LaurenRELarkin.comClothed in Divine Righteousness: Easter Sunday!
“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]
Introduction
On Friday, we bore the crushing weight of being utterly exposed; we felt the shame of being stripped down, our few fig leaves ripped from our bodies.[ii] On Friday, we viscerally felt the depth of our fragility,[iii] our unsafety,[iv] our hurt,[v] our lostness,[vi] and our guilt.[vii] On Friday we gazed long in the mirror and what was reflected back terrified us, angered us, grieved us, made us anxious, and was detestable to us; what we saw on Friday was that we are hopeless, helpless, lifeless, groundless, and ruthless creatures who lie to themselves, preferring to kill an innocent man than attend to the infection of the mythology of control we’ve grown quite drunk on. On Friday, we were abandoned to ourselves, left to our errant judgments, and found ourselves held captive in the tomb of arrogance and desperation, tombs we’ve constructed for ourselves, tombs we are unable to escape from because we are so curved in on ourselves. On Friday we were sealed in darkness and left for dead, alienated and isolated from God, from others, and from ourselves.
But then…God.
Today, where there was darkness there is now light, where there was death there is now life. This morning, the exposure we felt on Friday becomes the warm light of the risen Son, bringing us into himself, into the lap of Abba God, and wrapping us up like newborn babes in the heated blanket of the Holy Spirit. God sent death and his siblings packing because nothing stands between God and God’s beloved, not even death.
This is the goal and trajectory of God’s love: bringing that which is dead back to life, that which is encased in darkness into the light, that which is curved in on itself and loveless into belovedness. Today the oppressive burial linens of fragility, unsafety, hurt, lostness, and guilt are pulled off and we find ourselves dressed in the divine clothes of divine grace, mercy, kindness, joy, and righteousness. As God calls Jesus from the tomb, so does God call us from our self-imposed tombs. As Jesus is raised to life out of death, so, too, are we raised out of death into new life, new hope, new help, on to a new ground, with new confidence not in ourselves but in God, in love, in life, and in liberation. This morning, in our encounter with the risen Christ, our terror is quelled, our anger is released, our grief met with divine comfort, our anxiety gives way to peace that surpasses all understanding, and our detestable state is exchanged for cherished. And all of this as a gift from God to us through Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit; all of it dependent on God’s never-stopping, always and forever, unconditional love for us.
Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!!
Matthew 28:1-10
Matthew opens on the tomb. Unlike the Gospels of Mark and Luke,[viii] there is little movement here. Matthew begins at the tomb with the women Mary already there, Now late on the Sabbath as it was dawning into the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look on the tomb[ix] (v.1). As the women are already there, they know the tomb is sealed because they can see it. They are not planning to do any funeral and burial rituals; for them, what’s done is done. For Matthew, these women are not professing prodigious faith; they are there to confirm that Jesus is dead,[x] secured and sealed in the tomb, the supposed divine mission of God ended. However, God’s ways are higher than human ways: the last shall be first…[xi]
Matthew then tells us,
And, behold!, a great earthquake happened; for an angel of the Lord came down out of heaven and approaching rolled back the stone and was sitting upon it. Now the angel’s appearance was as lightening and their outer robe [was] bright as snow (vv. 2-3).
The Marys who were prepared for darkness and death find themselves immersed in the presence of the divine light, witnessing divine activity overhauling human space and time, folding death in on itself.[xii] As the male guards began shaking and (ironically[xiii]) became as corpses (v.4), the women hold ground through the earthquake caused by the angel’s arrival to roll back the stone.[xiv] Unphased by the men who are now on the ground and, thus, out of the picture,[xv] the angel of God addresses the women,
“You, you do not be afraid! For I have perceived that you are seeking Jesus, the one who has been crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he was laid. And quickly go and tell his disciples, ‘he has been raised from the dead, and, behold!, he goes before you into Galilee, there you will find him.’ Behold! I told you (vv.5-7).
