Introduction
Though he comes close with his description of an earthquake in verse 2, as it says in today’s Bible notes in ROOTS AAA: Matthew, like the other Gospel writers, describes not the resurrection itself but the ways in which Jesus’ followers react to the unexpected news. The passage from Acts 10 is Peter telling the story from his perspective. Many comment on the fact that, in all four Gospels, it is women who become the first apostles (messengers) charged with telling the disciples what has happened. But the news is neither expected nor always received positively.
Context
We live, it seems, in world of fake news. Some of that fake news is good news, but much is not. Almost no news out of Syria or North Korea is good news. And other places like South Sudan and Myanmar may have slipped from the headlines, but they still seem largely to reflect bad news. This week saw the funeral of PC Keith Palmer (after, exceptionally, his body lay overnight in the chapel in the Houses of Parliament), news of another vehicle – a lorry this time – driven into people in Stockholm, and what seems (at the time of writing) to be a deliberate attack on a German football team. Against this background, it can seem as if God is not here.
In a poll for last Sunday’s Sunday programme (BBC Radio 4) it was found that many people who identify themselves as Christian do not believe in a literal resurrection – read a summary report, listen to a clip from the programme, or look at the full poll data tables.
All this is the context in which today we celebrate the evidence that Jesus is alive – not here, but in Galilee, said the angel. Not here, but everywhere says the contemporary voice of faith.
Reflection
- Above all, Easter Day is a day to be positive. I heard once of an Anglican priest who climbed slowly up into a high pulpit on Easter Day and then said just four words: ‘Christ is risen! Alleluia!’ before climbing slowly down again. At one level, what else needs to be said today?
- Perhaps in the context of a troubled world, a world in which many people who identify themselves as Christian do not believe in a literal resurrection, we need to re-affirm our conviction that, whatever exactly happened on that first Easter morning, Christians through the ages have been convinced that the body had not been stolen but that Jesus is indeed risen. And that conviction rests not on Gospel stories which tell us exactly what happened physically – for none of them do that – but on stories which tell us how Jesus’ followers responded to what they saw and heard and experienced. Seeing that ‘he is not here’ is only the first step. Hearing the angel telling them to go to Galilee where they will see him is the next step. Going to Galilee and on to the event we call Pentecost come further down the road. What might be your next step today?
- ‘He is not here’ is not what we want to hear, especially at Easter; but it is often everyday experience when we struggle to understand the risen Christ as relevant to our lives. Yet there is surely also a sense that his absence from each person at each place and in each time is part of his presence for all people at all times and in all places.
- ‘He is not here’ is not what the women expected to hear at the tomb. Some years ago at Easter time the then Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, wrote in the Guardian that ‘when Easter stops being a surprise, it stops being Easter’. He went on, ‘whatever Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were doing in writing the final sections of their books, they were not telling the story of Jesus’s resurrection as a happy ending. They were telling it as a startling new beginning.’
- The Revised Common Lectionary provides readings for every day in Holy Week. This year I was struck that one of the set readings – for the Tuesday – included the line ‘unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit’ (John 12.24). These words from the episode John records immediately after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem inspired a hymn many will sing at Easter: ‘Now the green blade riseth’. A seed dies and usually disappears from sight, in order that new life may grow from it. The parallel with the resurrection is clear.
Prayer
A collect style prayer which could be used after the Gospel reading or after the sermon.
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
we pray that, as we hear the angel’s voice telling us that ‘he is not here’,
we too may run to pass this message on as good news
not just to those who already seek to follow the resurrected Christ,
but also to those who have forgotten, or who have never heard,
the news that he is risen and lives to pray for us all, now and always.
Amen.
In your prayers of intercession remember
- those who have died or been injured in recent acts of terrorism and their families.
- fellow Christians around the world as they celebrate Easter especially those in places where they are not as free as we are to worship and, in particular, Christians in Egypt after last Sunday’s attacks.
- those who for whatever reason struggle with faith or lack hope.
Questions
- Imagine and discuss how you might have reacted on the first Easter morning as (a) one of the women who found the stone rolled away, and (b) as one of the disciples to whom the women brought the news.
- Note that only the women met him that day. The men had to journey to Galilee to meet the risen Christ. The women ‘ran to tell his disciples’ and then met Jesus on the way and ‘took hold of his feet’ (Matt 28.8-9). Re-enact that experience and as a group discuss what it felt like both to run and then to grasp Jesus’ feet?
Action
At the beginning and end of the service today greet each other with the traditional Easter greeting: ‘Christ is risen’ (to which the traditional response is ‘He is risen indeed’).
The disciples were sent on to Galilee; and the final words of this final chapter of Matthew also send us: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matt 28.19-20).
Go, tell, teach, make disciples. If the church doors are normally shut, open them today so that people can hear good news even if only from the singing!
Young people
Imagine and discuss the tone of voice which the angel might have used in the greetings (vv.5-7). Do you think it was kind and gentle or rough and compelling? What implications might the voice of the angel have for each of us today?
Dudley Coates is a Local Preacher in the Yeovil and Blackmore Vale Methodist Circuit and a former Vice President of the Methodist Conference.
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