Commentary on Matthew 28:1-10

Matthew presents the resurrection of Jesus as an earthshaking occurrence.

The event itself and evidently also its consequences are literally seismic. So, too, were Jesus’s humble and provocative entry into Jerusalem and his crucifixion, for on all three occasions Matthew uses the Greek word seismos or its verbal cognate, meaning “earthquake” (21:10; 27:54; 28:2; see also 8:24, when the boat carrying Jesus and his disciples becomes swamped).

Nothing is ever certain during an earthquake. Nothing is stable. Everything totters.

Each Gospel depicts the first Easter in its own way. For the other three, resurrection brings confusion, reunion, disbelief, and wonder. For Matthew, it’s primarily a triumph. God unleashes power.

• The natural world itself is affected, as it is in any seismic event.
• An angel, blinding in appearance, enters the scene. Any barrier between the earth and the heavenly realms has been breached.
• The angel does more than roll the stone away. Making a chair out of it, he mocks its great weight, the empire that rolled it there in the first place, and the finality of death that it represents.
• The guards are overwhelmed. The seal that represented imperial authority over the tomb snaps apart; it’s no more a deterrent than flimsy yellow tape guarding an old crime scene. The angel cares nothing about the legal repercussions of breaking open the threshold.

By that point, Jesus has already left the tomb. The angelic action allows Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” (who are introduced in Matthew 27:56, 61) to confirm that he’s gone. All of the seismic excitement outside, Matthew, din view of the women and the guards, says the quiet part out loud: No one and nothing will obstruct what God is doing. To borrow from Paul borrowing from Isaiah, “Death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54; Isaiah 25:7–8). Matthew sees no need for subtlety. After all, according to Matthew 27:53, even more (previously) dead people are about to show up in Jerusalem. We shouldn’t pretend that Easter isn’t pretty weird.

Matthew’s resurrection account is rather disorienting in its brevity, especially when considered next to Luke’s and John’s. Readers receive few details. The narrative stays silent about the two Marys’ reasons for going to the tomb, other than they wish “to see” it. Probably anyone stunned by the death of a loved one can relate; who needs a good explanation for an impulse to visit sites of death or burial? The awful emptiness of loss and separation generates its own desires.

The followers of Jesus do not appear to expect a resurrection, however.

What the women see and hear from the angel astounds them. They depart the tomb with contrasting—but hardly incompatible—emotions of fear and joy. Then, when they suddenly encounter Jesus, they recognize him at once and don’t hesitate to fall at his feet. Do they “worship” him or “reverence” him? It’s not clear that Matthew would fuss over the difference between those two possible translations.¹ In any case, the 11 remaining male disciples will do the same soon, when they see Jesus in 28:17.

Speaking of the Eleven, their absence from Matthew’s Easter narrative is conspicuous. None of them appears on the narrative stage, and we don’t learn how difficult it might be for the two Marys to convince them that Jesus will meet the entire group of men and women—all of them, based on the plural “you” in verse 7—in Galilee. Things do go according to plan, nevertheless, since this Gospel will conclude in Galilee, back to the more diverse population among whom Jesus began his ministry (in fulfillment of Isaiah’s words, as Matthew sees it in Matthew 4:12–17).

The brevity of the narrative might underscore the lingering danger. Those guards are going to wake up, after all. And Rome never runs out of crosses. The story’s sense of haste could instead (or also) emphasize the importance of getting to the next steps as soon as possible. The Messiah’s determination to spread mercy must not slow down.

Preaching on Easter

Easter brings out some of the church’s most triumphal music and imagery. Matthew’s version is right at home with it. Preachers do well to make sure that the conquest, the power, and the decisiveness all belong to God. The response of Easter’s original witnesses in Matthew is worship and obedience, not cockiness or fantasies about their own authority. We have plenty of occasions in the Bible in which God displays astonishing power; I’m typically wary of people who jump too quickly to proclaiming divine power over other powers. Too often that becomes an opportunity for the church to co-opt divine authority to advance some specific agenda.

Yet, when it comes to proclaiming God’s victory over the grave, I find endless comfort in promises about God’s determination to boot death out of the world. Who’s not too familiar with death’s ferocity? Who hasn’t felt robbed or blindsided by death? Human history—past and present—brims with people and movements who know how to use death to advance their own terrible ends. If there’s any power whose defeat deserves a grand celebration, it’s death. A preacher can help congregations explore the implications of this divine vanquishing, especially how it affects our views of grief and promotes the value and dignity every person possesses.

Notice, finally, that Jesus’s particular story has specific implications for how the church understands imperialistic authority and the alliances that despots forge with death. It matters that a crucified man, a man Rome sought to make a nobody, was raised from the dead. Matthew’s attention to the guards at Jesus’s tomb calls our attention here.

Tyrants and empires devote endless energy toward maintaining the power to silence their critics and foes. They know that nothing silences like death and the threat of it. What will happen, though, when a ragtag bunch of resurrection-believers offer testimony in response to state-sanctioned death? What can happen when the dead get a chance to speak from beyond the veil, or when a formerly dead man commissions his followers to speak on his behalf?

Christian theology, rooted in resurrection, won’t allow the dead to remain silenced and forgotten. It won’t allow anyone else to keep them dead.

Notes

1. See the review of the verb proskuneō in Matthew by Mark Allan Powell, Matthew: An Interpretation Bible Commentary (Westminster John Knox, 2023), 51–53.