Jesus has done it; He is through. But Mary Magdalene and the other Mary didn’t know it yet. They were on their way to the grave, the same road we all travel. It was the same old story. They had hoped He was different. God was taking a hand, but they had met something in Jesus they had never met before. He had cared about the wreck of a woman that was Mary Magdalene, cleaned her up, and made her live again when she was all washed up. What about the other Mary? Who was she? Why did she so love Jesus?

All that was given to the women in Jesus was over. They came to weep out their grief at the grave and to do what their love might do for Jesus. He had done so much that it might not be the same old story. Jesus had lightened the darkness, made the women precious with His love, pushed back the things that oppress and undo us. Sin and guilt gave way as Jesus accepted and forgave them. Amid the powers that push us around, He had walked with a breathtaking freedom, the way it is to be alive, unchained, uncrumpled, not scared. Jesus had looked all His accusers in the eye, slave to none. But in the end, they closed in on Him. Jesus had defied them, and they got Him in the end. The end, the same end for us all. Now the finality of the grave. The women went “to see the sepulcher” (Matthew 28:1). What is more real? What is there that you can be more sure of than the grave? Now you can be even more sure, for Jesus, in whom they had hoped, had come to it along with the rest of us. Crucified, dead and buried. Was God not with Jesus? And if not with Jesus, then is God with anybody?

This was no way for God to take a hand, not the way of the cross, not according to what reasonably might be expected of God. He is not supposed to die, not any god we would think worth calling God. God is supposed to have lots of power that can lay anything low that He wants to, anything that stands in His way. Jesus was crucified, dead and buried. Where was God in all that? What sort of a God?

That God was on the scene the Gospel declares with two earthquakes: Calvary earthquake and Easter earthquake, same god in action in both. That we might know what, in fact, is going on, God puts His words on it. His messenger says it, as at the beginning He put the words on Mary’s unborn child. “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Angels were at Jesus’ temptation and in Gethsemane. The angels strengthened Him. Jesus went on to Calvary, was forsaken of God as was our lot for our sins. He bore them, answered for them. Jesus cried, “It is finished.” Now the Easter messenger sits on the throne as in victory, the stone that should close tight the grave. The angel sits on it and bids the women no longer be afraid, for they are seeking Jesus who was crucified. To those who can’t let go of Jesus even when he is dead, the message is given: “He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come and see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell His disciples that He is risenfrom the dead; and, behold, He goeth before you into Galilee; there ye shall see Him: lo, I have told you” (Matthew 28:6-7).

The message gets the women going again. On their way to tell the disciples, Jesus meets them, and says, “All hail!” (Matthew 28:9). That seems like an everyday greeting, but when Jesus says it, it carries what it says: “Be glad. Rejoice.” He who was crucified and is now risen can say it. Everyday thing transformed, so “Be glad. Rejoice!” Because Jesus was crucified and is now risen, His words draw the women out of all their fears. The fear that God had quit, the fear of slavery to sin and death, the fears of the same old story, that the world is just a big cemetery. Jesus said to the women: “Be not afraid” (Matthew 28:10). Again, the words are for doing. “Go tell My brethren that they go into Galilee, and there they see Me” (28:10). Galilee is Galilee of the Gentiles; therefore, on to Galilee and so to all nations the message of the crucified and risen Savior. The words of the messenger and of Jesus pick the women up, set them going, alive into doing the words and carrying the message.

So for you, too, Jesus’ Easter words pick you up, pull on you, set you going into the living and doing of the words and the carrying of their message. In the living and doing of His words, Jesus meets you with the message and gift of “Be glad. Rejoice.” Go, tell, on your way! No more fear of living and dying. You go now, you live now, you tell now: Jesus crucified for you and risen for you. That is now where you live, where that is so, in his kingdom. Therefore, “Do not be afraid.” There is no nothing in all the world that you can be more sure of than Jesus crucified for you, risen for you. “Ain’t no grave gonna hold this body down.”

Just as we know that Easter will come on March 31st, we know that our final Easter will come too, where we join in heaven’s praise for all eternity, risen and glorified with Christ forever. We wait for both Easters with fervent longing and anticipation. As you wait, know that Christ is with you each and every day. That’s His baptismal promise to you who belong to Him, washed in His blood, united with Him in His death and resurrection. A blessed Lententide to you all as together we await the joys of Christ’s resurrection victory!

Jesus lives, and by His words and Spirit, He puts His death and His life into you. You are baptized. “Your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). Go, tell, live that. There is angel’s work to do. Jesus has done it, crucified and risen, but some don’t know it yet, and some don’t live it yet. Amen.