Text: Matthew 28:1-10
Focus: Easter
Function: To learn not to fear because of Christ
28:1After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2And 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. 3His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. 4For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7Then 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.” 8So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. 9Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Christ is Risen! (He is risen indeed)
Happy Easter Everyone.
Today we get to celebrate the resurrection of the Christ. I mis-titled this sermon. It is titled the Power of Christ, but I want to add the definite article”the” before Christ and say, the Power of THE Christ.
And we will get to that. But first, something strikes me as I read this passage. Twice, the women are commanded to let go of their fear.
The gospel accounts give different descriptions and order of the timing of events based, I presume, and what the Spirit was leading the author to emphasize.
According to the Matthew account, while the women were there, the earthquake happened, the light flashed and an angel appeared and rolled back the stone. And according to Matthew, the two Mary’s, Mary Magdalene and we presume Mary, the mother of Jesus, they were there and they were greatly frightened.
I suppose we would be if we saw an heavenly being in all of its glory.
And as I was studying this passage to prepare for today, I notice that twice the women were comforted and told not to fear.
The angel first points to their initial fear, which, according to other texts, was how were they going to roll away the stone and get to the body?
The angel tells them that Jesus is gone. And that because he has been raised, they had no reason to fear.
Because Jesus is alive, the angel says, we have no reason to fear.
I think the thing to be commended in this story is the devotion of the two Mary’s. Everyone else is hiding, or has ran away. But they are not afraid to be associated with Jesus and their greatest fear as they are approaching the tomb is that they had no way to access the body to prepare it for burial.
They did not know now to let go of Jesus yet. And they were doing what godly women have done through the ages. They were there to keep vigil at the body to express their love for the Christ.
Mary Magdalene becomes the first witness to the resurrection of the Christ. It is her job to begin the story that death and evil cannot overcome the love of God that we experience in the Christ.
Jesus choose 12 men as apostles to form the church, but he leaves the most important part of his witness to a woman. This again is Jesus going counter cultural. It was a male dominated society and women had few rights and privileges.
Jesus is already working through the Spirit to overcome the patriarchy of the day and allow women an equal place with men in the church.
That is why the first church proclaimed that race, class and gender were meaningless in the new Kingdom that God has established here on earth.
And that leads us to the second time the women are told not to fear.
According to John, Mary stayed at the tomb after discovering the resurrection and was weeping when Jesus appears to hear.
She doesn’t recognize him because he is in a glorified body and she supposes that he is the gardener. She questions him, even though the angel has already told her that Jesus is raised.
And then Jesus speaks her name to her. And when he speaks her name, spirit to spirit, she recognizes Jesus and knows that it is him.
That is John’s account.
Matthew tells us that in the garden, after the angel has informed them, Jesus appears and informs them as well.
And again, his first words are, do not be afraid.
By now, the earthquake and the flash of light are gone and the two women are merely speaking with a gentle soul who happens to be there in the garden.
They did have some fear, again if Jesus was raised, where was he?
The angel has told them to bear witness to the disciples and for them to wait for Jesus to appear to them in Galilee. Galilee is about 70 miles away from Jerusalem where they were at the time.
The angel gives them instructions and in the process of carrying those instructions out, Jesus appears to them and confirms that he is indeed risen from the dead.
Fear not. That is the command. The text doesn’t mention that they did not recognize Jesus at first, that detail wasn’t important to Matthew and it doesn’t mean the the accounts in the gospels are inconsistent here.
The text, along with what the Apostle John says seems to convey the peace that Jesus wanted to give them.
I wonder if they were still afraid, God knew it, and God comes back to them, almost as if God just couldn’t wait to comfort them and see their joy when they realize that Jesus is not gone from them.
I wonder. I wonder at the love of Christ shown to these two women at this time.
And that leads me to the title. The Christ.
Do not be afraid is the command. And the answer is because we are all given the incarnation of God in Jesus, the Christ.
The Jewish people always have the hope of the coming of the Messiah. The word Messiah means the “Anointed One.” In Greek, the word is Christ.
Jesus is the anointed one who came to set the world free from its bondage and wickedness.
I find it significant that the body of Jesus has changed at this point. Mary didn’t recognize him at first. He was new.
In one sense, he was no longer Jesus the Nazarene. He was Jesus, the Christ.
And that is consistent with the OT understanding of Jesus. Jesus appears many times in the OT. He appears as the burning bush to Abraham. The Prince of Peace who had not beginning or end, again to Abraham, “The Lord” who was accompanied by two angels right before the destruction of Sodom. He also appears as the 4th man in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and he appears as the pillar of fire and smoke when Moses was leading Israel.
The Christ has shown Himself to humanity through the ages in the Jewish story.
And Jesus is the Christ. The Anointed one who has come to set us free from our fears.
And the power of Christ comes to us to deliver us from our fears.
So John goes on to talk about how the Christ delivers us from fear in letter he writes to the churches commonly known as First John. He says, there is no fear in love, but God’s perfect love casts out all fear. The one who fears still believes in a wrathful God. But God has demonstrated His love to us by becoming the Christ, the Anointed one who takes away our fear of punishment and sets us free.
The power of the Christ the power to redeem all of humanity. And the resurrection proves it.
He is Risen (He is risen indeed)
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