Earthquake!

April 7, 1996

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Scripture: Matthew 28:1-10

Talk about no holds barred...talk about pulling out all the stops...YOU GOT IT, BABY, in this account—the linguistic equivalent of “puttin’ the pedal to the metal.”

If you want subtlety, look somewhere else. If you want veiled intimation, search in some other quarter. But if you want rock-em, sock-em, in-your-face writing, Matthew’s your man. AND HERE IT IS in an Easter story that has everything...earthquake, lightning, incapacitated soldiers...the works...an angel swooping down out of the sky, a gigantic stone tossed aside like a tinker toy, guards terrified out of their wits.... I tell you, when Matthew tells a story, he tells a story.

Of all the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection, it’s Matthew’s that’s the most...what’s the word?...the most UNRESTRAINED, I guess is the word.

There are no shackles on it, no fetters of restriction....

John downplays the drama at the tomb, you remember. The whole thing is muted. In John, Mary comes alone to the Garden...it’s still pitch black. The mood of the setting for the first 10 verses is one of somberness, heaviness, desolation, depression.

Even after Mary sees the 2 angels in the tomb, things remain murky...unclear. Jesus appears, but only in unrecognizable form. She assumes He’s the gardener. For several minutes, indeed, until He calls her by name, she has no idea who He is. For John, the Resurrection is as mysterious as it is miraculous.

How different in Matthew! You almost feel he deliberately decides to “go for broke” in giving us his version, and I think that’s probably right. You can almost feel him saying, “By golly, I’ll show you what a real miracle looks like when you’re standing out in the middle of it.... FRIENDS, SOMETHING MOMENTOUS HAPPENED OUT THERE...let me tell you about it. Something cataclysmic took place, something transforming.”

You don’t tell a story about something like that with weak nouns and verbs and with listless description. You rev up the engine and let ‘er roll.

AND THAT’S EXACTLY HOW HE PRESENTS IT—in typical Matthean fashion—the same way he told about the birth of Jesus, amid the panic of Herod’s hostility when the King was gunning for the baby...and the way he told about Simon Peter’s stammering recognition of his identity at Caesarea Philippi---straightforward and honest...and the way he never made any bones about the cost of discipleship for the person who wanted to be a follower—MATTHEW NEVER QUITE MASTERED THE ART OF SUBTLETY.

He just laid it out, told it plain, let the chips fall, and then sat back and waited for you to make the right choice about it.

“The Lord is risen!” Let’s look a little more closely this morning at this Easter story from the First Gospel. We’ll just let Matthew tell it in his own way, and brace ourselves for the broadside we know is coming.

It actually starts rather quietly. Two women went out to the Garden early in the morning to see the tomb. Nothing about spices for anointing, nothing about the completion of the burial arrangements....THERE WERE GUARDS POSTED. They’d been there all night. The women knew they couldn’t get inside. Presumably, they just went to be there, the way people do after the death of a loved one.

You know you can’t change anything...you know you can’t alter the irrevocably, but you just want to be close. What else did they have left? THEY KNEW HE WAS DEAD. They’d seen Him die. They’d been out there on that hill when the last painful gasp was expelled from His body, and the soldiers stuck the spear in His side to make sure it was over. They’d seen the whole thing.

It wasn’t Easter clothes they were wearing; it was mourning clothes. The last thing they expected was a surprise.

But WHAM! Matthew lets us have it. An earthquake shook the ground beneath their feet. Have you ever been in an earthquake? We were in a little one in Costa Rica when we lived there...just a little one...3 point something on the Richter scale, they said...just a minor tremor, as earthquakes go, but you better believe that thing will get your attention.

The ground itself rumbled beneath them. Was it the earthquake that caused the rock to move and open the door of the tomb? If you’re essentially a rationalist, you’ll look for some kind of explanation like that. Somebody may have suggested that possibility to Matthew, but he won’t have any part of that.

THIS earthquake was not a workhorse, it was simply a doorbell. It’s job was to announce the arrival of a rock-rolling angel. In the text there’s no doubt about it. It’s the angel, not the earthquake that rolled the stone away.

I always wanted to play the role of the angel as a re-enactment of the Easter story. I’ve never gotten to. Maybe someday. Matthew makes it a great part.

