He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.
Easter sunrise, Toronto 2025
The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, ‘Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, “After three days I will rise again.” Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, “He has been raised from the dead”, and the last deception would be worse than the first.’ Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.’ So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.(Matthew 27, 60-66)
All the gospels agree that after the crucifixion of Jesus, someone closed the tomb where His disciples had laid him with a large stone. Not all the gospels say who placed the stone or what reason they had, but all agree the women who went to anoint Jesus on the morning of the first day of the week worried about how they would move it.
The stone has always struck me as an apt metaphor for the futility, the folly of human concerns in the shadow of eternity and the face of the Almighty. If a neutron star could have been brought to the Earth, it would not have held that tomb closed.