A text for Easter Sunday – Matthew 28:1-10
28 After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he[a] lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
A reflection:
OK, this is Holy Week. Christians know what is going to happen in the story for this Sunday. All the emotions are close to the surface – love for the Lord, consternation that he picked fights with the religious leaders to get them to see something they had been used to not seeing, disgust that Pilate, who could have prevented this suffering, just washed his hands of it, agony and guilt seeing Jesus go through pain and suffering because we know he did it for us, sympathy for Mary and John at the foot of the cross, gratitude for Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea who helped at the crucial moments of death, and mysterious awe that God (of course) raised Jesus from death. Perhaps I never really know, year after year, what to make of it – experiencing both fear and joy at the same time, like the two Marys in this story.
And then I have to laugh. The two women are just going to see the tomb – visiting the cemetery, as one does after a burial – to sadly pay their respects. And suddenly “there was a great earthquake.” Why? Because “an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.” I don’t know how you think of angels moving in our world, but it strikes me that this one was not all light and grace. The stone is extremely heavy, of course, but the angel rolls it back and sits on it. He is a weighty angel, or at least doing weighty work. He terrifies the Roman guards into a faint. Then he tells his message to the two women, as angels do. An at the end of it he actually says, “This is my message for you.” The two women, with fear and great joy, obey his instructions and, on their way, meet the risen Lord. Whoa. It was the exact opposite of what they had been expecting. Jesus surprised them, as he always surprises us human beings. Jesus cannot be held by our preconceived notions or even a tomb with a stone that an angel needs an earthquake to move. He is already risen and outside the tomb, the construction meant to contain death. There is a hugeness in this Easter story – an unexpected big earthquake-y funniness we are not expecting either. There is joy and a lot to do.
The story continues with us all, because the Resurrection is for us all. The angel is speaking to us all. You and I are to go, and tell, and look for Jesus, for we too will see him.
A prayer:
Lord God, thank you for loving us. Thank you for being our resurrected Lord who waits for us. Thank you for the tremendous mix of emotions that propel us outward from misery and sorrow and free us to live life without fear of death. Amen.
Short Dwellings in the Word by Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison 