After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow. The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men. Then the angel said to the women in reply, “Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, “He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him.” (Matthew 28.1-7)
Today the evangelist Matthew tells us of the resurrection event, the miraculous raising of the Lord Jesus from the tomb. And what better way to introduce such a seismic shift in human history than by an earthquake? As we hear him give us a narrative account of the event, the first thing that happens, he says, is an earthquake. “Behold, there was a great earthquake,” he writes.
As we well know, an earthquake is no small matter. We’ve heard enough about them–and some of us may have experienced one or two–to know that they break the world in two, both literally and figuratively. An earthquake, generally defined as a sudden and violent shaking of the ground caused by movements within the earth’s crust, results in huge fissures, a once smooth plain separated into two pieces, a crack or divide between the two parts.
There is no doubt that Matthew begins his account with an earthquake for that very reason. While the physical parting is staggering and stupendous in its own right, mammoth slabs of rock split apart as we might break a twig in two, the physical manifestation, for Matthew, provides a figurative image as well, pointing to more than just the earth suffering a gigantic crack down the middle.
We’ve already seen Matthew do the same thing when Jesus breathed his last breath on the cross. As soon as he “gave up his spirit,” Matthew says that “the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, rocks were split” (27.51). Again, the tearing of the veil of the sanctuary is about more than just a cloth being ripped in two. It signifies a radical break between the old way and the new way, between the old law and the new law, between the same old thing and a whole new thing.
Now, for a second time–and for the same reason–Matthew relies on the identical imagery to reiterate the same message. With the death and the resurrection of Jesus, the Almighty has injected himself into the world, rocking the planet, and splitting human history into two clearly divided parts–that which came before, and that which comes after.
If it has a vague sense of familiarity to us, it should. We’ve seen it in the pivotal event in the Hebrew Scriptures when the Most High God splits the Red Sea in two, providing a break in the rushing waters, so that the slaves can pass safely to the other side. Behind them is slavery. Before them is freedom. Behind them are the gods of Egypt. Before them is the God of Israel. The splitting of the Red Sea puts before them two radically different modes of living. In Egypt, they lived with death and despair. In the Promised Land, they will live with a new life, one with hope.
Now, a similar moment has arrived in human history, a moment even more earth shattering than the parting of the Red Sea. Here, in this moment, the Almighty breaks apart, not a river, but a rock, allowing the Crucified Lord to escape death and to enter a new life. Behind him is a tomb that held his body prisoner. Before him is an ethereal space that allows his glorified body to move freely, no longer bound by the funeral wrappings, now able to enter a room by passing through the walls, his resurrected body unrestricted in every way.
The Greek word that Matthew uses for the earth shaking is “seismos,” the same word that gives us seismic, meaning a radical shift or parting of the earth. We use the word seismic when we want to convey something big, something unmeasurable. A seismic shift means there is no going back. There is only one way now–going ahead.
Should we miss that clue–and we should be disappointed in ourselves if we do–Matthew adds a second one, telling us that the women came to the tomb at dawn on the first day of the week. In other words, they move towards the light of day, leaving behind them the darkness of night. Not only that, but they also leave the old week behind them, a week that ended with the Sabbath, the traditional last day of the week for the Jews. Now they begin a new week, walking to the tomb on the first day. The past is dead. The future is alive.
With clues and symbols crammed into this story like dancers at a rave, Matthew wants to make it very clear to us that the Almighty has cracked apart human history, a divide in it as deep as the Red Sea, a break that tells us there is no going back to Egypt, or, in this instance, going back to Jerusalem, the place of crucifixion and death. Instead, as the Risen Lord tells the women, “Go, tell my brothers that they should go into Galilee, and there they will see me.”
And that is what the women tell the other followers of the Risen Lord and that is what they do, finding their way to Galilee because the Lord has told them to go there, racing there on foot because it is where they will find a new life for themselves, soon enough moving from Galilee into all parts of the greater world, proclaiming to any who will listen that the Almighty is writing a radically new chapter in human history through his Beloved Son, the Risen Lord.
So, what, we may want to ask, is the message for us in this time and in this place? It is much the same as Matthew presented it in the narrative of the resurrection. On one level, we are freed from slavery, no longer locked in a grave, no longer made to live in fear and in trembling, frozen stiff like the soldiers who stood guard at the tomb, unable to move.
With the freedom of the sons and daughters of the Most High God, an inheritance disbursed to us by the Risen Lord, we now live in light and live with hope. We do not have to live as slaves, people without a future, people without hope. While enslavement may have been in our past, it is not in our future. We walk the earth as freedmen.
And, of course, on a second level, we have the promise of a life that continues when our physical bodies die, a life that shares in the fullness of the resurrection, no longer contained by a tomb, but resurrected in the same way that the Lord Jesus was, his resurrection the first fruits, as Paul of Tarsus will later describe it to his listeners, meaning our resurrections will be the fruit that fills the basket to overflowing.
And that means wherever we are on the road of life, our destination is Galilee, where we will see the Risen Lord as he has promised. As the angel told the Magi to go another route, not to return to Herod, so the angel outside the tomb tells us to go to Galilee, not to return to Pontus Pilate and his henchmen. Our destination is ahead, not behind. And the way ahead is on the road to Galilee.
The past and its dark ways are done. The future–however distant it may be–is full of light. But it is imperative that we stay on the road to Galilee. It is very easy to want the comfort of the old ways, to rest in our old habits, to live the new week in the same way that we lived the last week. But staying stuck in the past is not the way to Galilee.
Along the way, we are sure to meet people who want to detain us, who want to dissuade us, who want to destroy our hope. They will do everything they can to pull us back into the past, to make us believe that darkness is a good place to live, to have us join them in keeping everyone else in chains, especially the poor, the lost, and the rejected. They want us to make our home in the tomb.
The road to Galilee has plenty of highway robbers and sleek thieves, people who want to chase us down like the Egyptian overlords, who would have us return to Egypt, making mud bricks for tyrants and pharaohs. But we can’t allow them to hijack our hope, to obstruct our way, to blind us to the road ahead. Galilee is down the road and we will get there so long as we stay on the road.
We’ve crossed over. We’ve broken free. We’re on the way to Galilee. And our bodies, sure as the first rays of light at dawn, feel feather-light, our lungs full of clean air, our spirits soar like the eagle high in the heavens, unbound and unfettered. We may not get to Galilee today. But we will get to Galilee someday because we believe that tomorrow is a day full of promise.
If we are not living as people who have experienced an earthquake, then we are not living as resurrection people. We’ve failed to see the seismic shift that has occurred, still locked in the darkness of yesterday, blind to the possibilities of tomorrow. We’re condemned to repeat the past because we can’t see the future. We’re content with the smell of death all around us because we haven’t breathed the clean air of new life.
Today, Matthew urges us on, reminding us that we live on the other side of the earthquake, on the side of the empty tomb. Sure, there are those who choose to live on the back side of the earthquake, who want to stay on that side, a side where there is darkness and decay, doubt and despair. But we’re people who have removed the shroud of death and our clothes are bright as snow. We’ve left Jerusalem behind us.
And so as we walk towards Galilee, light-footed and quick to be on our way because we can see beyond the bend in the road. We know what awaits us in Galilee. It is the Risen Lord, who told the women and who tells us, “Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.” His words fill our hearts with hope, fuel our feet with energy, and fit our day with purpose.
Along the way, then, our voices should be raised in joy and in homage, as were the voices of the women as they raced to the other disciples, singing and shouting all the way, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again! Alleluia! Alleluia!”
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 