Do Not Be Afraid

Matthew 28:1-10

A Frightening Morning

I want you to imagine that first Easter morning, specifically from the perspective of the women. Perhaps you think of an early morning stroll through a garden with a few friends. That was not really what was happening. It was very early in the morning, so early that it was probably still dark. And they were walking through an area filled with tombs. Maybe you like walking through cemeteries, maybe you do not. But I’m thinking that at that moment, walking through that place of the dead in the early morning was pretty spooky. And then there was the fact that it was just the women there. Beside all of the fear of the dead, there was a danger that there could be some rough characters hiding behind every corner. But there was more.

Why was it just the women there? Where were the male disciples? They were hiding because they were afraid and they were no where near the tombs. They were afraid because of the possibility of being arrested. Imagine the pressure that was on Peter that he denied Jesus three times. It wasn’t a popular time to be publicly known as a follower of Jesus. So far, these women have every reason to be afraid. But it gets worse.

There is a violent earthquake. That is never good. But in this case, the result is the stone in front of the stone is rolled away. That would be really frightening. But at least there is angel from heaven, with an appearance like lightning sitting on the stone. How would anyone react in such a situation? In case we are still wondering, we have the example of the soldiers. Soldiers are paid to not be afraid. They have been sitting outside of a tomb all night, ready to fight off anyone who might try to take the body. And how do they respond to the situation? They are paralyzed with fear. So imagine what the women were feeling.

Then the angel speaks to the women. We would expect that the first words would be extremely important. And they are. “Do not be afraid.” Do not be afraid? That’s easy for the angel to say. This is one of the most frightening situations imaginable and the angel tells them to not be afraid?

But the angel does more than just say “Don’t be afraid.” There is a reason for them to not fear. The reason is that Jesus has risen from the dead. In some ways, you might expect this to create more fear. People don’t normally come back to life after a couple of days of death. But this is the angel’s antidote for fear: the resurrection of Jesus.

So of course, the women no longer had any fear. Well, not quite. We are told that they were afraid but that it was mixed with joy. That was a start.

Then Jesus appeared directly to the women. No longer was their hope based on the message of an angel, they encountered the risen Jesus himself. They were able to see him, hear him, speak to him and even touch him. And what was Jesus’ message to them? “Do not be afraid.”

What did Jesus mean by this? Was he dismissing that they were in some scary times? Not at all. All Jesus was saying was that the circumstances that were creating fear needed to be seen now through the lens of the resurrection. It was the resurrection of Jesus that was going to get them through everything that would normally fill them with fear. Resurrection is the fear-breaker.

A Frightening Year

Having looked at the events of two thousand years ago, let’s fast forward up to the present. Has there been anything that has happened in the past year that has given us reason to be afraid? COVID-19 has shaped the past year in ways that we could never have imagined. Some people have feared that they would catch the virus. Some people have feared that their loved ones, especially those who are older or who have underlying conditions, would catch the virus. Some have feared that our health care system would be overwhelmed. Even those who have thought the pandemic was not as bad as people claimed had reasons to fear. Some have feared the economic consequences of the lockdowns. Some have feared they would lose their job or wouldn’t have enough money to pay their bills. Some have worried about the emotional impact, about loneliness and mental illness and people being neglected or isolated.

Even if we didn’t have a worldwide pandemic, there would be things to create anxiety. There are health and financial concerns, either for ourselves or for our loved ones. There are strained relationships. There are day-to-day situations that keep piling up and sometimes it seems like too much.

One of the things that I appreciate about the story of the women coming to the tomb is that it was not just one reason for them to fear. It was one thing on top of another, something that many of us can understand.

If you are feeling fear in some area of your life, it does not make you a bad person. In fact, when we look to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before his crucifixion, we see Jesus expressing the same human emotions that we experience. Being overwhelmed is a normal human reaction and we have had a year that has been much more than any of us could have imagined.

But still, Easter morning whispers to us: “Do not be afraid.” Do not be afraid. It doesn’t mean that we are bad for experiencing fear, but it doesn’t have to be our destiny.

What is important is that this message is not the same thing as someone coming up to you when your life is falling apart and saying: “Cheer up.” This is no empty platitude.

It is not just “Do not be afraid” but rather, “Do not be afraid because Jesus is risen.” Think about all of the obstacles in life that we face. There seems to be some hope to overcoming them all except one: death. Death seems to get the final laugh. But that is not true, or at least it is not true anymore. Jesus died on the cross. He was really dead. His body would have begun to decay. There was definitely no life there. But on the third day, Jesus walked out of that tomb. This was not a resuscitation after a false pronouncement of death. This was real resurrection from the dead. And the part that we often miss is that this was not just the resurrection of Jesus but the promise of our own resurrection from the dead.

It is from the resurrection event that we hear: “Do not be afraid.” That doesn’t mean that there is never a moment of anxiety for a Christian. What it does mean that we are supposed to look at everything that causes us fear through a resurrection lens. Even the women still had fear, but they were moving in the direction of less fear because Jesus was alive.

When I was young, one of the things that many of us feared was a nuclear war. It was not just the damage of the blast, it was what the radiation would do to the entire area, coating everything and changing everything it touched.

Think of the resurrection of Jesus as a nuclear explosion. The initial blast blew off the door to the tomb. But resurrection radiation continues to spread, infiltrating every part of us. The resurrection of Jesus gives us hope for an afterlife but also hope for dealing with this life. The resurrection of Jesus whispers and then yells to us, “Do not be afraid!”