Sermon Notes — April 5, 2026
The Good News is Alive in the World
Matthew 28:1-10 (CEB)
April 5, 2026
Rev. Dr. Mary Beth Bernheisel
Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen indeed!
This morning we celebrate that from darkness has come light, from death has come life, from despair has come hope – all of this is God’s gift to us, not because we deserve it and not because we’ve earned it, but because, as John reminds us in his gospel, from the fullness of God we have all received grace upon grace.
This morning we receive that grace once again as we sing and pray together, as we go to God’s word together, and as we gather around this table together.
Would you pray with me and for me this morning?
Holy One,
all over the world, people are gathering to hear this story once again.
All over the world, people are gathering to remember that death has lost its sting.
All over the world, people are gathering to see you.
So like our neighbors all over the world, we pray, be here with us.
Speak to us today.
Be in our midst.
Wait for us as we run to the tomb, sing alleluia, bow our heads, and listen for you.
Amen.
I am not a morning person. I used to be. Both of our kids were early risers which meant that I turned into an early riser purely out of necessity. But now that we no longer have children at home and I am no longer beholden to school schedules, I have a hard time getting excited about the morning.
I am not a morning person, which is why I think I am drawn to the resurrection stories in Mark, Luke, and John. In those gospels, the day of resurrection is dark and quiet, and the women are tiptoeing toward the tomb with their spices, worried about how they’re going to get past the giant stone that had been rolled in front of the cave where Jesus’s body had been laid. They are quietly anxious as they prepare to anoint his body. And when they arrive the stone is already rolled away and in Luke and Mark there are angels waiting for the women at the empty tomb. The day of resurrection is dark and quiet and mysterious. There are no alarm clocks and no one is flipping on the overhead lights or singing obnoxious get out bed songs. It’s Shhhhh.
Matthew is the gospel for morning people.
First of all, Matthew does not tell us that the women have come to the tomb to anoint Jesus’s body. Matthew 28:1 tells us that
The women came to look at the tomb.
But the word in Greek – the word that is translated “look at” – ould be better translated as “watch” or “assess.” They don’t come to “see” the tomb. They are waiting for something to happen.
And boy does something happen.
AN EARTHQUAKE!
Can you imagine?
That’s what it sounded like and felt like – a whole earthquake – as an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and rolled away the stone that had been covering the entrance of the cave. And the angel looked like lightning, and the guards were so afraid that they collapsed right on the spot.
Matthew is the gospel for morning people.
I will confess something to you this morning. I have been going to church for 51 years and I’ve held a seminary degree for 27 years and never once did it occur to me that the angel rolls back the stone not to let Jesus out, but to let the women in! Jesus doesn’t walk out of the tomb when the angel rolls back the stone. He’s already gone.
And the angel, as he perches atop the stone that he has just rolled away, looks at the women and he says,
Now, don’t you be afraid. You can almost see him nodding at the passed out Roman guards.
Don’t you be afraid.
I know who you’re looking for and he’s not here, but he left a message.
The angel invites the women to come and look closer at the tomb, and the next thing we know they’ve run off – with fear and great joy, Matthew says – with fear and great joy – to tell the other disciples that Jesus had been raised from the dead and would meet them in Galilee.
And while they’re running, who do they bump into, but Jesus himself! And he gives them the same message that the angel gave them.
Don’t be afraid!
Two thousand years removed from the miracle of resurrection – two thousand years removed from the miracle that has compelled millions of people the world over to believe that death has been defeated once and for all and to give their whole lives to that promise – two thousand years removed we might wonder why the women hear these words not once, but twice!
Do not be afraid!
Is it hard for us to imagine what might have made them afraid on that first Easter morning? What could they possibly be afraid of? They just received the best news in the history of ever, so why would they be afraid?
You know, other than an angel and an earthquake and collapsed Roman guards…
The truth is that the same people who conspired against Jesus, the same people who betrayed Jesus, who arrested Jesus – the same people who put him on trial and condemned him to death – the same people who put his body on the cross and stood there mocking him as he died – they’re still out there. There is much for the women to be scared of.
