It wouldn’t have been right for Mary and Mary Magdalene to go to the tomb any earlier than first thing on Sunday morning. They couldn’t travel, especially not to a place where the dead are buried, on the Sabbath. But as soon as there was light on the next day, they made their way to the tomb, just to see with their own eyes where Jesus’ body lay.
But on the way there, the earth shook, the stone rolled, and everything in the world, everything they had ever known was changed. “He is not here; for he has been raised,” they were told by the angel they found instead of Jesus. “He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” Go, the angel told the women. Go and tell the rest of the disciples.
The two women named Mary didn’t make the resurrection happen. It wasn’t their job to bring Jesus back to life, to overcome the power of death and bring new life to the world. That work was done by the indescribable power of God’s goodness. Their job was to go and tell, go and tell the tremendously good news that Jesus has been risen. Jesus, the good news himself, was alive and already out in the world.
But I wonder if it felt all that good in the moment. Matthew tells us they left the tomb with both fear and great joy. It was terrifying to imagine that the world wasn’t working the way they always thought it did, but joyful to hear that it was possible Jesus would be with them again. In one moment they lived in the tension of fear and joy that we often feel in times of life transitions – growing families and graduation, new jobs and new schools, retirement and budding friendships.
In the middle of all this, even in the middle of the good stuff, it doesn’t always feel like Jesus is alive and at work in the world. The earth that quaked when Jesus rose from the dead, quakes again, but instead of life it brings death, destruction, and fear. Bodies that have been well cared for and healthy for years are suddenly stuck with disease and illness. Nations are at odds with nations; innocent people are caught in the middle. Health care is unattainable for those on the margins who are left suffering. God’s creation is at the mercy of irresponsible and devastating hands. No, it doesn’t always feel like there is good news alive in the world, even though I think we’re hungry for it.
Last fall a social media video posted by the Monroe Local School District in Monroe, Ohio went viral, I think, because of just this hunger. Administrators placed a single microphone stand in a busy hallway that connected the junior and senior high schools in the district. Taped to it was a sign that simply read, “Tell something good that happened to you today (or recently).”
This Lent, as our church explored the breadth and depth of God’s good news, the youth and their leaders here at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown decided to replicate this experience, and over the last few weeks have been collecting our own good news to share with you this morning.
The good news in the gospel of Matthew is dramatic, earthshaking even! It’s global and cosmic, in ways that are difficult to wrap our brains around, with lightning and seismic events and death no longer holding the dead.
And it is also intimate and personal, like when Jesus just couldn’t leave Mary Magdalene and Mary alone in their fear as long as it would take them to get to Galilee. The good news came right up to them, in the hallway connecting the tomb to Jerusalem, so to speak, and added his rejoicing to theirs.
Sometimes the good news can be hard to see – when war is on the news each night, the future seems uncertain, and loved ones live in fear for their health and freedom. For Mary Magdalene, Mary, Jesus’s disciples, his family and followers – nothing looked good before the earth shook, the lightning flashed, and an angel told them “Do not be afraid.” But then they saw, they knew, they remembered, that Jesus was with them. The good news was alive in the world; all they had to do was go, see, and tell it.
This is what it means to be Easter people, people who live in a world where Jesus who was crucified has been raised from the dead, people who know him and the new life he brings. It means living in such a way that our lives are part of someone else’s good news story. It means that with all we have and all that we are, we can go, see, and tell this good news.
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!
Where do you see good news alive in the world? Where can you take good news into the world?