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There is only one recorded event in the Bible that is believed to have occurred on this Saturday and only Matthew records it. It is important because it records for posterity that the tomb of Jesus was guarded by Roman Soldiers and because of this it would have been impossible for His Disciples to have come and taken His body from the tomb without the soldiers knowing it.
Notice it was the evil minds of the Pharisees that made this possible. They, when they should have been worshipping for it was the Sabbath, were dealing with Pilate to have the tomb secured. Notice their petition to Pilate. They remind Pilate that He had said before He died that He would come back in 3 days, He would rise from the dead. They remembered, and with great fear and trembling, tried to do something about it. His Disciples, if they remembered, surly doubted and did nothing about it.
The Pharisees tried to down play this prophecy by giving as their reason for a guard, to keep the Disciples from stealing his body from the tomb and them telling everybody that He had arisen. What were they really afraid of? They were afraid of the "reality of the resurrection". Many by now believed that Jesus was truly the Messiah, the Son of God, and would truly resurrect from the dead. The resurrection would have done away with all power and tradition of the Jewish higharchy. They could not allow this to happen.
To the Chief Priests and Pharisees, His claims to have been the Messiah was a fraud and if the Disciples had been able to steal the body of Jesus and claim that it had resurrected, that fraud would have been worse than the first.
Notice their request of Pilate and his answer to them. They requested him to "secure the sepulcher". Pilate was beginning to get caught up into something that he really didn't want any part of. The day before he had granted a high Jewish authority to bury the body of Jesus, now today the Pharisees were there trying to make him take the responsibility for "securing" the tomb. Notice Pilate only granted half of their request. "You will have a guard, go make it as secure as you can."
Much can be suggested in this reply. He granted their request for guards at the tomb and we know from the next event that they were given two guards for each shift, around the clock. But, he does not appear to have much faith in the security. He seems to believe that if Jesus was going to return from the dead, the guard was not going to stop him. He gave them permission to "secure" the tomb the best they could, but it does not appear that he put much faith in what they could do. The first century historian, Tertullian, believed that Pilate was under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and weather he knew it or not, believed that this Jesus was the Messiah.
So the Pharisees set the guard and sealed the stone, not knowing that they were placing the very people that would witness and proclaim the resurrection.
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