Let me tell you about this angel. This Easter angel is no fluffy, soft, gauze-bedecked, effeminate angel. This guy is a TRUCK DRIVER. I mean, not only does he throw boulders around, his appearance is like lightning, Matthew says...his clothing white as snow....He was a clean truck driver. He shoved that stone to one side as if it were made of papier mache, and then sat on it with imperious aplomb. Boy, what you could do with a role like that.

The guards...Roman soldiers, mind you, professional militia, mind you...the guards were absolutely rendered worthless in the face of that power. They were zapped into a state of inertia. The symbol of imperial Roman might was frozen in place. The guards might as well have been dead men before this angel.

And the women? Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, the mother of James, the younger? What must have been going through their minds? Can you put yourself in their place, suddenly subjected to all this battery of sound and fury? It’s a wonder they didn’t turn on their heels and run like the wind. Maybe it happened too fast.

For before they could do anything but just gasp, the angel speaks the first words of resurrection---directed at two women, standing there in trembling awe. And what he says to them, before he explains, before he says anything else, is this enormously soothing word of comfort: “Don’t be afraid.”

I suspect, under the circumstances, they needed to hear that. Before anything else, before any message is delivered, before any explanation is offered, before any announcement is transmitted, he makes it a special point to calm their shattered nerves: “Don’t be afraid.”

Now, where have we heard this before? Where have we heard heavenly messengers using that phrase before this? It almost seems like a standard angelic greeting.

Remember what the angel said to Mary when he came to announce that she was about to have a baby? “Don’t be afraid, Mary, the Lord has found favor with thee.”

Remember what the angel said to the shepherds out in the field that cold, December night? “Don’t be afraid...Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy....”

BIBLICAL ANGELS ARE ALWAYS TALKING LIKE THAT.

Same greeting here. “Don’t be afraid.” What seems uncontrollable, frightening, overwhelming is not really so at all. To those who love the Lord, the power of God is not a threat.

Only then does he go on. Having quieted their anxiety with consummate tact, and having grabbed their attention with riveting focus, the angel blurts out the news. If you didn’t know before it was Matthew writing, that’s a dead giveaway. No Johannine subtlety, no beating around the bush...He tells them straight out what has happened. “I know why you’ve come. You’re looking for Jesus who was crucified. He’s not here. For He has been raised, as He said.”

KAPOWIE! Suppose you were the first person in history ever to hear that. Never before... EVER......raised from the dead!

Then, as if to punctuate the point even further, the angel turns tour guide and leads the women into the tomb to show them firsthand that it’s empty. They not only hear the news, they see it for themselves...at least they see that what was, no longer IS.

Stand alongside those women out there in the garden in that early morning light and see if your heart doesn’t beat a little faster.

One more task remains for the angel. After experience always comes assignment. That’s thoroughly Biblical and it’s a consistent characteristic of angelic visitation. The angel gives the women a specified directive: “Go quickly and tell the disciples. He has been raised from the dead. He’s alive He’s going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him.”

Has there ever been a story like that? Has there ever been a happening like that to tell a story about? No wonder Matthew wanted to let ‘er rip.

Notice now how he reports the reaction of the women to all this. They left the tomb quickly, he says, “with fear and great joy to tell the disciples.” Fear and joy? That’s an unusual juxtaposition. Except that’s not quite it...Not just fear and joy---fear and GREAT joy, he says. Only the joy has an intensifying adjective. THE FEAR IS NOT TOTALLY ERASED. After all, this has been a pretty emotional few moments.

But coming through the fear, and gaining momentum as the implications of it swirl around in their minds is a burgeoning sense of ecstasy, a rising flood of delirium, the “great joy” of Matthew’s phrase.

It hits them as they go with greater force than the physical earthquake—EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT NOW....The old rules don’t apply any more.

He was gone, but He’s back. We’re going to see Him again. Can you feel the rapture of it? Beyond our wildest dreams, we are inheritors of IMMEASURABLE RICHES.

Now, hold on to that for a moment, that total turnaround from tragedy to treasure. Hold on to it. We’ll come back to it in just a little bit.... Keep it where you can retrieve it as we go on with the story....

They knew by this time that it was true, even if all they had was a promise. Even without conformation, they knew it. But there was even more for them on this morning of miracles. As they were running to tell the disciples the extraordinary news, JESUS HIMSELF APPEARS BEFORE THEM.

