Homily, April 5, 2026, Rev. HOlly Cardone

Easter Sunday

April 5, 2026

Many of you have suffered unimaginable loss, partners, children, friends, beloved animals. In the days after a loss, even the simplest tasks can feel insurmountable. Eating, sleeping, talking, engaging with the world, these things feel like more than we can manage. And yet, life demands it. We need to eat. We need to sleep. If there are children in the house, they need to be fed. If there are other animals, they need tending. Others who share in our grief want to be close to us. No matter the devastation, life, somehow, must go on.

I imagine this is exactly how Mary Magdalene and the other Mary felt on that Sunday morning. Mary Magdalene had worked side by side with Jesus. Luke 8:1-3 tells us that she, along with Joanna, Susanna, and other women, supported Jesus and his disciples out of their own means. For Mary Magdalene, this was no passing fascination with a new rabbi. She had committed her time, her money, and her physical labor because she believed, deeply and wholly, in Jesus. She believed in his ministry, in his healing, in his teachings on compassion, justice, love, and mercy. She loved Jesus, and he loved her. She and the other Mary, and the women with them, had stood at the foot of the cross and watched him die in agony.

And so they came to the tomb,  perhaps to pray, to weep, to say goodbye.

Scripture says they came to see the tomb. Maybe the brutality of his death was so overwhelming, so impossible to absorb, that they had to lay eyes on it themselves. Just days before, Jesus had been riding into Jerusalem on a donkey while crowds shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!" How could that triumphant moment have collapsed into this grief so quickly? It must have felt like a lifetime had passed between the cross and that quiet Sunday morning.

But there is no time to weep. The ground shakes. An angel descends, rolls the massive stone away from the entrance, and then sits on it. I love this detail. Matthew wants us to picture this: an angel of the Lord, having just rolled away the stone from the tomb of the Son of God, casually taking a seat on top of it. Jesus isn't just any teacher. The soldiers standing guard are so terrified they collapse like dead men. But the angel turns to the women and says simply, "Do not be afraid."

This contrast is worth sitting with. The soldiers live in a world of fear, brutality, and control. The women live in a different reality entirely, one defined by interconnectedness and love. When one person is fed, the whole community is nourished. When one person is healed, healing begins to ripple outward. When a person is restored to life, the restoration of the whole community begins.

The angel's tone in this passage is, remarkably, warm and unhurried. I picture him leaning back on that stone, completely at ease: It's fine. Jesus isn't here, you'll see him in Galilee. Go tell the disciples. God has their backs. Everything is already known. Everything is already unfolding.

"So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples."

That word fear in Greek is phobos, yes, the root of our word phobia, and yes, it can mean fright. But in the New Testament it carries a far richer meaning: profound awe, wonder, reverence, and respect. Fear and great joy together. Not the paralyzing dread of the soldiers, but the breathless, wide-eyed wonder of women who have just encountered something beyond all human comprehension.

And then,  suddenly, Jesus himself is standing before them.

In the New Testament, "suddenly" is never a casual word. It signals a divine interruption of ordinary time and space, something breaking in from beyond the natural order. And here it is: Jesus, right in front of them, alive. His greeting is disarmingly simple, "Rejoice!" as if he has just run into dear friends on the road. They fall at his feet and hold on. He tells them not to be afraid, and sends them to bring word to his brothers: Go to Galilee. I will meet you there.

What strikes me most about this resurrection account is what it is not. It is not triumphalist. It is not loud. An earthquake, an angel on a rock, two grieving women, and a risen Lord who shows up on a road and says hello. The story feels unfinished, and in a way, it is. Matthew doesn't linger here. Within a few more verses, Jesus will meet the disciples on a hillside in Galilee and give them the Great Commission: Go. Make disciples of every nation. Teach them what I taught you. And know that I am with you, always, to the end of the age.

Simple. And oh so hard.

Because what Jesus taught, from the very beginning, comes down to this: love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. Not when it is convenient. Not when your neighbor is easy to love. Not when grief hasn't hollowed you out and left you running on nothing. Even then. Especially then.

The women at the tomb didn't wait until they felt ready. They were terrified and heartbroken, and they showed up anyway. And on that road, in that ordinary morning light, the extraordinary met them right where they were.

It still does.

Whatever tomb you have been standing outside of — whatever loss, whatever ending feels too final to accept — the invitation of Easter is this: Do not be afraid. Go. He is already ahead of you.