The Resurrection of the Lord
Matthew 28: 1-10
March 23, 2008

Do Not Be Afraid

Greetings! Do not be afraid!

That is, without a doubt, the shortest Easter sermon you will ever hear, and probably the best. It’s preached by Jesus himself to a rather small congregation, composed of two women with the same name – Mary – and it is delivered not far from the tomb that used to hold Jesus’ lifeless body.

Greetings! Do not be afraid! Seeing as how this was the risen Lord’s Easter message to that first congregation, it seems appropriate that it should be his message to you this morning.

Perhaps you do not think this message applies to you. Perhaps you are not afraid. If so, let me congratulate you on your safe landing, and be the first to welcome you to the planet Earth. I trust the journey from the planet Zargon (or wherever it is you came from) was uneventful. Those of us who are not from outer space, however, have some pretty good reasons to be afraid.

For starters, there’s the economy. It appears to be in a tailspin brought on by creditors lending bags of money to people to buy houses they can’t afford. Somewhere in the back of our minds we knew that the bubble would burst and we’d have to pay the piper, but we always thought the Fed would come to our rescue. It turns out that Ben Bernanke is not the Messiah after all. Some of you came to church afraid you may never be able to buy a house, and others that the house you already own will drag you into ruin. And if not you, then your neighbor or your children.

And then there’s global climate change. The glaciers are melting, the polar bears are sweltering, and the oceans are rising. We haven’t reached the tipping point just yet, but if we don’t change the way we live, the earth itself will be changed in ways nobody wants. If "fear" is not the right word to use this morning, at the very least, the word should be "alarm." The canary in the coal mine is looking mighty peaked. Do you not fear that by the time it keels over, it will be too late?

And don’t forget terrorism. We are fighting a war against it, we are told – a war that has already cost 4,000 American lives, 40,000 American casualties, and something like 500 billion dollars and still counting.

Unfortunately, the struggle to defeat the "bad guys" half a world away has brought us face-to-face with our own demons. We have discovered how quick we are to act without honor or even common decency, and how easy it is to justify the very actions we say we’re standing against. We liberated Sadaam’s prisons and built our own at Guantanamo Bay. We lectured the world about human rights and then invented something called "extraordinary rendition."

The world is a scary place this morning, not least of all because we Americans insist that we stand on the moral high ground. We are afraid to look in the mirror and see that we’re a mix of good and evil, just like everyone else in the world.

If this morning you’re not afraid of the economy, or global climate change, or the war on terror (and if you’re not actually from another planet), then perhaps you’re afraid of something else. The lab report that will come next week in the mail? Your FCAT results? The tenuous state of your marriage?

Whatever they are, it’s alright to bring your fears into church with you this morning, because the risen Christ has a word for you: "Greetings! Do not be afraid!"

I don’t know if those two Mary’s in Matthew’s Gospel brought their fears with them as they approached the tomb. If they did, Matthew doesn’t say so. Perhaps you noticed something else they did not bring – no spices to anoint the body of Jesus. I wonder if that’s because these women don’t expect to find a body in the tomb. Perhaps they’re counting on the promise Jesus made before he died that after three days he will be raised. They’ve come to see the tomb, alright, but not to see the body.

Unlike the men in Matthew’s Gospel, you see, these women have been paying attention. They heard what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount about how those who mourn will turn out to be blessed. They saw how he turned the tables on those who want to use religion to keep people down. They saw, through him, a world where loving your neighbor is right, but loving your enemy is necessary.* He showed them the world as God intends it – a world where the first are last, the lost are found, and the least are valued. Perhaps the vision of that world is what keeps these women from being afraid as they approach the tomb.

Fear does come, however. It comes when they meet that fiery angel who rolls the stone away like a child’s marble and turns seasoned soldiers into quivering lumps of Jell-O. The fear comes when these women are given a message to share: "He is not here, for he has been raised." The fear comes mixed with "great joy" that the promise Jesus made has in fact been kept. Jesus is indeed the embodiment of the God who keeps his promises.

Perhaps what frightens these two women the most is the prospect of having to go back to the male disciples and convince them that Jesus is alive and wants to meet them in Galilee. The women are to deliver this message to the very people who had denied and abandoned Jesus. Perhaps these women fear that if Jesus couldn’t get the men to see the truth, then neither could they.

So it is "with fear and great joy" that Mary and Mary run from the tomb, smack into Jesus, who tells them, "Greetings! Don’t be afraid! Go and tell my brothers (my brothers – them?) to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

The news that Jesus is alive puts our fears into a brand new context. The old order – the order of fear and death -- has been defeated, and the new order has been established. We need no longer be held hostage by our fears, or threatened by a future in which God remains dead and buried.

The economy rises and falls, brothers and sisters, but you and I are not bound to define our lives in merely economic terms. We don’t have to be swayed by political leaders who appeal only to our personal interests and ignore the welfare of our neighbors. We don’t have to vote our pocket books in every election. We can be free to vote our consciences. Why? Because Christ is risen.

The threat of global climate change is real and urgent, but we don’t have to fear a future marked by careful stewardship of the earth. You and I are perfectly capable of treading more lightly with a smaller "carbon footprint." Why? Because Christ, by rising from the dead, has redeemed the earth and everything in it.

Don’t be afraid. "Green" does not have to mean "grim." We can live abundant lives without robbing our grandchildren of their inheritance.

And, yes, there are those in the world who would do us harm. But hasn’t our quest for "homeland security" become a kind of idol? When something comes along that demands unquestioning allegiance, when it puts itself before all other concerns, when it calls us to lay at its altar our most precious gifts to purchase its indulgences – that something has become an idol. Security has become the nation’s idol, but Christians worship a different Lord. We worship the risen Christ. Because Christ is risen, no other lord holds claim upon our lives.

Greetings! Do not be afraid! Nothing in life or death can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Mix your fear this morning with the "great joy" of that good news, and run from this place to share it with a fearful world.

　Note:

*Kimberly L. Clayton, "When Death No Longer Determines our Living," Journal for Preachers,    Easter 2008, p. 29

 

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