One advantage to having aligned myself with the more "high church" denominations is that the major holidays. Twelve days of Christmas and 50 days of Easter! Therefore I get to post this Babylon Bee Easter skit. The background is this passage from the 28th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, describing the situation a few days after Jesus was crucified and buried in a rock tomb.
Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead....”
While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So they took the money and did as they were directed.
It must have been a goodly sum of money to get the guards to confess to having fallen asleep on duty. I'm sure the penalties for that were severe—not to mention the shame. And the story about Jesus' disciples stealing his body and pretending that he had risen from the dead could easily have had credibility in the early days. But given what they later went through because of their insistence on the truth of Jesus' resurrection, I don't see how it could have held up. (five-minute video)
Sure, people throughout history have given themselves over to torture and death for things they believed to be true and important, even if they were wrong. But how long could you maintain that attitude about a lie that you knew to be a lie because you orchestrated it yourself?
