In a brief ten-verse passage from Matthew’s Gospel, we hear the word “fear” four times. The angel tells the women at the tomb not to be afraid, but to go and tell the disciples that Jesus is risen. The women run off as instructed, “with fear and great joy.” As they run, they meet Jesus who tells them again not to be afraid, and tells them again to go to the disciples. The fear doesn’t stop them from going where they are told, or from meeting Jesus. So there is a kind of fear, it seems, that is compatible with following the risen Lord and going where he sends you. We know this not only because Matthew tells us that the women are both joyful and afraid, but because Jesus tells them not to fear after the angel has already told them not to fear. Nobody says it twice if they think once will do. Yes, Jesus is eager for them to let go of the fear but he doesn’t ask them to pull themselves together entirely before they start doing the work.
Maybe Jesus and the angel both know that fear of the resurrection is part of what happens when you witness the resurrection. Fear of Jesus is part of what happens when you know Jesus. The fear comes to the surface, maybe, because you are moving down the road, doing what he tells you. Your feet may have started moving toward Galilee, but the rest of you still needs to catch up.
Because you have enough grace to know that something real is happening, and it’s not like anything else that happens. Because of this encounter with the heavenly messenger and the risen Lord, your life has changed and you have become an evangelist and it’s your job—you and your friend Mary—to preach to the disciples and to herd that obstreperous group all the way to Galilee, where Jesus has promised to be present. That’s a tall order. So yes, the two women run with fear and great joy, intermingled.
But the women aren’t the only ones who are afraid here. We’ve heard that they have left some guards back at the tomb. The guards are there because of the fear that the followers of Jesus, who couldn’t possibly be sincere followers, might come to steal his body and proclaim that he is risen. In Matthew 27:65 Pilate has told the authorities to “go make the tomb as secure as [they] know how.” So the guards are there at the tomb, too, not to honor Jesus but to keep him in the tomb. Trying to keep the tomb as sealed as possible, trying to make death as final as can be, the guards have a notably different experience than the women do. Same place, same time, very different experience.
These guards are overcome with fear not because they see Jesus directly but because of the messenger who looks like lightning, and because of the earthquake, and because the stone has been rolled away. The resurrection is traumatic for them. They are shaken, but somehow also frozen “like dead men,” fixated on the secondary effects of the resurrection because they can’t grasp it directly. Though they are present just like the women, and should I think be able to hear the angel speak, they cannot hear or respond to the angel’s words of life. Some of the guards will, in fact, turn away from the empty tomb in their numbness and go collude with the authorities to tell the lie that Jesus’s body has been stolen. In Matthew 28: 11-15 these “dead men” who leave the tomb without meeting the risen Lord will be paid a large sum of money to hide the truth of our salvation. They were sent, after all, to be guards, to guard against life itself. And when their whole frame of reference is shaken, when the tomb opens right up in front of them, they are just dead to the experience. They were there the whole time, but having the resurrection happen right in front of them is not enough to change them.
So there are two wildly different responses to the resurrection in Matthew’s account.
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not easy to give something so coherent as a “response” to something as overwhelming as the mystery we celebrate tonight. That’s why this Easter Vigil is so far-reaching in its ritual. We don’t just come here to think about the fact that he is risen, or just to have feelings about it. We come to experience a rebirth of everything, and that means awakening what may long have seemed dead. That requires a process. Fire becomes the light of Christ. Smoke becomes incense. Water becomes the water of baptism. Scripture turns into prophecy. Bread and wine, of course, become the risen Lord himself, and we become the Body of Christ. We register that it’s all new tonight, was all new at the resurrection.
But it doesn’t happen for us, normally, in a moment. That’s why we do this every year. Because part of us is running with joy and fear to meet the Lord, eager to see him, and part of us is probably trying to keep that tomb as closed up as possible. One part of our response to God is lively and open and willing, and one part is like a dead man. Real faith just is that complicated. Real faith takes what it takes, and we are partly here tonight to do what it takes to acknowledge the ongoing unfolding of new life in us.
But that’s hard to do, so let’s get some tips from Matthew.
First: the angel who appears before the women at sunrise on the first day of the week has, I think, a very helpful attitude. He appears from heaven, and rolls back the stone as the earth quakes. His appearance is like lightning. The guards tremble and freeze. And the angel sits down. He doesn’t only tell the women not to be afraid. He invites them to enter the tomb and take a look at where Jesus had lain. If you want to try to grasp something about where the risen Lord is this year in your life, take a look at where he used to be, where you can’t find him anymore. There is nothing to be afraid of. Pull up a seat. It’s going to take a while to come to terms with the action of the living God in your life. This isn’t a pleasant ritual or a party to welcome spring. We are looking at an empty tomb. This is transformation, and it takes everything in us.
Another tip from Matthew: though it’s important to sit down and to look, it’s also important to get moving when you can. Because you need to get moved away from the place where you are comfortable. In Matthew’s Gospel, it’s very important to travel to Galilee. That’s where Jesus is going to meet the disciples. He’s not to be found in Jerusalem, where the Temple is, where the authorities are, where God has been found throughout Israel’s history. Jerusalem is the place the people have longed for when they were in exile. Jerusalem represents a reliable sense that God is with us. That’s where the buildings and the rules and the leaders are. But at the resurrection, the angel tells the women to head for rough-and-tumble Galilee. That’s where Jesus comes from and that’s where he wants to go right now. To a more unlikely place of origin for the Word of God.
One last tip from Matthew: listen to the people who don’t matter. In Matthew’s Gospel it’s important that the women are the messengers to the disciples. Women are famous for telling old wives’ tales. Women can’t testify in court. Women aren’t leaders. And they are the first evangelists Jesus appoints. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary are the ones who make the church happen. They are the figures who are willing to be knocked off center, sent on a journey. They are willing both to lead and to follow, to go where the Lord and the angel tell them to go.
So Matthew is giving us what we need tonight if we are to meet the Risen Lord. He’s telling us these things, not so that we can be “spiritual” or “self-actualized.” He’s telling us these things because Jesus has a mission for us. Jesus has a mission for you. There is an urgent message of salvation that is waiting to be delivered to the world.
The women at the tomb are given more than one chance to let go of fear, and no one seems to judge them, not even the narrator, for mixing joy with terror. The word comes to them again and again. The word meets them on their road as they go. You are free to live without this fear, even if it hasn’t left you entirely. You are free go and spread the word. You have a message for your brothers and sisters. You know something about where they need to go to meet their savior. They need to go to Galilee, and it’s your job to help them get there. Run and tell the disciples.
Preached by Mother Nora Johnson
The Great Vigil of Easter 2023
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia