Good evening / morning and Happy Easter!
[We have had a few readings tonight and then] we’ve just heard this passage of the Resurrection according to Matthew, it’s a short reading, only ten verses, and yet it makes quite an impression, doesn’t it? A great earthquake, an angel coming down like lightening, soldiers shaking with fear and dropping like dead men, women running away. If you’re an occasional church goer, you may wonder what it all has to do with the way we have been used to understand Easter in our society, a cute and harmless Spring festival, with pastel colors, pretty flowers and bunnies hopping around laying eggs. And you’d be right to wonder about that because indeed, Easter has it has been sold to us has very little to do with the original story that has been first told to us, a dramatic and powerful story that shook people to the core and that should, at least, startle us a little. I heard once someone say about Matthew’s account of the Resurrection that it says how “All heavens broke loose” on Easter morning, and I love this idea.
Indeed, we are here today to celebrate how “All heaven breaks loose” on Easter morning, when an angel comes to proclaim Jesus’s victory over death. Think about it: Everything from the beginning led to this moment. Not just the beginning of Jesus’s passion, not just the beginning of Jesus’s life, but from the beginning of the Bible, from the beginning of humanity since the Fall, [we have heard a lot of those prophecies tonight] from the beginning that was the promise: That death, that was not so much the punishment but rather the consequence of the sin that separates us from God, that death will be defeated and new life, eternal life like a new promised land would be offered to God’s people. So we understand that Matthew can afford to be a little bit dramatic, this is big indeed, the most incredible, powerful event that happened over all human history. Again, think about it: If it’s real then it changes everything. It changes everything we believe about the world, everything we believe about our existence, everything we believe about God.
And yet, as incredible as it may seem, it all unfolds according to God’s plan, a plan that had been announced for centuries in the Scriptures. So to me, I can find it a little annoying when we describe how clueless the women were on that morning. That they could never had expected a resurrection to take place. In fact, because of the words of the prophets, most of the Jews at Jesus’s time had come to believe that a resurrection would take place. If you open John’s Gospel, Mary confesses that she expect her brother Lazarus to raise from the dead. The surprise on that day of Easter is that the Resurrection of Jesus would take place now. What the Jews expected, and what Mary confessed, is that their loved ones would be raised from the dead at the end of the world, at the end of times. And the Jews had come to believe that a Resurrection of the dead would take place at the end of the world for a very specific reason, and the reason is that the dead would raise so God’s judgment could take place, so God could vindicate God’s people. It is interesting how non believers often assume that people believe in God because they are afraid to die, and some may for sure, but the real reason an afterlife is promised in the Bible is because the Hebrews believed that God is fair and holy, and obviously in this world people don’t live up to any of that: A lot of immoral people succeed and prosper, a lot of faithful people are crushed and suffer.
And so you see the belief in a Resurrection, rather than in an afterlife, is not a religious response to the fear of dying, it is an ethical response to the injustices of this world. We often think of the judgment as something scary and negative, but in the Bible it’s good news for all the people who are oppressed. When God raises Jesus from the dead, he vindicates him, declares that Jesus is indeed his Son, and because Jesus is raised before any one of us, it also means that he will be our judge, and we will be judged according to whether we have obeyed Christ’s commandments and sought Christ’s mercy.
In Matthew’s story indeed, Jesus’s resurrection is good news for some, and not such good news to others, it does not look like good news for the Roman soldiers who become terrified at the sight of the angel. We’ve just said that Matthew tells us a powerful story, well it’s because because he wants us to know that God is powerful, more powerful than anything and anyone on earth – and at the time, the Roman Empire certainly was such a worldly power. There is some irony about the fact that the two soldiers guarding the tomb drop like dead men. When Jesus is arrested a few days before that, and Peter tries to defend him with a sword, Jesus tells him: Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? Matthew wants us to know that thefact God didn’t do something to prevent Jesus from being crucified does not mean God is not powerful. Rather, God is powerful beyond everything we can imagine, since God can undo even death. All the power of the Roman Empire rested on their military organization, but because of their ruthlessness, they didn’t use their military to help people or protect them, they used it to terrify people, like they did when they crucified those who challenged them. They had understood that Death is the most powerful thing on earth, and if you control death by means of force or weapons, then you can rule the world, even if in the end death comes for everybody. Death indeed always has the last word and all humanity is slave to death. And yet, on Easter morning, God has the last word over this one thing that always has the last word. God defeats death. So there is nothing that can resist God.
I think it’s important to have that in mind for two reasons:
– The first one is because sometimes we have ceased to believe in a powerful God. It’s a tendency that really started after the tragedies of the 20th century. We have started to believe that because God does not prevent wars and genocides, maybe it’s because there is nothing God can do about them and we have started to see God as a benevolent yes, but somewhat inefficient deity. As a consequence, we don’t really rely on God to help us with whatever is wrong in our lives or in the world. We say we believe in God, but we live as if God didn’t exist.
– On the other way around, it also happens that, when in a dark corner of our mind, we start doubting that God is that powerful or we start doubting that God can defend himself, we may start thinking that we have to fight God’s fights: Fight unfaithfulness, immorality, or what we consider unfaithfulness or immorality, by all means possible, anticipating God’s judgment and declaring ourselves judge over people’s beliefs and behaviors. But as Jesus said to Peter, God does not need us to fight for him, neither with actual weapons, nor with words used as weapons.
So, on Easter Day, among what should be the joys of Spring and family time, let us still take some time to be reminded of God’s power and to be reminded that God’s way is the most powerful, this way that has been preached by Jesus whom God has vindicated first. This way is the way of love, as our former presiding Bishop used to say, the way of obedience, humility, meekness. The choice we make to protect the innocent and defend the oppressed, the refusal to side with those who abuse other humans beings or any living thing. Let us be reminded that we do not have any real power if we don’t have power over ourselves, over our selfishness, over our greed and all the forces that destroy God’s creatures. Jesus shows us the way to true power. Even if we may not see “results” as we would like to, our journey as Christians is to trust that God’s way of love is the best way, and that it will prevail in the end. Do not be afraid, says the angel, Do not be afraid, says Jesus on that morning. Trusting his power, that’s what faith in the Risen one is all about.