The Resurrection-Matthew 28

The Resurrection (video). The Resurrection (powerpoint). “He is not here; he has risen” (Matthew 28:6). As I avoid preaching on the crucifixion, I also avoid preaching on the resurrection for similar reasons–there’s so much to say and whatever I say may be simplistic, shallow, predictable, formulaic, rehashed and recycled without being fresh or mysterious or awe inspiring, and even if it is it will still never be complete!

For instance, though I believe in the resurrection, it is natural and spontaneous for me to think and behave in terms of my life ending when I die. It’s sadly obvious that I don’t do “dying to self” well. Therefore, God will have to incrementally, systematically and purposely put me to death…in His love.

A new beginning. After the Sabbath, on the 1st day of the week, Mary Magdalene and Mary go to the tomb (Mt 28:1). They believe what Jesus promised, that after 3 days he will rise.  The two Marys are the first to witness the resurrection. A new Sabbath will be created because he is the new creation. Matthew’s gospel began “in the beginning” (Mt 1:1), and we have now come to the end that which opens all to a new beginning.

Angels. “Suddenly” there is an earthquake, and an angel of the Lord descends from heaven and rolls back the stone in front of the tomb and sits on it (Mt 28:2). His appearance is like lightning, and his clothing is as white as snow (Mt 28:3). An angel had appeared in a dream to Joseph to tell him that he should take Mary as his wife because the child she carries will be conceived by the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:20). An angel also appeared to Joseph in a dream to tell him to take his family to Egypt (Mt 2:13). Angels had waited on Jesus after his temptation in the desert (Mt 4:11). But this angel has come to announce that Jesus had been raised (Mt 28:6).

The resurrection frees us from the death that grips our daily lives. Confronted by the blinding light of this fiercesome angel, the guards who were posted to insure that nothing would happen to Jesus’ body were so gripped by fear that they shook and became like dead men (Mt 28:4), indicating the transformation that Jesus’s resurrection has effected. Those who thought they were alive discover that what they took for life is death. Jesus’s resurrection creates a life freed from the death that grips our everyday lives. This reborn life reveals how death has determined our living. Yet it’s possible to remain dead, to live as dead men, like these guards, who were frightened to death.

The resurrection means no more fear. The angel tells the two Marys to not be afraid. “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message to you” (Mt 28:5-7). This speech contains the whole gospel. “Do not be afraid.” Jesus makes it possible to live unafraid. The disciples were afraid of the elites and the crowds, but Jesus enables them to not be afraid by drawing them, and us, into a life so compellingly true that we have no time to be afraid.

No more fear of trying to create our own security. Matthew tells us that the two Marys left the tomb quickly with “fear and great joy” (Mt 25:8) Their fear is now commensurate with joy. They leave the tomb in awe, knowing that they are now participants in the kingdom of God. This fear and joy that possess saves them from the fears derived from the attempt to create lives of security in the face of death.

The empty tomb. Their fear and joy is that made possible by the resurrection. But they have not seen the resurrection. The angel rolled back the stone before the tomb to allow them to see the empty tomb (Mt 28:2, 6). They had come to see the tomb. Matthew has been training us to “see” from the beginning of his gospel. One does not come to see the tomb unless one has learned to follow Jesus to his crucifixion. Mary Magdalene and Mary have seen the crucifixion, they have seen the tomb. They are our first witnesses to the good news that the one crucified has been raised (Mt 28:5-6).

Creation and resurrection cannot be seen. The Father raised the Son from the dead in honor of the Son’s perfect obedience even to the cross (Phil 2:8). Jesus was handed over, made subject to sinners and death, but he has been made victorious. The crucifixion cannot be separated from the resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus cannot be seen. We can no more see the resurrection than we can see creation. We can see only the empty tomb and the resurrected Jesus. The resurrection is not a resurrection of one who had lived, died, and then lived again. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but Lazarus was still to die. Resurrection is not the resuscitation of a corpse. Jesus is raised from the dead to be freed from death itself. He will never die again. Jesus’ resurrection cannot be seen, because God cannot be seen. Jesus has been raised from the dead, defeating death itself. The resurrection therefore is the climax of the history begun with Mary’s conception by the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:31).

