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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
We welcome that exchange of greetings for the Easter season’s 50 days, especially after the 40 days of Lent, when the word “Alleluia”, meaning “Praise the Lord” was put away. As we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, praising or worshiping the Lord is certainly one of the responses to the events of the Resurrection of Our Lord, but this morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading in light of three things that are repeated a number of times in the Reading, and so the theme for this sermon is “Easter Fear, Joy, and Telling”.
As the Divinely‑inspired St. Matthew records, the descent of an angel of the Lord from heaven, whose appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow, causes the guard of soldiers to tremble and become like dead men for fear of the angel, but the angel tells the women, whichever ones were there at the time, not to be afraid for Jesus has risen, as He said, but, the angel goes on to tell the women, they, having gone, should tell His disciples. So, after the angel had told them, they depart from the tomb with fear and great joy, and run to tell His disciples. And, Jesus meets the women, whichever ones were there at that time, and tells them to rejoice, not to be afraid, and to go and to tell His disciples. Clearly, “Easter Fear, Joy, and Telling” are important in today’s Gospel Reading! Let us take each one in turn.
First, then, is Easter Fear. The guard of soldiers, who perhaps should have been accustomed at least to the dramatic events of battle, become like dead men over the heavenly angel’s descent and rolling back the stone from the tomb’s entrance (confer/compare Revelation 1:17). The women maybe were not much less afraid than the guards, but, in contrast, the angel tells the women not to be afraid, usually taken as if saying “stop being afraid”. The guards’ and women’s fear is like pretty much everyone else who encounters an obviously heavenly being, who usually then gives a command not to fear (for example, Luke 1:13). Unholy people come face to face with holy beings and in some sense realize the difference and must deal with it on some level, such as by being afraid of what might happen. We do not have to imagine that these guards or women were notorious sinners, but we just have to remember that they were sinners—sinners like you are and I am. We all are sinners by nature and sinners by actual thoughts, words, and deeds, both co-mmitted and o-mitted. That sinful nature and actual sin merits God’s righteous wrath in the form of both death here in time and torment for eternity.
Regardless of the distinction the angel made between the guards and the women, God calls and enables all of us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives all our sin, for Jesus’s sake. God’s messengers like the angel transform our terror-fear of God over our sin to reverence-fear of God for His love, mercy, and grace. Because the word “fear” can have either of those two different senses—terror or reverence—perhaps even both senses at the same time, passages such as today’s Gospel Reading can be confusing. Seemingly we should understand that, after the angel tells the women not to be afraid (in the sense of being terrified), they depart with fear (in the sense of reverence or awe) and also great joy, which leads us to the second of our Reading’s repeated three items for us this Easter Day: joy.
As I just mentioned, St. Matthew tells us that the women left the tomb with great joy, and then, Jesus meets them and says, as the English Standard Version we heard put it, “Greetings”, but perhaps the Greek word in this case is better translated “Rejoice!” (Davies and Allison, ad loc Mt 28:9, 669). Like a second witness, Jesus repeats the angel’s message not to have terror‑fear, and He encourages the women to rejoice, that is, to do what they, with great joy, were already doing as a result of hearing the good news that He was risen, as He said. No doubt the women did not yet quite understand the Gospel message as clearly as Peter articulated it in today’s First Reading (Acts 10:34-43), while preaching to Cornelius and his family and friends in Caesarea. On that occasion, after recounting Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection from the dead, Peter summarizes the Gospel quite well in saying that everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins through His Name—and that includes you and me! Indeed, Peter himself was among the forgiven “brothers” Jesus wanted the women to tell (Davies and Allison, ad loc Mt 28:10, 670), but we do not want to get ahead of ourselves, as it were.
Note well that St. Matthew tells us that the women came up and took hold of Jesus’s feet and worshiped Him. If you read my column for yesterday’s newspaper (copies of which are available in the Narthex) you may know, or you may know otherwise, that the women’s taking hold of Jesus’s feet is important because, since ghosts were not thought to have feet, the women’s taking hold of Jesus’s feet emphasizes that Jesus was resurrected with a body, the feet as a part for the whole. And, the women were on their knees not only taking hold of Jesus’s feet but also worshiping Him, perhaps both giving Him reverence and seeking His mercy and grace, such as by seeking the forgiveness of sins. We believe, teach, and confess that the highest worship of the Gospel is to seek and receive the forgiveness of sins from God in the ways that that He has given for us to receive that forgiveness, namely through His Word and Sacraments. We think of Baptism, in which we are buried and raised with Jesus, as St. Paul tells the Colossians (2:12), verses before today’s Epistle Reading (Colossians 3:1-4). And, we think of the Sacrament of the Altar, where we take hold of Jesus’s resurrected Body and Blood that had been given and shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins.
Like the women holding onto Jesus, we might like to stay here, but Jesus told them and tells us to tell, the third of our Reading’s repeated three items for us this Easter Day. Although the angel and Jesus use both different Greek forms and different Greek words, the English Standard Version we heard translates them identically, and in this case that might be okay. Neither word for “tell” is the more-common technical term for “preach”, and the women who tell the disciples are most-definitely not “pastors” preaching the resurrection. Nor were some of the guard technically preaching the resurrection when they went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place (Matthew 28:11), although the same Greek word is used of the women and the guards, and there may still be some sacred sense to the guards’ report (Schniewind, TDNT 1:66). As God through His Word and Sacraments transforms our terror-fear to reverence-fear and the gives us the joy that comes with it, we, according to our vocations, also tell others: family, friends, coworkers, classmates, strangers that we meet in line at Walmart, or whomever, wherever. Sometimes we speak volumes by our actions, the way we live our lives, and that prompts people to ask us to give a reason for the sure and certain hope that we have in Jesus Christ our resurrected Lord, and we give them that answer with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15).
As a usual Collect of the Church reminds us, that sure and certain hope that we tell others about includes the resurrection of our bodies and the blessed reunion in heaven with all who have gone before us in the faith. Not only does Christ’s resurrection prove: that He is the Son of God, that His teaching is true, and that God the Father accepted His sacrifice for our sins, but Christ’s resurrection also proves that all believers in Christ will rise to eternal life, instead of to the death of eternal torment that we would deserve apart from faith in Christ. And, our resurrected bodies also will be glorified, so that we will be free of sin and its effects on us, such as all forms of sickness and other physical afflictions.
In considering today’s Gospel Readings, which includes an account of one of the risen Jesus’s first appearances, we have considered three things: “Easter Fear, Joy, and Telling”. Since in this life we remain saints and sinners, to some extent we must still have terror‑fear, but the Gospel of the Resurrection of our Lord gives us reverence-fear and the joy that comes with it and telling others about what God has done for us in our resurrected Lord. For, although our life is hidden with Christ in God, as St. Paul says in today’s Epistle Reading, we know that when Christ Who is our life appears in the end, then we also will appear with him in glory.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +