Reflections with Andy - Matthew 28: 11-15 – Following Jesus is Hard

In this Wednesday morning reflection on Matthew 28:11–15, the focus turns to the guards who witnessed the resurrection firsthand and then accepted a bribe from the chief priests to spread a cover story — that the disciples had stolen Jesus’s body. Using this often-overlooked post-Easter passage as a jumping-off point, the reflection asks a pointed question: what is your integrity worth? While the guards sold theirs for money, the greater temptation for most of us isn’t financial — it’s the approval of others, the comfort of going along with the crowd, the pull of cultural Christianity that lets us mouth the words of faith without truly living them. Drawing on Kierkegaard’s insight that “the hardest thing is to be a Christian in Christendom,” the reflection closes with a simple but weighty call: the Gospel isn’t complicated — it’s just hard. So follow Jesus today, even when it costs you something.

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Good morning! It’s good to be with you this Wednesday as we continue our daily reflections. This week we’re looking at different things the Gospels tell us happened after Easter Sunday. Since I preached from Matthew 28 on Sunday, let’s return there today — specifically verses 11 through 15, right on the heels of the Easter story.

Here’s what it says:

“While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priest had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, ‘You must say his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were sleeping. If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’ They took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.”

Verses 1 through 10 tell the resurrection story — Jesus is raised, he tells the women to go preach to the apostles, “do not be afraid,” “go to my brothers,” and so forth. And as the women were leaving to carry that message, verse 4 reminds us that the guards — who earlier had shaken and “became like dead men” at the sight of the angel — are now back at it. So as the women were leaving, the guards went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. And the chief priests’ response? Essentially: here’s some money, just tell people the disciples came and took the body.

There are so many fascinating little post-Easter stories we don’t talk about enough. The two that get the most attention are probably Doubting Thomas — which I’ll be preaching on this coming Sunday at Saint Matthew’s, one of my favorite stories in all of Scripture; I think Thomas gets a real bum rap — and then the encounter on the road to Emmaus, where Jesus appears to the disciples as they’re walking. Those two tend to dominate the post-Easter conversation. Yesterday we talked about Mark’s longer ending. But this story in Matthew is something else entirely.

What strikes me here isn’t just the resurrection angle. Yes, it’s part of the Easter story. But this passage raises some deeper questions about integrity. What is your integrity worth? What is the value of your word? What is the value of your soul? Jesus himself asked it: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?”

These guards were front-row spectators to the resurrection. They saw the angel. They lived through it. They witnessed all of it. And then the religious leaders came along and said, essentially, “How about for a little money, we all pretend that didn’t happen?” And the guards went along with it. They got protection from Rome, a nice payday, and a way to stay out of trouble.

But that kind of peace — a peace built on a lie — isn’t peace at all.

These soldiers thought they were avoiding trouble, staying out of the governor’s crosshairs, keeping themselves safe. But in the end, they sold their integrity. And there’s a lot of integrity being sold in this part of the story, isn’t there? Judas went for thirty pieces of silver. These soldiers, we don’t know the amount, but it was “a large sum.” They exchanged truth for a profit. And that’s worth sitting with — because what will we exchange our integrity for? What will we be willing to compromise on what we know to be true?

Honestly, it’s rarely money. I’d say money is actually one of the less common temptations when it comes to compromising our integrity. Because all of life, in some ways, is still the middle school cafeteria. Our great temptation is often peer pressure — What will others think of me? Will I be approved of? Will I be liked? Popularity isn’t just a teenage struggle. We all want to be thought well of. That’s human nature.

It makes me think of something Søren Kierkegaard said. If you don’t know Kierkegaard, he was an 18th-century Danish philosopher — one of the founding existentialists — who pushed back hard against the cultural Christianity of his day. And I think our cultural context always matters. Here in the Deep South, even though things have changed, Christianity is still kind of the norm. And that makes it very easy to mouth the words of Christ without actually living them. It’s very easy to be culturally Christian — showing up on Easter Sunday, going through the motions, going along with what everyone says our faith is — without ever digging deep into Scripture, without actually wrestling with what it means to follow Jesus.

Kierkegaard said it brilliantly: “The hardest thing is to be a Christian in Christendom.” I’ve always summarized it this way — when everybody’s a Christian, nobody has to act like one.

Rich Mullins captured it too: It’s hard to turn the other cheek. It’s hard to be a man of peace. It’s hard to be like Jesus.Being a peacemaker is hard. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness is hard. The Gospel isn’t complicated — it’s just hard.

These guards exchanged their integrity for a vast sum of money. What will we be tempted to exchange ours for? It probably won’t be money. It might be the applause of others, the approval of the crowd, the comfort of just going along. All of life remains the middle school cafeteria, friends. And following the Gospel is always hard — no matter the age, no matter the place.

So let’s follow Jesus today — even if it calls us to a hard place.

Thank you for being with me. Tomorrow we’ll look at another post-resurrection account. Have a great day!