The crucified one is resurrected. The two Marys rush from the tomb to tell the disciples, but the resurrected Jesus meets them (Mt 28:8-9). It is the crucified one who is the resurrected. Jesus greets them in a familiar way, and they come to him. They saw him and recognized him. They took hold of his feet and worshiped him (Mt 28:9). The resurrected Jesus can be touched. The resurrection of Jesus is not an idea. His body has been raised. The one born of Mary, baptized by John, called the disciples, delivered the Sermon on the Mount, cured the lame, the blind, the deaf and mute, disputed with the Pharisees and Sadducees, the one who endured humiliation by trial and cross—he has been raised.

We are fed by Jesus‘ body and blood. Jesus was raised bodily because, as he promised at the Last Supper with his disciples, he continues to share his body with us (Mt 26:26–29). His bodily presence, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, he shares with us. That sharing is made possible because he has been raised from the dead. We are fed with the spiritual food of his body and blood. “Spiritual food” does not mean that we are only pretending that this is Jesus’s body and blood. Rather, it means that the resurrected Jesus is the crucified Jesus.

Worship God alone and Jesus. Jesus’s bodily presence does not prevent Mary Magdalene and Mary from worshiping him. One worships only God. Yet they worship him. They had not worshiped the angel who had announced Jesus resurrection, but they now worship Jesus. These women of Israel, formed by Israel’s commandment to worship God alone, worship Jesus. If this is not the Son of God they are idolaters. But this is the crucified Jesus, the Son of God, who alone is worthy of worship.

Worshiping Jesus is the central activity of the new reality, i.e., the church (and a waste of time to the world). What makes the church the church is the worship of Jesus. The worship of Jesus will take many different forms across time and space. But where the word is preached and the sacraments are enacted, we know that Jesus is present among us. By baptism and eucharist we participate in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, making us an alternative to the world. Being the alternative is not an invitation for self-righteousness. Rather, it enables us to do, as Mary Magdalene and Mary do, that which the world thinks is a waste of time to do–worship Jesus.

A new family—the church—made possible. Jesus tells them not to be afraid, but to go tell his brothers to go to Galilee where they will see him (Mt 28:10). Jesus, who was abandoned by his disciples, tells Mary Magdalene and Mary to tell his disciples that they will “see” him. They have deserted him, but they will see him. Jesus calls them his brothers. Jesus has come to call into the world a new people. He calls the disciples “his brothers,” indicating that they are the new family made possible by his life, death, and resurrection. Jesus’s brothers—humans—will bring forth life. We see the beginnings of the church.

Galilee, not Jerusalem. Jesus began his ministry in Galilee (Mt 4:12), and to Galilee he returned. The disciples were called in Galilee, they now regather in Galilee; later, from Galilee they are sent forth (Mt 28:16). Jesus unleashes the disciples to go into the world not from Jerusalem, the center of power, but from Galilee. Galilee becomes the staging area for the disciples to go to the nations to announce the new age Jesus begun.

Desperate irrational lies. While Mary Magdalene and Mary went to tell the disciples, the guards at the tomb went into the city and told the chief priests everything that happened (Mt 28:11). Again the chief priests conspired with the elders, deciding that their best course of action is to bribe the soldiers to say that while they were asleep his disciples came by night and stole his body (Mt 28:12-13). They are desperate, for this is not a convincing story. If the guards were asleep, how would they know that the body was stolen or had been stolen by his disciples? Some worry that belief in the resurrection requires us to suspend our normal understanding of how we know anything to be true. There is some truth to that, but it is not because the resurrection is irrational. Of course we cannot see the resurrection, because God cannot be seen. But we see Jesus, who has been resurrected. The resurrection enables us to see truthfully all that is in God’s good creation. Followers of Jesus must be relentless truth tellers and seekers.

Knowing the truth requires discipleship—living apocalyptically. The resurrection is not a “knockdown sign” that establishes that Jesus is the Son of God. The soldiers were scared to death by the angel, but it did not incline them to believe in Jesus or the resurrection (Mt 28:4). They remain under the power of the chief priests and elders and were more than willing to do their bidding (Mt 28:15a). The truth that is Jesus is a truth that requires discipleship, for it is only by being transformed by what he has taught and by what he has done that we can come to know the way the world is. The world is not what it appears to be, because sin has scarred the world’s appearance. The world has been redeemed—but to see the world’s redemption, to see Jesus, requires that we be caught up in the joy that comes from serving him. That is what it means to live apocalyptically.

