51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
Matthew 27:51-53 (ESV)
Through the Bible: Matthew 27, Mark 15
“I was today years old when…” has become a fun social media cliché. We use it when we finally discover something that should have been obvious all along. As in, “I was today years old when I realized ‘Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear’ was a hymn, not a cartoon bear with vision problems.”
In that spirit, I confess that I was today years old when I noticed this bizarre detail in Matthew 27: At the moment of Jesus’ death, tombs broke open, and righteous saints were raised to life.
That’s weird enough. But it gets weirder. Matthew says that after Jesus’ resurrection, these newly resurrected saints came out of their tombs, went into Jerusalem, and appeared to many people.
I have so many questions.
Why have I never heard a sermon about this?
Why is this only in Matthew?
Why didn’t any of them write a memoir?
And what in the world did these resurrected saints DO all weekend? If they were raised on Friday, were they just hanging out in the cemetery until Sunday afternoon?
Matthew mentions this once, and then just leaves it there. No other gospel writer includes this detail, and it’s never mentioned again in Scripture.
I would have expected some of these guys to be around in the book of Acts, maybe comparing notes with Eutychus and Tabitha (Acts 20:7–12; Acts 9:36-42).
But there’s nothing.
What is this story, and what are we supposed to do with it?
Are We Asking the Wrong Questions?
Instead of wondering why Matthew didn’t tell us more about these resurrected saints, maybe I should ask why he told us about them at all.
Remember, Matthew is the most Jewish of the four Gospels. More than any other Gospel writer, he emphasizes how Jesus fulfills the promises of the Old Testament. And resurrection was one of those promises.
- Ezekiel envisioned a day when God would open the graves of His people and bring them out (Ezekiel 37:12–13).
- Daniel foretold a day when those who slept in the dust of the earth would awaken (Daniel 12:2).
- Isaiah declared, “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise” (Isaiah 26:19).
Matthew wants his readers to understand that Jesus is the promised Messiah, and His death and resurrection are the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s promises. Even death itself is beginning to lose its grip.
Here’s something else that struck me. In my daily reading of the Psalms, I happened to be in Psalm 102 today. And there, in verses 20–21, I read about God setting free those who were doomed to die, so that they could declare His praise in Jerusalem:
Psalm 102:18–21 (ESV)
18 Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord: 19 that he looked down from his holy height; from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, 20 to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die, 21 that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord, and in Jerusalem his praise,
I don’t know whether Matthew had that particular psalm in mind. But I couldn’t help noticing the connection. These saints were raised from the dead, and then they went into Jerusalem, where many people saw them.
Matthew tells us that the tombs opened when Jesus died, but the resurrected saints didn’t appear in Jerusalem until after His resurrection. And for me, there’s still that lingering question:
What took them so long?
What We Are Raised For
Matthew doesn’t tell us what those resurrected saints were doing between Friday and Sunday.
But here’s something I do know: When God raises people from the dead, He doesn’t intend for them to keep living in the cemetery.
Paul makes this clear in Romans 6:4: “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
Notice that last phrase. We weren’t raised just to be alive. We were raised to walk in newness of life.
And yet, how often do we who have been made alive in Christ keep hanging around the places where our old selves used to live? We return to the same habits, nurse the same grudges, entertain the same temptations, and cling to the same fears. We’ve been given new life, but sometimes we act as though we’re still dead.
One of my favorite recent worship songs has this profound lyric:
I wasn’t made to be tending a grave
I was called by name
Born and raised back to life again
I was made for more
God didn’t just save us from something. He saved us for something. There is a city just down the hill. There are people waiting to hear your story of being brought from death to life.
What are you still doing hanging around the cemetery?
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