Matthew 28:1-10
1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
5 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; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”
8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped 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.”
Easter Changes Everything
Can you imagine a world without Easter? There would be no Easter baskets or Easter egg hunts. There’d be no reason to dress in pastels and take family pictures. We wouldn’t be here if there were no Easter. The Christian Church wouldn’t exist. What would a world without Easter look like?
We got a glimpse of it for about 36 hours after Jesus’ crucifixion, and it didn’t look good.
The disciples who had all promised that they would rather die than desert Jesus did exactly what they said they would never do. They ran away and hid because they were afraid that the Jews would do the same thing to them that they did to Jesus.
The men and women who had spent the last 3 years of their lives following Jesus wherever he went, hanging on his every word, suddenly forgot everything he had said to them. He had told them on at least three separate occasions – as recently as the week before – that he was going to die in Jerusalem and rise again on the third day. But nobody remembered.
The women who went to the tomb were lost. They had prepared spices to go and anoint a body that wasn’t there. They had lost their joy and hope in life.
In a world without Easter, Jesus’ disciples were afraid, hopeless, and joyless. In a world without Easter, Jesus’ disciples were a mess. How much different is our world even with Easter? How different are you than those post-crucifixion, pre-resurrection disciples?
None of us has had the privilege of shadowing Jesus for 3 years, but some of us have spent 2 years in confirmation class, studying the Bible intensively every week. Even more of us have spent 12, 16, 26 weeks of Bible Basics, learning who God is and what his Word says. Every person who becomes a member of this congregation has made an oath to our God that went something like this: The pastor would say: Do you intend to continue steadfast in this teaching and to endure all things, even death, rather than fall away from it? And then we respond, “I do and I ask God to help me.”
Has anything short of death kept you from being faithful to God’s Word? Or is a sports practice or a late Saturday night or the opportunity to spend time with your family all that it would take to keep you from spending time with God and his Word?
The disciples followed Jesus and listened to him for 3 years, but in the moment of hardship it was as if they hadn’t heard a thing. Believe it or not, you have something even more valuable than 3 years of personal devotions with Jesus. You have the whole thing in writing. You have the promises of God written down to give you hope. You have the will of God in black and white to give direction and guidance for your life. Does it take a death threat to make you forget what God says? Or is the reason that you don’t start your day with devotion simply that you opened a notification on your phone and lost the next hour of your life?
Do you retain your joy in life? Or do you find yourself lost and low, so preoccupied with the next thing that’s right in front of you – the next day or week or year of your life – that you have forgotten your place in eternal life?
We don’t have to look at the 36 hours between Good Friday and Easter Sunday to know what a world without Easter would look like. We live it all too often in our day-to-day life. But that’s why I appreciate that we get to celebrate this holiday every year. Because at Easter, we get to see the tender hand of our God as he deals with sinners like us.
When the women got to the tomb, they had all the wrong expectations. They didn’t expect to find Jesus alive, just as he said. They fully expected to find him dead. And yet, when they got there, the angel that God had sent to them did not wag a finger and say, “O you of little faith! Stop doubting and believe!” He said: “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.”
What a gentle God we have! He made it clear that these women should have remembered Jesus’ promises and that they shouldn’t have been ruled by fear or let anything else in life or death stand in the way of their faith in God, but he didn’t “preach” about it. He restored their hope and revived their faith by pointing them to Jesus, who had been crucified, but now was alive.
He had been crucified. And that had been hard! But harder for him than for them. Because when Jesus died on that cross, it was for every one of their sins, and mine, and yours, the whole world’s. He had gone to the cross carrying the weight of global guilt and suffered the pain of hell for every generation’s sin, so that you could be spared, so that we could be forgiven, so that the world would never have to know what it would feel like to be forsaken by God.
But if that had been the end, it still would have been a cold, sad Sunday morning, i.e. walking to the tomb to anoint a good but still-dead man. It was the resurrection that restored their hope and revived their faith. Jesus wasn’t there, because he wasn’t dead. He was alive! He rose up under the weight of the world’s sin and he overcame it. He beat death. And his new life would mean eternal life for everyone who believes in him, no matter how strong or frail that faith may be.
To sinners who worry that they carry too much guilt to be forgiven, Jesus’ resurrection is the proof that no amount of sin could keep Jesus in the grave. He is greater than our sin. He is risen!
To sinners who fear all the ways life in this world could go wrong, Jesus’ resurrection is the proof that God is greater even than death. There is nothing in this world beyond his control. He is risen!
To sinners who have lost their way or their joy or their purpose in life, Jesus’ resurrection is the proof that we have eternal life waiting for us in heaven. We have so much to look forward to because he is risen!
So if it’s guilt you carry, remember God’s grace at Easter. When the angel told the Marys to go tell the rest of the disciples the good news, he didn’t say, “Go and tell those traitors… those deserters… those promise-breakers…” He said, “Go and tell my brothers.”
Despite your sin and guilt, despite your faults and failures, Jesus loves you like a brother or a sister. He died and rose again to forgive you. And nothing can change the way he feels about you.
If it’s fear you feel, remember God’s power at Easter. When the Marys left the tomb they were afraid yet filled with joy. There were still very real threats to their lives, but their joy outweighed their fear, because their Saviour possessed power over death itself.
Easter doesn’t eliminate every reason we have to fear. Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t end war or poverty or taxes. But what it does do is give you a peace and a joy that surpasses everything else. Because Jesus lives, you live with the knowledge that nothing in this world is stronger than your Saviour and that nothing in this life can jeopardize your eternal life.
If you feel like you’ve lost your way or your joy or your purpose in life, remember God’s command at Easter. When the angel met the women, he told them two things, “Come and see,” and, “Go and tell.” He invited them to see the empty tomb as the proof that what Jesus had said to them was true. Then he told them to share the good news with their friends and their family and anyone who would listen.
That’s what God tells you to do too. Come and see. Return to his Word, and more than just on special occasions, because guilt and fear and doubt creep back into our lives more frequently than Christmas and Easter. But every time we open his Word and consider his message for us and our lives, he revives our hope and restores our faith just like he did for the Marys at Easter. But then go and tell. This news is too good to keep to ourselves. Our lives aren’t the only ones changed by Jesus’ resurrection. It’s the answer to so many unasked questions, and God gives it to you.
A world without Easter would be a world of guilt and fear and gloom. But Easter changes everything. Now we live in a world of forgiveness and power and joy because of Jesus. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.