Those who were last at the cross become the first at the tomb;[xvi] those who were last in the economy of the kingdom of humanity become the first in the economy of the reign of God. The discipleship of the risen Jesus does not start with men minding their own business, but with grieving women coming to confirm death; the Marys, for Matthew, become the first witnesses to the resurrection of their beloved Jesus.[xvii] As they look in the tomb, as they see emptiness, as they remember that the stone was there when they arrived,[xviii] the Marys become the first to experience life amidst death. these humble ones get to be the divinely chosen preachers of the good news: Jesus lives![xix] Where they expected to find a dead body already in decay, they find the presence of God and the altering of history forever in the victory of life over death. [xx] And it is about this victory they are commanded to declare to the disciples with the authority of heaven behind them.[xxi]
And so, as quickly as they could, they left … from the tomb with fear and great joy and they ran… (v.8a). Matthew could have stopped here like Mark did in his Gospel; but Matthew doesn’t.[xxii] The women are eager to convey the divine message to Jesus’s disciples (v.8b), but God has another gift to give. Matthew tells us, And, behold!, Jesus encountered the women saying, ‘Rejoice!’ (v.9a). Just in case they might be doubting what just happened, Jesus shows up and greets them. What they saw back at the tomb wasn’t a figment of their imagination; Jesus is raised,[xxiii] Jesus lives.[xxiv] The event is so real, in fact, that they drew near [to Jesus] and held fast his feet and bowed down to him (v.9b). This was no ghost,[xxv] this was no figment of their imagination; Jesus stood before them, talked to them, and they grabbed hold of his feet.
As they are genuflecting, Jesus exhorts them, echoing the words of the angelic messenger of God, “Do not be afraid! Go your way and proclaim to my brothers so that they may go into Galilee, and there they will see me” (v.10). Jesus refers to the disciples as “brothers”; those who failed Jesus, those who betrayed him, those who denied him, those who ran and hid, those who are still hiding, are declared “brothers” and not merely “disciples” [xxvi] Divine victory of life over death eclipses the existential death the disciples are experiencing as they are still held captive in the oppression of darkness, of silence, and of guilt. In the raising of Jesus, God’s mercy, grace, love, kindness, and forgiveness come pouring out of that tomb rather than the stench of decay, decomposition, and death. As Jesus walks the earth in his resurrected state, life, love, and liberation are on the move.
Conclusion
To us who are exposed and found naked, not in control, fragile and hopeless, unsafe and helpless, hurt and lifeless, lost and groundless, and guilty and ruthless we are given, this morning, Christ himself—all of him—so that we never again find ourselves trapped in our self-imposed tombs. For us who find comfort in the consistency of our terror, we received an assurance like the Marys holding Jesus’s feet! For us who find ourselves addicted to our anger, we are beckoned in divine pleasure and given celestial joy through the resurrected Christ, the incarnate word of God’s love for the world. For us who know the weight of grieving, we are heralded into divine comfort in the surety of God’s presence always with us in Christ, the very one who overcame death with life. For us who are suffocating under anxiety, we receive peace that surpasses understanding. For us who find ourselves stuck in detest, we find ourselves cherished.
Today we’re given something completely new,[xxvii] completely different, completely strange to the kingdom of humanity. We are given life, love, and liberation. And while we benefit from this, we are given these things specifically so we can participate in God’s divine mission of the revolution of love, life and liberation in the world for the God’s beloved. We are refused the option of living as if we’ve not heard, seen, felt, tasted, smelled the good news. We are charged to take up the way of Christ and live as if the Cross isn’t the end of the story but the beginning. Today, we’re not the same as we were yesterday morning; today we’ve encountered an empty tomb and heard the announcement from the heavenly realm: he is not here; he has been risen! How could we ever live in the old way?
Today, our willful and chaotic self-determination collides with the steady path of Christ. Today we live under the weight that Jesus’s resurrection is not an event isolated to the past or retained for some future time, but is right now.[xxviii] We must hear our summons to go! and proclaim! in word and deed, not only telling but living in such a way that Jesus’s resurrection—thus life’s victory over death—is real for those most threatened by a world on fire, by leaders consumed with their own well-being, by institutions and systems hardwired to consume them. This morning, we, too, are resurrected and called out of our tombs to go and live radically and wildly in the name of God and for the well-being of your neighbor and to do so in a way that brings God glory and might get you in a little bit of good trouble. You’ve been summoned into life not death, into love and not indifference, into liberation and not captivity.
Today, we live because Jesus is alive, [xxix] we love because Jesus is love, we are liberated because death is no match for life.
[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.
[ii] https://laurenrelarkin.com/2026/02/18/exposed-and-naked-we-are-not-in-control/
[iii] https://laurenrelarkin.com/2026/02/22/exposed-and-naked-we-are-fragile/
[iv] https://laurenrelarkin.com/2026/03/08/exposed-and-naked-we-are-unsafe/
[v] https://laurenrelarkin.com/2026/03/22/exposed-and-naked-we-are-hurt/
[vi] https://laurenrelarkin.com/?p=7127
[vii] https://laurenrelarkin.com/?p=7130
[viii] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 1097. Four distinctive features of Matthew’s account: “…the earthquake, the angel rolling away the stone, the effect on the guards, and the women’s meeting with Jesus himself on their way from the tomb.”
