• The BaptistWay Easter lesson for April 5 focuses on Matthew 28:1-10.
What is the thing we fear most? Death. Our culture is terrified of death, and in our terror, we are fascinated with it.
In our fear of death, we do everything to avoid it, the appearance of it, the hint of it. We sentimentalize childhood. We glorify youth. We bathe in cosmetics, wrinkle creams and hair-restoration products. We have midlife crises and buy fast cars or run around with younger mates. We ignore doctors and diagnoses. We put off writing wills and making funeral arrangements.
In our fascination with death, we chase adrenaline highs. We play violent video games and watch violent movies. We sensationalize the news with the worst crimes and highest death tolls of the day. We fantasize about the demise of our enemies. We develop evermore efficient, powerful and accurate weapons, and we go to war.
Yes, we are terrified of death yet also fascinated with it.
What is it we fear most about death? We fear losing or being cut off from what or whom we love.
What fascinates us most about death? The unknown. What lies on the other side?
The end of fear
With Jesus’ resurrection, with Jesus’ returning from death to life, with Jesus’ overcoming and overwhelming of our greatest fear, we receive the message: “Stop being afraid.”
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What a statement! “Stop being afraid. Everything you are doing with your lives to avoid your greatest fear—just stop it. Fear no more. Stop being afraid.”
Look into the depth of Jesus’ statement, first delivered by Jesus’ messenger. We are tempted to read the statement as it appears in our English versions and to understand it as a corrective of the immediate situation, which was the two Marys’ concern about what had happened to Jesus’ body. The angel wanted to allay their immediate concern but did not want them so fearless they rested on their laurels.
The angel told the two Marys: “Stop being afraid. Come and see. Go (quickly) and tell” (vv. 5-7).
The two Marys did as the angel said; they went … quickly, but they remained afraid, even if joyful (v. 8). Jesus then appeared to the two Marys and said: “Hi. Stop being afraid. Go and tell” (vv. 9-10). And what were they supposed to go and tell? They were supposed to tell Jesus’ disciples: “(Jesus) has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him” (v. 7). Talk about fascinating.
All in a day’s work
We don’t get any indication Jesus’ resurrection was particularly exciting to the angel. The angel seems merely to be performing a job description. “Now I have told you” (v. 7). And I find a nonplussed angel fascinating.
The angel’s demeanor—as we have it in the story—suggests the angel was fully aware of Jesus’ ability to conquer death. Jesus’ resurrection didn’t seem to be news to the angel. However, from all the Gospel accounts of the resurrection, Jesus’ return to life was incredibly exciting news to the human beings involved. And in preparation for this excitement, the angel said, “Stop being afraid.”
An apt imperative
We recognize all things in this world will deteriorate and eventually end. Death is all around us, and so our fear of death is pervasive. In his famous first inaugural address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke to the pervasive fear of a nation gripped by economic and environmental disaster: “… the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. … In such a spirit on my part and on yours, we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunk to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; and the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.”
Roosevelt’s pep talk pales in comparison to the news of the resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection reverses pervasive fear, for through resurrection Jesus has overcome the death none can escape. We may escape all the material concerns Roosevelt addressed and about which we worry and fret, but we will not escape our greatest concern—our death. But Jesus can, and Jesus did, and so the imperative is: “Stop being afraid.”
Stop being afraid of death. Stop being afraid of what lies on the other side. Stop being afraid of the unknown.
For there is one who died as we all will. There is one who went to the other side as we all shall. But unlike us, there is one who has returned from death to tell us of life on the other side and to reveal the mystery of the unknown. That one is Jesus Christ, risen and gone ahead.
So, stop being afraid … but keep the fascination.
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