We know that fear in our own hearts. We know what it is to be scared.
Maybe we don’t know the fear that comes from being pursued by people who want us dead, but we know what it is to be afraid. We know what it is to be afraid of the diagnosis. We know what it is to be afraid of the future. We know what it is to be afraid of failure. To be afraid of endings, to be afraid of beginnings. We know what it is to be afraid of change.
We know what it is to live with fear in our hearts, even if no one around us can see that fear. It’s still there and it’s so very real.
What did the women have to be afraid of?
That there was a power loose in the world – a power more powerful than death. And while they believed in their heads that the power of God was more powerful than death – that God was bigger than anything that could ever threaten them, it was a whole different story when they saw that power with their own eyes. The scary part is that nothing can contain that kind of power. That kind of power can’t be tamed and it can’t be controlled.
It is bigger than anything that we can imagine.
But it is also better than anything we can imagine.
When that power – that power that has just beaten death – looks you in the face and says
Do not be afraid
What choice do you have?
In today’s text, as we mentioned earlier, the women run to give the other disciples the message that they had heard from the angel – that Jesus was alive and would meet them in Galilee. And while they are running to the other disciples they run into Jesus himself. Our translation says in Matthew 28:9 that
Jesus met them and greeted them (Matthew 28:9)
And that’s a rather unfortunate translation, because in the Greek what Jesus says to them is
Rejoice!
It’s the same word we read in Matthew 2 to describe the wise men from the east when they see the star that leads them to Jesus. The same word that Jesus uses when he’s teaching his disciples on the mountainside, “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.”
Rejoice!
The resurrection – the power of God on the loose in the world – is not a cause for fear.
It’s cause for great joy. Because there is nothing that the power of God on the loose in the world cannot do. It can make a way where there appears to be no way at all; it can make a whole cosmos out of nothing; it can make things grow in places where everything is parched and dry; it can still our anxious hearts and bring comfort to our grief.
The resurrection allows us to tell the truth – the truth that is truer than any other truth – that death has been conquered once and for all. The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, and the Lord has reclaimed the world by his power that defeats death and is even now transforming all of creation – the whole cosmos – the grass, the flowers, the trees, and us –
Are there things in the world to fear? Of course there are. To deny it is to live in a world of fantasy or denial, or both.
But this morning we remember that death never has the final word in our lives or in the world. There will be darkness, but in the end it is the light that has the final word. There will be fear, but in the end it is joy that has the final word. There will be death, but in the end it is resurrection that has the final word. Even if we can’t see the light, the joy, and the resurrection right at this moment, the promise of Easter is that those things – light, joy, and resurrection – are on the way.
Glenn reminded us this morning at the sunrise service that in Luke’s story of the resurrection, Easter takes a while. The women visit the empty tomb but they’re confused. They run to tell the other disciples, but the other disciples accuse the women of spouting nonsense. Peter runs to the tomb to see for himself, and he leaves confused, too. Two of Jesus’s disciples return to their home in the village of Emmaus, convinced that everything they had given their lives to had been destroyed. When they get home they invite the stranger that has been traveling with him into their home to join them for a meal, and when the stranger breaks the bread, they recognize him as Jesus and run back to Jerusalem to tell the others. Meanwhile, Jesus has vanished from their table and appears to other disciples gathered in Jerusalem, who are terrified at the sight of him, believing him to be a ghost.
Even for those first disciples, Easter took a while. While the resurrection was truer than true and realer than real, for them, the realness and trueness wasn’t immediate. It took some time.
And so if, for us, Easter takes some time, that’s OK. We’re in good company.
The light, the joy, the resurrection are on the way. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not even after three days. But they are on the way.
So while Matthew is the gospel for morning people, those of us who prefer to take it easy can receive this promise too. The resurrection is nothing less than a cosmic seismic shift – an earthquake – shaking the foundation of world – death is defeated forever, hope is alive, the world is on its way to being as it should be.
And for that great promise, Easter people, we will rejoice!