Easter Day: Gospel, Matthew 28:1-10

I have this rather dark desire. And perhaps it isn’t expected on Easter, but here goes. After all, I’m a better sinner than most. I have this great desire to see the enemies of Jesus “get theirs” in the end. I know, I know. We’re supposed to love and pray for our enemies and by extension His. And I do. But when it comes to the resurrection account, and you just think of the reaction of the soldiers when the angel shows up in Matthew’s account, you just have to grin. At least I do. Here’s what it says about the angel: “His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men” (Matt. 28:3-4).  Now I know Easter is about Jesus, and so is this.

The Father must love His angelic host because He used them to announce the birth of His Son and now He uses one of their number to announce His re-entrance to life. You see the fear and trembling of the guards, the gathering of the women at the tomb, the earth shaking and stone rolling all occurred that first Easter Sunday because Jesus does just what He says He is going to do. The Father already knows that and Jesus has spent the three years of His down-to-earth, dust-in-the-feet ministry winning and holding hearts so they would be convinced of that, too. But we tend to forget.

The Risen One speaks in greeting and receives their worship amid a command, “Do not be afraid.” All the things we might expect, but that would feel oh so good after knowing our Friend was dead in the tomb for the past several days. The fear and trembling of our Roman guards was more than matched by the elation of these precious sisters of ours (imagine that), and off they went to begin the entire life of the proclamation of the Church of Jesus: “He is Risen!” I’m so excited I can barely type. So I’ll stop. Blessed Easter to one and all!