[ix] Τάφος
[x] Case-Winters, Matthew, 336. “It was not uncommon for friends to come and wait by a tomb incase an apparently dead person should revive. This might continue as far as the third day. The effect of these visits was to confirm death.”
[xi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 336. “Waiting and watching in sadness, they have become the first witnesses to the resurrection. Once again the last are first. They are also first to worship the risen Lord.”
[xii] France, Matthew, 1099.
[xiii] France, Matthew, 1100. “Note the irony that those assigned to guard the corpse themselves become ‘corpses,’ while the on they guarded is already alive. The attempt at human security has been neutralized, and the guards play no further part in the scene until they have to report back in vv. 11-15.”
[xiv] France, Matthew, 1099. “…here the removal of the stone form Jesus’ tomb is attributed not to the earthquake but to the direct action of an angel. Indeed, Matthew’s connective ‘for’ suggest that the quake is itself the result, or at least the context, of the angel’s coming, so that emphasis falls on the angel rather than the earthquake.”
[xv] France, Matthew, 1100.
[xvi] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 336. “‘Last at the cross, first at the tomb,’ the women have come to watch.”
[xvii] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 618. “I: ‘In those times nobody paid much attention to women. And that’s why those women maybe didn’t run any risk, as Laureano says. Their role was only to go and weep and then embalm the body of Jesus. A humble role. But this Gospel assigns them a more important role: they were witnesses to the resurrection.’”
[xviii] France, Matthew, 1097-1098. “The action of the angel in removing the stone from the entrance to the tomb draws attention even more clearly than in the other gospels to the fact that Jesus has already left the tomb, while the stone was still in place.”
[xix] France, Matthew, 1101. “The women are not only themselves the witnesses of the empty tomb, but also the chosen messengers to convey the amazing news to Jesus’ male disciples.”
[xx] Cardenal, Solentiname, 619. “I: ‘The important thing about this story is that they find an empty tomb. They were arriving to embalm a corpse and there wasn’t any corpse.’”
[xxi] France, Matthew, 1101. Angel’s last words to women “reminiscent of the frequent TO formula, ‘The Lord has spoken’….The formula marks an authoritative pronouncement (perhaps even that the agnel speaks for God), and functions now as a call to action. The message has been delivered, and now it is up to the women to act on it.”
[xxii] France, Matthew, 1097. “Matthew’s account of the empty tomb is thus, like his account of the death of Jesus, more dramatic than Mark’s and supplies the surprisingly missing element in Mark 16:1-8, an actual encounter with the risen Jesus.”
[xxiii] France, Matthew, 1098. It’s “…a demonstration that Jesus has risen….What matters to the narrators is not when or how he left, but the simple fact that now, early on Sunday morning ‘he is not here’…”
[xxiv] Cardenal, Solentiname, 619. “Maria: ‘And afterwards he appears before them and shows them that he’s alive.’”
[xxv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 336. “The women ‘took hold of his feet.’ This latter establishes not only their posture of worship but that this resurrection appearance had ‘feet’—this is not a ghost.”
[xxvi] France, Matthew, 1103. The disciples become Jesus’s brothers, “The concept itself is not new….This time, however, it follows the abject failure of the Twelve to stand with Jesus when the pressure was on, a failure which was hardly less shameful because Jesus had predicted it in 26;31. But now it is time for the second half of that prediction to be fulfilled…and that Galilean meeting will eventually restore the family relationship which they must surely have thought had come to an end in Gethsemane.”
[xxvii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 621. “William: ‘Resurrection is a new life, not the prolonging of this life.’”
[xxviii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 621. “Laureano: ‘What’s important is for us to live resurrection here, right now, and for us not to believe, as many have believed, that this world doesn’t count, that what counts is to go to heaven afterwards and all that nonsense.’”
[xxix] Cardenal, Solentiname, 621. “I: ‘It’s certain they they’ve put Jesus resurrected in heaven, in another life, in the blue beyond, so that the earth will go right on being the same, and they’ll still be injustice, and there’ll still be poor people…But he rose to be here on earth: ‘He was dead and he goes to Galilee before you.’…”
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