For Matthew, again, there’s no subtlety, no mystery about the appearance, no camouflage to hide the disclosure. There’s no question about who it is, as in John. His identity is transparently clear...the women recognize Him immediately.

And notice (it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it)... HE GREETS THEM WITH THE ALMOST CASUAL GREETING THAT YOU WOULD GIVE A PERSON THAT YOU BUMPED INTO ON THE STREET.

“Chairete” is the Greek word. It carries the connotation of rejoicing, of being delighted, of being filled with gladness. “Chairete”, he says. The RSV translates it “greetings”, but to me that sounds more like a salutation from the Draft Board.... Maybe “Gosh, I’m glad to see you”, would be closer to the flavor of what Matthew is trying to express.

IT WAS TRUE. Everything the angel said was so. He WAS alive...and they knew Him, and He knew them.

Their response? So natural...and so appropriate. Matthew says they came to Him, took hold of His feet—that is, prostrated themselves at His feet—and WORSHIPPED Him.

There’s only one other place in the Gospels, outside of Matthew, where Jesus the Son is shown being worshiped. Ordinarily, the Gospels speak of God being worshiped, and Jesus being followed.

No doubt a growing, deepening respect for the person of Christ is reflected here. Already, read back now into the first morning of the resurrection, the Church’s understanding of just who this Man really is, is heightened and broadened. No longer is He simply a Friend, a worthy Companion, an especially good Man, if He were ever just that. Now it’s clear. The Creator of heaven and earth, the Lord God Almighty was in Him...Is in Him, and no response short of total and complete adoration is even thinkable. With absolute theological correctness, they worshipped Him, pouring out their very hearts in awe and gratitude. I’ve never seen a picture of that particular scene, but what a moment for a sensitive artistic representation.

Does it strike you, I wonder, the unexpectedness of this special appearance of Jesus to these two particular women? It doesn’t surprise me that it was to women He came first, or who recognized Him first.

Maybe women have a greater sensitivity to matters of the spirit...maybe even a greater sensitivity, period. It’s taken me too long, but I’m starting to learn that.

It doesn’t surprise me that in all the Gospel accounts, all four, women catch on and respond to what’s happening before their male counterparts.

BUT ISN’T THERE SOMETHING UNEXPECTEDLY GRACIOUS, unexpectedly lovely about this particular appearance, so soon when the angel had just told them He would see them in Galilee? Galilee is 50 miles away.

Suddenly, though, THERE HE IS. It’s an apparently unscheduled appearance, a tacked on serendipity, if you please, an added revelatory epiphany, specifically for them.

They’d gone to the tomb at the crack of dawn, expecting to find the resting place of a corpse...they’d gone knowing the tomb was guarded, they’d been buffeted by an earthquake, dazzled by an apparition, thrown into a state of panic by the sheer clamor of it all---IT HAD BEEN A ROLLER COASTER OF A MORNING.

And yet, immediately, without hesitation, they had responded to the instruction they were given. Not once did they say, “Hey, wait a minute...How did this happen?” Or, “Where is He now?” Or, “When can we see Him?” They simply accepted what was told to them by the angel, AND ACTED ON IT.

Maybe that very attitude, that very posture helps explain why Jesus came first to them, and reassured them in love even before His scheduled appearance to the disciples in Galilee.

Is it, after all, resurrection that creates faith, or is it faith that makes it possible to recognize resurrection truth? Some of us still get hung up on that. We demand proof before we’re willing to commit, whereas in spiritual matters, the sequence more often is revered. You don’t experience in order to believe, you believe in order to experience.

Is it mere coincidence that Jesus never appeared in any of the Gospel accounts to anyone who didn’t believe in Him? Is that just an accident? Many have pointed it out....

He didn’t come to Pilate. He didn’t come to the Sanhedrin...Those soldiers who were swatted off their feet by the angel were physically present at the tomb. They had the best seats in the house, for crying out loud. They were as close as you could get to being eye-witnesses, but they didn’t have a resurrection experience. It meant nothing to them. Read on in the narrative. What mattered to them was the threat of court martial for not doing the job they were assigned.

