomb and we got Pilate’s agreement.

But something quite remarkable and unexpected has happened. We don’t know exactly what. It’s now the third day since he died and the sentries are found dead, the stone rolled away from the tomb and the body is no longer there. Worse than that, Jesus’ friends have found out about it and it won’t be long before they are telling everyone. Luckily for us they are keeping quiet for now. They’re still afraid of us. There may still be time for us to put a lid on the story.

So we’ve got the spin doctors working. They’ve got a couple of lines to put out. They are tweeting already. One line is that Jesus was not really dead and has resuscitated and gone away, probably to Galilee. The other is that his friends have stolen the body. I don’t think much of either of them really, but you’ve got to go with the stories you’ve got. Firstly, the Romans are expert executioners and would not have made a mistake. And for the second story, the stone could not have been rolled away that easily. If we could produce the body and show that he is dead, that would settle matters. But that’s just it. We don’t have the body to produce. There’s a big internal inquiry about what went wrong already started. Have to be confidential, of course. Gagging order on everyone involved. But then, if you think about it, transparency in inquiries won’t become commonplace for centuries, if that!

What has happened? I have to admit to myself that I don’t know. Publicly we’ll have to stick to one of those stories – or both. But we can’t prove anything. I’m not sure his friends can either, at least not in a forensic way.

I’m stuck with a pack of what-ifs and they won’t go away. Looking at it from a more open point of view, Jesus’ teaching was inspirational, properly scriptural, challenging but sympathetic. If only he had not claimed to be the Messiah, what a lot of good he could have done - that’s what we all think.

 But what if we are wrong? What if Jesus is in some way divine, that he was so close to God that he could have been his son? What if he has risen from the dead? What if his friends see him alive again? What will they do? What will it mean? I can’t help thinking that whatever it will be, it’s going to be quite a story.