So, Peter and John, left the grave pronto! It could be that they were afraid that the Jews were watching them, not knowing what they planned to do to/or with them, they stayed in their rooms behind locked doors for fear of them! Realising that Jesus was taken from the tomb, added to their fears! I can imagine that they felt completely disturbed, for in their minds they thought that it could only be the Jews, that for an unknown reason, took away Christ’s body, they may have done it so that they, His disciples, did not make His tomb a meeting place, and turn it into a shrine. Such a thing was the last thing that they wanted. It was for that reason that they sealed the tomb, and put guards to make sure that His disciples did not come to take his body, and that the Lord’s body remained under their control. If the disciples concluded that the Jews, did it, it left them worried and unsettled, for as yet, they did not believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead.

It is written that before the Passover started: ‘The chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate and said: Sir, we remember that while He was still alive that deceiver said: ‘After three days,’ I will rise again. So, give the order for the tomb to be made sure until the third day. Otherwise, His disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that He has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first. ‘Take a guard’ Pilate answered: ‘Go make the tomb as secure as you know how.’ So, they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guards.’ (Matthew 27: 62-65) It is obvious that Pilate did not want to see Jesus again either! It appears that their master, the devil, run out of options, and could not find a better way to keep Jesus’s body sealed in the tomb. They were left to their human devices, but as says a Hymn: ‘Death could not keep its prey, Jesus my Saviour, He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord! Up from the grave He arose.’ 

It is a historical fact that over twenty centuries, since those days, shrines have been set up by various religions, all over the world, and we can, as true Christians, born again of the Holy Spirit, deplore the idolatry that is encourages by the clergy, they do this in supposed Christian lands, and mislead a lot of disillusioned people, that call themselves Christians, into idols worshippers. In my one visit, to what is called the ‘Holy land,’ (Palestine), I realised, while being there for a week, that masses of people, from various Christian confessions, have set up their places of pilgrimage all over Palestine, especially in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. As a visitor I entered a Greek Orthodox temple, what I saw and heard was horrible, I soon got out of it, it was demonic!

Yet, millions of people gather there regularly to worship, and bow down to their idols. There is nothing holy about them. I will not go into details and dwell on it, but this is what the Jews feared could happen, for idolators have polluted Palestine with temples and shrines for centuries, even before the Israelites conquered Palestine under Joshua. Nevertheless, Palestine is still the heritage that God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and eventually they will possess it forever! As prophesied by the prophets of the Old Testament and Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul, prophesies, their restauration, in his epistle to the Romans chapter eleven. All the epistles make mention of a time, when Jesus will return as King Eternal, to take over the government of the world for a thousand years, which will followed by a new heaven and a new earth.

Since then, almost every country in the world, has some kind of shrine, which millions of people, some called Christians, visit regularly, not knowing that Jesus is alive, and that the only way one can really worship and approach God, is in Spirit through Jesus Christ. They spend a lot of money to buy relics, status, etcetera, to take them home as fetishes. Millions of people, from all religions, travel and walk many, many miles, all over the world, to worship their false gods and idols! In my evangelistic ministry in France, I visited Lourdes, in the south of the country. It was an eye opener! How Rome brought it to a place of total surrender to worship of demons, and in other places, is unthinkable! It is its greatest crime!