No, He came, as He comes, to those who love Him, and are open to His coming. AND YOU SEE... here it is once more, as if for a double emphasis, Matthew’s lack of restraint bursting through again...by this time I don’t think he could help himself---EXACTLY AS BEFORE, the first word Jesus says to them, following the greeting of joy, is the repetition of the angelic utterance: “Don’t be afraid.”

Good grief! Is it all heavenly representatives know how to say? Or, do they repeatedly say it because it’s gloriously true? It’s getting bigger now...even bigger than before.

When you sit down before this scene with all your pores open...when you let your imagination play with it, when you let the tenderness and the grandeur of it sweep over you—these two faithful believers re-united with the Living Lord---you can almost hear being repeated echoes of the Upper Room...

“Let not your hearts be troubled...neither let them be afraid..” And, “Because I live, ye shall live also...” Can you imagine any more comforting words than these? Don’t be afraid...you don’t have to be...ever again.

Coming to them from His own lips, with His own authority to back it up, as face to face, eyeball to eyeball declaration, it carries the force not simply of a promise about HIM—He had already broken death’s stronghold—but of a magnificent, earthquake-like promise about THEM, too.

Remember the ecstasy, the delirium I asked you to hold on to earlier? You can bring it out now, and double it, triple it, multiply it a thousand-fold. THIS IS PERSONAL STUFF. A gaping hole has been knocked in the sky, and they can see beyond the shadows of earth, and out into eternity itself.

This is what Easter means. These women were the first to be grasped by it, but only the first. In the world you have tribulation—no doubt about that...But be of good cheer...In fact, be ecstatic, be DELIRIOUS, just as they were. The risen Christ has overcome the world. And in His overcoming is our imperishable treasure.

For over a year now, I’ve been saving a story...waiting for Easter. It’s a true story. Many of you knew, or at least know of Bishop Nolan B. Harmon, one of the bishops of the United Methodist Church. If you didn’t know Bishop Harmon, you know his son, Lamar Harmon, who is a member of this Church.

Bishop Harmon worshipped here with us in his retirement years from time to time, when he would visit. Lamar and Jean sit toward the back usually, but when the Bishop came they would all sit down front. He wrote a book, the Bishop did, entitled 90 Years and Counting. Here’s a copy of it. He was kind enough to autograph it for me. It’s an autobiography, and he lived 10 more years after he wrote it.

Toward the end of his long, productive, contributing life, he finally came to the place where there was no choice left for the family but to move him into a nursing facility. It had to be done gingerly—everything you do with Bishops has to be done gingerly—but it had to be done, as his 100 plus year old keen mind had begun to lose some of its sharpness. He would move

in and out of lucidity.

Lamar shared this with me about his father, and I have his permission to share it with you. Bishop Harmon was an ardent devotee of the writings of Alexander Dumas, the French author of swashbuckling adventure tales, such as The Three Musketeers, and The Count of Monte Cristo.

There is a scene in that latter novel, where the hero, Edmond Dantes, having been imprisoned, unjustly, learns from the man in the cell next to him about a fabulous treasure hidden away in a cave on a deserted island off the coast of Italy. Dantes memorizes the information, every detail, and when miraculously he manages to escape from the prison dungeon, he goes to the island, follows the directions and finds the treasure, which had lain undetected for decades.

Dumas writes: “Dantes buried his trembling hands in the gold and precious stones... (then) raced out of the cave with the wild exaltation of a man who has come to the brink of madness. He climbed up on a rock from which he could view the surrounding sea. He was alone, all alone with those incalculable, unheard of, fabulous riches which belonged now to him. And he cried at the top of his voice, ‘I own the world.’”

Lamar told me the last time he was with his father...their last visit when he was in a lucid state, Bishop Harmon reminded him of that scene in The Count of Monte Cristo. Sitting in a wheel chair, over 100 years old, his frail body nearly worn out, but his mind racing ahead, he lifted his arms and fingers overhead in a Victory sign, and with a smile on his face, cried, “I own the world.... I own the world.”

Matthew would have loved it. He and Bishop Harmon would have gotten along together famously...and maybe they are now in that land beyond our sight still, but not beyond our reach through the glorious resurrection of God’s Son.

This is the Easter message: “Let ‘er rip.” Everything is different now. The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Earth and heaven are His, and so they are ours...for nothing can separate us from His love.