“Rejoice!”

So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, 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; there they will see me” [Matthew 28:8-10, NRSV].

For the past nine years or so, I’ve taken a daily walk. To be sure, during that long period of time, I’ve missed a few days—but not many. For example, in February, Jane and I both tested positive for you know what, and I missed three days then. Even on days when it rains, I can usually find 45 minutes or so during the day to get in my steps.

Along my usual pathway, there is a cemetery: Markham Memorial Gardens. It features a circular macadam that is almost exactly one-third of a mile in circumference. Utilizing that circle once, twice, or even three times, I can alter the length and time of my daily walk from 2.5 to 3.5 miles.

A cemetery isn’t as peaceful as some would think. During grass-growing season, the sounds of nature are interrupted on Thursdays and Fridays by multiple energetic TROSA mowers. At least once each week, I see and hear a backhoe digging a new grave. Sometimes I have to bypass the cemetery altogether if there is a graveside service going on.

I’m not the only cemetery “regular.” There’s a gentle, little lady whose husband is buried just off the pathway. She arrives each Monday and Thursday to diligently tend to his grave. She talks to him quietly. “Oh, I know he isn’t there,” she has told me on a number of occasions. “I just miss him so frightfully.”

There’s an elderly gentleman (“elderly” sounds odd coming from a 72-year-old), who comes to the grave of his deceased wife almost daily. He sits and “visits” with her from his folding chair. He always—always—brings her fresh flowers.

Much of the time, however, when I move through the cemetery, I am the only person drawing breath therein. In those moments, my mind often wanders. Although I didn’t know any of them personally, I speculate about the lives of those who lie nearby in repose. I contemplate their secrets and wonder how many broken promises now reside forever within Markham Memorial’s collection of dearly departed. I wonder as well about the confessions that are uttered by survivors as they kneel near the familiar headstones. How many apologies have been uttered on this grassy, hilly plain? Sometimes, in the quiet of a morning walk, it is as if I can hear a cacophony of laments springing up from the graves: “If only,” or “I didn’t listen,” or “I’m so sorry.”

As I read one of the Gospel lessons appointed for this upcoming Easter Sunday [Matthew 28:1-10, RCL, Year A], I think of the two Marys who came to Jesus’ tomb on that first earthshaking Easter Sunday morning. I say “earthshaking” because while in Mark’s Gospel story, the two Marys and another woman named Salome wonder, “Who will roll the stone away?” [Mark 16:3], Matthew supplies the answer. Through an angel, the Almighty causes an earthquake to dislodge the stone from the mouth of the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea [Matthew 28:2].

At first, the women can’t get near the tomb. According to Matthew, Pilate has assigned guards to stand watch. Pilate, and perhaps the Sanhedrin as well, are concerned about body snatchers [Matthew 27:64]? “Knowing” that resurrection of the dead is impossible, they apparently were concerned about some Passover conspiracy, some plot to steal the dead body of Jesus, and then claim that he had been raised?

No one is prepared for what actually happens. When the rock is rolled away, Matthew says that the fearful guards “shook and became like dead men” [Matthew 28:4]. Now that’s real irony. The group that saw to Jesus’ death now resemble that stasis. Indeed, had they been conscious, they likely would have worried about possible retaliation. As Roman soldiers, they would not have been familiar with His words, “Offer the other cheek.”

In all the Gospel stories, it is the women who take part in that first Easter vigil. Jesus’ disciples are still nowhere to be seen. To be sure, somewhat like the soldiers, they had their own reasons for not wanting to see Jesus again. Although they had followed Him for three years, and while each had pledged his fidelity to Jesus, they all had vanished after their leader’s arrest. John, the Gospel writer, indicates that he was present at the cross with Mary, the mother of Jesus, but the other Gospels leave out that detail. None of them, of course, was present to confirm or deny John’s point. Peter, good ole “Rock” that he was, had said that the others might fail Jesus, but not him. Then, of course, he’d denied his Lord three times before the rooster crowed on Good Friday morning. Would news that the Lord had risen be good news for Peter and the others? Maybe—or maybe not.

The women are understandably confused at the Easter morning spectacle. Open tomb, earthquake, angel, catatonic guards, and a missing body—if we’d been there, I suspect we would have felt uncomfortable, perhaps even afraid. And so, as the two Marys are poking around the empty tomb, the angel first gives them some reassuring words. “Don’t be afraid” [28:5], the angel tells them. The angel also allows that Jesus isn’t here, “for He has been raised” [28:6]. Armed with this heavenly news, our two Marys hurry away from the tomb, “afraid yet filled with joy” 28:8]. What will Peter and the others think when they give them the news?

The first Easter miracle occurs, of course, in the raising of Jesus from the dead. But then in Matthew’s Easter story, a lesser—although still significant—miracle follows. As the women run to tell the disciples the Good News—filled with fear and joy—the risen Jesus appears and speaks directly to them.

New Testament scholars have had difficulty translating Jesus first word to the two Marys. As you know, I don’t do Greek, but I understand that in Matthew’s original manuscript, written in Greek, we are confronted with the word, “Xairete!” It’s apparently a multipurpose greeting of sorts and so, the NRSV, the NIV, and several other translations leave it at that: “Greetings!”

Wow, I would have hoped for something a bit more robust from the Master who has just been raised from the dead. “Hello” just doesn’t get it for me (not that what pleases me is important, of course). The good ole King James Version takes a stab at a more meaningful “greeting,” but falls short, at least in my less than humble opinion, for it merely says, “All Hail.”

The New King James Version, the Amplified Bible, the Orthodox Study Bible, the World English Bible, and several other translations concentrate instead upon the word’s root and offer the much more satisfactory, “Rejoice!”

Our Lord is risen! Shouldn’t we rejoice? Then, as if to strengthen this command to rejoice, Jesus says to the women:

Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me [Matthew 28:10].

There, in the midst of their personal failures, in the midst of their tendency to fall short, to err, to misunderstand, to sin, He called them brothers. He could have said “cowards.” He might easily have said “bumpkins.” He might accurately have said “dullards.” Oh! One more: He correctly might have called them “sinners.” Instead, they are brothers! [May I add that using our own, modern, more erudite phraseology (my tongue is firmly into my cheek), He would have added “sisters”].

Jesus’ simple, straightforward instructions to the two Marys offer two powerful points to us this Easter (and on every Easter). First, the sins of the disciples, of the broader group of followers, of the world, including you and me, went into that tomb with the lifeless body of Jesus on Good Friday. On Easter morning, only the Living Christ emerged. All our sins remain there, forgotten in the darkness!

Sometimes it seems that we spend our lives dumping additional sins—one after another—into that tomb that housed His body. And yet, the Gospel teaches us that nothing we ever discard there comes back to us. Indeed, this is not to diminish the power of sin in our lives, but If we are still burdened by our sin, it is because we haven’t yet given that sin up to the tomb. Give it up, brothers and sisters, for the tomb is only a black hole. It can house our sin, but it could not confine our Lord on Easter.

The second point is even more powerful. Through the Grace of Jesus Christ, our own tombs—and someday each of us will repose within one—will be no more secure that the tomb that held Jesus.

Rejoice!