MATTHEW 28: 1-10 

Matthew in the Margins…EASTER DAY…Revised 2017 

If the answer to Pilate’s “What’s truth?” on ‘Good’ Friday will out, it’ll do so in the way we preach Jesus' resurrection. Is the way we understand Him to be raised worth a sermon? Reinterpret Jesus to the point where He’s not truly & meaningfully raised, & He isn't worth worshipping either. What are we celebrating? An old story has a new curate, who after preaching his first sermon asks his supervisor, "Will it do?”. The reply comes, "Will it do what?”  What we expect Easter to do will be reflected in how we preach it!

The two Mary’s come to do what many a mourner does today; visit the grave of a loved one. They aren't looking for any miracle, or Sign as John would have it. But they get more than they bargain for! As they approach JS’ tomb, enter a figure from God’s greater world beyond this one - or could it be an earthly messenger? The angel's dramatic arrival coincides with an earthquake. Like the one that’s happened when JS dies on the cross; that rips the great veil in th TMP from top to bottom. Shatters earth itself. Splits great rocks to pieces. Opens tombs & reportedly brings many holy people sleeping in death back to life.[MT 27: 51] If we 21st C people are sceptical about this kind of language in today’s world, describing something beyond our imagining, personally, I’ll run with the imaginative! Especially when I stop to consider how much more imaginative God is in anything & everything He does  

than any possibility I might consider!

Take heart! Which is what God in raising Jesus wants to give us. Heart! At a crucified Saviour raised & able to raise a world that’s busily crucifying itself all over again. (MT may also be pointing us to HOS 6:2, where the nation's resurrection is at issue.)  Why not confess that what’s happening here is beyond our understanding, rather than pontificating about it? Jesus is powerfully (operative word!) & mysteriously (another operative word) raised (another - Jesus doesn’t just sit up, rub His eyes & say “It’s time for me to get up”!) All this by the mighty (another) energising (another) cosmic (another) power of love (another) making Jesus over as God can still, & wants to, make people over today. 

This isn't an invitation to descend into biblical literalism, or fundamentalism. Just a plea to let God lead us into the mystery of the empty tomb & out again. Raised as Jesus is. To this end, can we go so far as 'handing ourselves over' to God, as Jesus hands himself over to his enemies three days earlier? 

PS: I like John Chrysostom’s: 'Hell took a body, & discovered God. It took earth, & encountered heaven. It took what it saw, & was overcome by what it did not see!'

(Thanks to 'Anglicans on Line' somewhere along the line for refreshing my memory of the wording of the above.)

 A Joyous Easter to you. And Joyous Easter Preaching!