Lie after lie. The chief priests and elders realize that they do not have a convincing story about the empty tomb. One lie leads to another, each less believable than the original lie. They reassure the soldiers to whom they offered the bribe that if the news of disappearance of Jesus’ body comes to the ears of the governor, they will satisfy him and keep them out of trouble (Mt 28:14). The implication was that they’ll also pay off the governor. So the guards took the money and did as they were directed by the chief priests and elders (Mt 28:15a). Thus the story that the disciples stole the body of Jesus “is still told among the Jews to this day” (Mt 28:15b). Such a story testifies that the Jews had inherited the stories and practices that make Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection intelligible. A people who believe that God had raised Israel from Egypt might well believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Matthew’s gospel is an ongoing commentary on God’s care of Israel, which witnesses to Jesus as Israel’s long-expected Messiah.

Does your life reflect that the resurrection happened? No longer does anyone need to be bought off to deny the resurrection. The resurrection is simply unbelievable to anyone schooled in modernity. The resurrection is the miracle of miracles, and miracles are unbelievable. But the resurrection is unbelievable not because it defies belief. Little is gained in trying to convince anyone that the resurrection happened. To do so isolates the resurrection from the life and crucifixion of Jesus in a manner that distorts what Matthew has trained us to be. The problem is not belief in the resurrection, but whether we live lives that would make no sense if in fact Jesus has not been raised from the dead.

Do you doubt? The eleven disciples go to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them, and when they see Jesus they worship him (Mt 28:16-17a). They previously worshiped him after he walked on water (Mt 14:33). Now they worship him as the one who returned to life. But some doubt (Mt 28:17b). We see Matthew’s absolute candor. There’s nothing to hide. Even after the resurrection some of Jesus’ disciples doubted. Matthew does not tell us what form their doubt took, but one doubts that they doubted that he had been raised. Rather, their doubt regarded their ability to obey and follow Jesus. They have not forgotten that they deserted him.

Authority comes from rejecting the devil’s irresistible temptation. Jesus reminds them who he is. He tells them that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mt 28:18). Jesus uses the language of Daniel that we might identify him (Dan 7:13-14). The devil has lost. The devil had offered Jesus authority over all the kingdoms of the world if only Jesus would worship him (Mt 4:8–11), but Jesus’s whole life was a refusal of that offer. It was a refusal that required Jesus to endure rejection and crucifixion, but through that endurance he has triumphed.

Jesus alone has the authority to send the disciples to the world to make disciples of all the nations (Mt 28:19a). He first sent the disciples only to Israel (Mt 10:5–6), but now he sends the disciples to all the world to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19b). What has been hidden from the foundation of the world, what has been hidden from the wise, is now revealed by the Son. The God of Israel is the God of all nations. The disciples are now equipped to be sent to the nations, baptizing them into the death and resurrection of Jesus to make them citizens of his death-defying kingdom. Israel is not to be left behind, but rather its mission is now continued in a new reality called church. Through the church all nations will learn to call Israel blessed.

Disciples teach disciples to obey everything. The church, moreover, is but the name of a people who have been formed to worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To worship God is to live a life described by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Therefore, Jesus commands his disciples to teach those whom they baptize to obey all that he has commanded (Mt 28:20a). Jesus’ death and resurrection cannot be separated from the way he has taught us to live. The Sermon on the Mount, how we are to serve one another as brothers and sisters, the forgiveness required by our willingness to expose the sin of the church, is salvation. The teaching and the teacher are one. The salvation that Jesus entrusts to his disciples is the gospel of Matthew.

You’re not alone. The disciples are to remember that the mission on which Jesus sends them is not one on which they must go alone. He is the resurrected Lord who will always be with those entrusted to witness to him and his work (Mt 28:20b). He was in the beginning, which means that he can promise to be at the end of the age. But the age that he will be present at the end of is the age inaugurated by his birth, ministry, death, and resurrection. On that basis and that basis alone Christians are sent to the world with the message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is present.”

Reference:

1. Hauerwas, Stanley. Matthew. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, MI, 2006.
2. Hauerwas, Stanley. Cross-Shattered Christ. Meditations on the Seven Last Words. Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, MI, 2004.
3. Hauerwas, Stanley; Willimon, William. Where Resident Aliens Live. Exercises for Christian Practice. Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, 1996.