Matthew 28:1-10 (Year A, Easter Sunday)
The one where two women named Mary meet two men in white
The gospel reading for Sunday, April 9th is Matthew 28:1-10. This Sunday is Easter Sunday!
At least in the West. We know it is Easter because it is the first Sunday after the full Moon (Thursday, April 6th) that occurs on or after the spring equinox—that is, the ecclesiastical spring equinox, which is fixed on March 21st, though the astrological spring equinox occurs between March 20-22, depending on the year.
It helps to know
The section division. The women are the main characters. Vv. 1-8 feature their encounter with the angels, and vv. 9-10 feature their encounter with Jesus.
The structural centrality of the guards. The women are the main characters (e.g. of the plot, they have the most verbs), but the guards are the comedic centerpiece. Look: Women go to the tomb (v. 1), and leave the tomb (v. 8); the angels descend (vv. 2-3) and speak to the women (vv. 5-7); the guards “die” (v. 4). It’s comedic because the supposed guards of the dead body are now supposedly dead. It’s even more comedic because the guards who were afraid of the angel (aggelos) went on and “told (apaggello) … all that had taken place” (v. 11). The angel-struck guards start angel-ing.
The other Mary. This is Jesus’ mother.
Which of Israel’s festival coincides with the day after the Sabbath after the Passover. I wrote a book about this, and it comes out this May. Click here to sign up for pre-orders, etc.!
Matthew 28:1-10
Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.
And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.
But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.”
So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”
What I noticed
Although this isn’t a major structural feature, I feel a parody of the Garden of Eden here. Yahweh had closed off the garden, “guarding” the Tree of Life with two sword-bearing angels. Here, Pilate says, “Go make [the tomb] as secure as you can.” To which they respond “by sealing the stone and setting a guard” of two men (27:65-66). On the Feast of Firstfruits, Jesus, the fruit-bearing Tree of Life, firstborn of the dead, escapes Pilate’s—and Death’s—enclosure. That’s fun.
Other evangelists have two angels, symbolizing the mercy seat in the Ark of the Covenant, but Matthew only has one. So be it. This angel looks like the transfigured Jesus of Matt. 17:1-9, with “clothing white as snow” (28:3). The angel descending “from heaven” recalls the Spirit descending from heaven at Jesus’ baptism. It’s great that the figure of the angel recalls both the Baptism and the Transfiguration.
Here comes “fear” (v. 4).
First, the fear shakes the men, which corresponds to the earthquake which shook the earth (v. 2).
Next, the angel tells the women, not the men, not to be afraid (v. 5). Which is odd, since the men were the ones depicted as afraid.
This doesn’t make the women not afraid, but it adds another emotion. They departed “with fear and great joy” (v. 8). Perfect love may cast out fear, but joy doesn’t seem to. It seems to bear mentioning that Easter is about joy more than it is about love. With all due respect to love, of course.
Jesus will add another “Do not be afraid” (v. 10).
Speaking of repeated words, look at angel (aggelos—the gg makes the ng sound, by the way) again.
The angel descends, etc. (v. 2). The angel speaks (vv. 5-7). The women run to tell (apaggello) the disciples (v. 8). The use of apaggello (pronounced apangello, remember) is a pun. The women angel the disciples. Jesus says, “Go and tell (apaggello) my brothers…” (v. 10). As I noted above, the guards also apaggello chief priests all that had happened (v. 11). (“Four uses,” points out Peter Leithart. Which suggests the sending of the angels to the four corners of the world. Nice.)
Matthew began his story with an angel telling Joseph not to fear; it ends with an angel telling Mary not to fear. Nice.
Lectionary Resonances
During Easter, we often take passages from Acts as our “First Lesson.”Peter’s speech to Cornelius and his friends in Caesarea (Acts 10:34-43) is great. He starts by saying, “You yourselves know what happened,” and includes them in his statement, “We are witnesses of all that he did” (vv. 37, 39). This raises the question, what is special about Peter? This is: “God raised [Jesus] on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (v. 40-41). Mary, Mary, Peter, and co. are these witnesses, and witnesses are commanded to preach. This is a figure of the Church: In the Eucharist, each of us eats and drinks with Christ after he rose from the dead. We’re called—no, commanded (v. 42)—with Peter, to preach.
You could also choose Exodus 14:10-31, one of the best chapters in the Bible, which tells us, metaphorically, the story of Jesus’ resurrection. He led many captives out of the kingdom of darkness, and watched the waters cover Sin and Death and all their minions. Jesus was silent, Yahweh fought for him, and the crowd went nuts. Today, we go nuts so that we can “believe in Yahweh and his servant” and be silent (14:31).
Psalm 118 ties the readings together. Two lines in particular. First, “Glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous” (v. 15). Songs is plural. The tents and the righteous are both plural. Think, here, about those who have waited silently on the Yahweh and his servant, experienced their salvation, and borne witness to the salvation of others. They have lots of songs. Second, “I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of Yahweh” (v. 17). This means that I shall not be like the guards, but like the Marys. And that I shall not be like Pharaoh’s men, but like Miriam.
Again, the guards are at the center, but the Marys are the main characters. Easter is for making a loud noise to celebrate God raising the quiet silent ones. Not for not having fear, but for adding joy to the fear. And for bearing witness, telling the others, singing songs in our tents.
These chains of messengers connecting the world to God are interesting to me. There seems to be a mirroring of the office of messenger (angel) of God in the institutions of God's people on earth—prophet under the Old Covenant, apostle (i.e., embassy, right?) under the New. One gets the impression, somewhat mistily, of Jacob's Ladder—a great chain of busy mailmen, commissioned either directly or through an intermediary by God, running back and forth across the nations of the world and the circles of the heavens. Many of the great scenes of the New Testament can be prosaically described as contracting with a messenger or credentialing a diplomat. This, as you describe with the frequent recurrence of the world "angel" throughout this passage, seems to be another case of that.
I don't really know what to make of the doubling of the commission here though. Why this redundancy of the angel sending the women and then Jesus sending them again. Why does Jesus decide to intercept them on their way back just to repeat the message? Is he seeking to ratify the commission? Or is he simply comforting two friends whom he loves and reassuring them as they undertake what is in essence the Church's first mission?