Grace and peace to you from God our father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for this meditation is written in the 28th Chapter of the Gospel according to St Matthew: Verses 1 – 10:
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; 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 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 to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Christ is Risen! Welcome, happy morning! Age to age shall indeed say, “Hell today is vanquished, heaven has won today!” The prophet Jeremiah wrote “The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back until He has executed and accomplished the intentions of His mind. In the latter days, you will understand this.” That day is today. The Lord has accomplished everything according to His plan! Christ is risen! The chains of death cannot contain our Saviour. Death is conquered. Not only that, but we have been freed from the slavery of sin, death, and the power of the devil. The Lord has turned mourning into joy.
We have heard of the awesome sights that occurred on Good Friday, when our Lord said, “It is finished.” Great signs which included the earthquake and the tombs opening. Many of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised from the dead, and walked into Jerusalem appearing to many people. Imagine what it must have been like to see your loved ones returning to you from the grave alive and well! Your world would be shaken like an earthquake! Your face wouldn’t know what expression to make – smiling, crying tears of joy, maybe even a little frightened at what was going on. After all, once we die, we tend to stay buried! We would be overcome with many simultaneous emotions.
We welcome this happy morning! Can we try to imagine the “happy morning” of the last day when all people are raised, and God gatherers his faithful to Him in everlasting life! What will that be like? It’s fun to speculate about things that haven’t been revealed to us – but we do know that there will be many joyful reunions in heaven on that day.
Mary the mother of James and Joseph and Mary Magdalene arrived at Jesus’ tomb expecting things to be just as they had left them. They came very much expecting to see what we see when we come to visit a loved one’s grave. What they saw next turned their world upside down! Another earthquake shook the ground and a magnificent, radiant angel appeared to them. “Do not be afraid!” he said. Wow!! What would we possibly expect to feel in witnessing such a sight?! Truly, this is well outside of our human experience.
The Angel speaks a revelation “He is not here, for He has risen! …. Now go and tell the others!” St. Matthew records that they left with fear and great joy! They go joyfully, in spite of their fear, because everything they thought they knew was turned upside down. They left the tomb believing, but struggling with their belief. There’s only one place to go when we struggle with this sort of conflict. Remember the father of a boy afflicted with a demon, who asked Jesus to heal Him “if it was possible?” Jesus replied, “With God all things are possible.” The father replied, “I do believe, help my unbelief!” Even when it is right in front of our eyes, sometimes we find reality hard to believe. Even these women who heard Jesus say “I will rise again on the third day” struggled with a conflict of belief and unbelief.
We also are not strangers to struggle in our lives. We don’t like to be reminded of our selfishness or our sinfulness. We don’t like to think about our lack of dedication to spending time in God’s word. We don’t want to be reminded that we are lacking in our living, active faith. Sometimes we are ashamed of who we are.
Our human feelings mislead us! Do we think our self-doubts can keep God away? Do we think that trying to build a wall of perceived unworthiness between ourselves and God, as thick as a tomb door, can keep Him out? Before the foundations of the world were laid, God marked us as His and planted a seed of faith, and Jesus tells us that seed is a rock so strong not even the gates of hell with withstand it! The love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit shake the very earth to get to us. He has chosen us. He loves us with a love beyond human comprehension.
Do not be afraid – that is the message of the Angel of God! Trust is what Jesus has to offer us! Faith is what Jesus brings to us this morning. Hope in the gift that as He died and rose for us, we too die and rise with Christ daily – a new creation, sins forgiven! Lord we believe, help our unbelief! And they ran off to tell the others...
Then the women suddenly saw Jesus, alive and well. He also said to them “Do not be afraid!” Indescribable human emotion? There are just no words to describe what those women felt that first Easter morning.
Here stands our Lord Jesus Christ, Conqueror of sin and Victor over death. Jesus did this for each and every one of us. Do not be afraid! Do not be afraid this morning and all your mornings to come, because God’s kingdom belongs to us! So enormous is God’s love for us, that He sent His only Son to die for us, to pay for all of our sins. Do not be afraid, because Jesus did not stay dead! He is not here. Do not be afraid because when this life is over, we will see our risen Saviour.
The earthquake that first Easter morning shook the earth. The sight of our risen Saviour shook the very foundations of these two women’s faith in a heart-quake of belief as the first witnesses to the truth of God’s power and love. The aftershocks of that witness continue to reverberate around the world as the message of repentance and belief that Jesus is our Saviour, too, spreads throughout the world. A tomb cannot contain our living God. Minor inconveniences like language and culture, or even hostile oppression are no barrier preventing the spread of the Gospel message! Christ is risen for us! Death is only the beginning.
For now, we wait. We remain in this fallen world and continue to be tormented by sin. But we take comfort in the fact that Christ is risen. We put our hope in the empty tomb. We look with Mary Magdalene into that empty tomb and see the two angels, one at the head and one at the foot of where Jesus lay, with the grave clothes in-between, mirroring the golden cherubim on the lid of the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat in the middle. When the curtain in the temple veiling the most holy place was torn in two on Good Friday, it was to show that God was no longer hidden from His people. God was exposed on a cross for all to see. Now we see the empty tomb and remember Christ did all this for us. He is not here in the tomb. He is here in the churches and everywhere the faithful Christians gather to partake of His Sacraments and hear His word read and proclaimed.
For Jesus’ disciples, the past few days must have seemed more than a little chaotic. Jesus explained everything to them, but they did not understand. They started to understand once they witnessed that empty tomb. They understood more when they saw their risen Lord.
It is the same for us. Our lives are pretty chaotic, too. The world moves quickly and confusingly, and more and more in a non-God-pleasing manner. We have chaos inside us as we wrestle with our faith and our sinful nature. But we have rock solid hope. It is the rock solid hope in the forgiveness of our sins, life and salvation earned for us by Christ. That is where we turn when illness strikes. We pray for healing, if it is God’s will. But we can also be certain that when our lives end, heaven is our home. When financial trouble crushes our spirits both as individuals and churches, we pray that God will show us relief, it is God’s will. But we can also be certain that this, too, shall pass – and treasure beyond measure is laid up for us in heaven. No matter the chaos in our lives, we have the sure order and calm where Jesus has told us we will find it. In Christ’s Church on earth, in our places of Christian worship. Here we find our extended church family to care for each other. Here we sit in a hospital of the soul, where the medicine and healing we need to go back out into the chaotic world is distributed. We are thus fortified to continue on our various vocations until that final happy morning that we will indeed welcome.
We will be reunited with the entire body of believers in Christ Jesus and begin an eternal, sinless, perfect life with Him. Rejoice in the Lord always, and remember – He is risen! Christ is risen for us! Alleluia!
The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human comprehension, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
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