A New Beginning
Keith McFarren
April 5, 2026
Matthew 28:1-10
    A number of years
ago, the Saturday Evening Post ran a cartoon showing a man about to be rescued
after he had spent a number of years ship-wrecked on a tiny deserted
island.  The sailor in charge of the
rescue team stepped onto the beach and handed the man a stack of newspapers.
    “Compliments of
the Captain,” the sailor said.  “He would
like you to take a good look at all the headlines to see if you’d still like to
be rescued.”
    Sometimes the
headlines can be scary…and they do scare us.
That’s because the world is a scary place.  So much so that sometimes we feel that evil
is always winning, but then along comes Easter, to remind us that there is no
grave deep enough, there is no seal that is imposing enough, no stone heavy
enough and no evil strong enough to keep Jesus in the grave (James Moore, Some
Things Are Too Good Not To Be True, Dimensions,1994, 80).
    Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John.  It’s interesting to
compare the Easter morning stories that these four guys give us.  Each one of them speaks about the discovery
of the empty tomb and each one tells us about the effects that the discovery
had on the people that were there that morning.
But at the same time they each add some of their own nuances, nuances
that differ from all the others, nuances that make each gospel just a little
bit different.
    And that could be
for a number of different reasons.
Through the early translations of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, it could be
that those telling the story omitted some of the details when they were telling
it to the writers.  Or maybe some of the
guys who were writing all of this wanted to add some stuff of their own to make
their writing more interesting or perhaps to emphasize a point. Or it could be that
through the different translations and over a period of time, some of the
information was misinterpreted and just slipped through the cracks and was
overlooked.
    We don’t always
know why they wrote what they wrote.  All
we can do is try to figure out what it all means as it pertains to our lives.
    There are some
aspects of Matthew’s story that stands out over and above the others.  Matthew liked excitement.  He was the type of guy who liked big
explosions and fireworks going off all around the action.  He’s got the vail of the Temple being torn in
two and earthquakes and rocks splitting and tombs opening up on Good Friday and
now this morning we have another earthquake.

    But at the same
time we have another jaw dropping, kick in the gut, once in a lifetime event
taking place.
    Matthew even has an angel showing up.  But it wasn’t just one of those nondescript,
undercover angels.  Not someone like the
angel Clarence, who showed up in a bar with Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful
Life.  Clarence blended in with the world
around him; Matthew’s angel is a big strapping guy wearing a Spandex suit with
a cape rippling in the breeze.  
    Remember the
original superman on TV…the guy that was able to leap tall buildings in a
single bound?  That’s the kind of guy
Matthew presents to us this morning.
That’s Matthew’s angel.
The guy is so big and so strong that he shows up and picks up
the multi-ton stone in front of the tomb and tosses away like it’s a pebble.
    And if none of
this impresses you, Matthew also provides us with guards.  Big, tough, soldier type guards.  Guards about the size of the late, great Hulk
Hogan.  Guards, who in spite of their
size and strength, become so overwhelmed with the sight of the angel and what
he says, that they pass out from fear.  
    Matthew wants your
attention; he has something to say.  He
doesn’t want you to miss anything this morning.
    The point, of
course, is that what is happening at the tomb is the action of God
himself.  The God who remained silent on
Good Friday is the same God who’s having the last word today.  God is finally answering the unspoken
questions of Jesus’ followers.  And what
God is doing is not just some type of ordinary miracle just for a miracle’s
sake.    
    What God is doing
is starting something new…not just by sending his disciples to Galilee, he’s
instead sending them on to the ends of the earth as a whole new world opens up
before them.  And it’s Mr. Muscle’s, the
angel who points all of this out.
    Can’t you just
hear him, “You people are all messed up.  You’re in the wrong place.  You’ve got the wrong attitude.  You’ve got the wrong train of thought.”
      The train of
thought the women find themselves in is the logical one, the human train of
thought.  Human logic says if a man was
crucified and dead as a door nail and buried in a tomb.  That’s the end of the line.  That’s the way it is.  That makes perfect sense.
    That does make
perfect sense…unless you factor in Easter.
“Why are you seeking the living among the dead?,” the angel said.  You’re in the wrong place.  You’re making assumptions based on the human
world and not God’s world.  You’re missing
what is right under your nose.
    What was right
under their noses was a brand new start, a brand new beginning.  And this brand new start was nothing more
than life itself, full, abundant, God empowered life.  
    This is what Jesus
came to offer us.  He didn’t’ come to
hold seminars or workshops on how to get there.
He didn’t come to coerce us into trying to be something better.  He didn’t come to drop some hints here and
there and then let us search through all the clues and try to figure out what
we are supposed to do or who we are supposed to be.  He came with a gift and the gift is right
there in front of us.
    The gift of full,
abundant, empowered life.  It is the gift
of community.  The gift of serving and
caring about others.  The gift of
gratitude.  The gift of hope.  It is the gift of God’s unconditional love
and God’s unconditional grace.
    We make things so
difficult because like Matthew, we want the big stuff, the exciting stuff.  We want wide screen, can’t miss, knock your
socks off experiences in life.  That’s
how we determine if we’ve found anything that we deem meaningful.
    What should knock
our socks off, or maybe I should say, what should knock us right on our hind
ends, is that there is someone who loves us even when we are unloveable and
someone who will forgive us when we are unforgivable.
    Maybe that’s what
Jesus meant when he was always complaining about people needing to see
signs.  How many times must he have heard
someone say,  “Show me something
spectacular Lord, and then I’ll believe.”
“Come on down from that cross and then I’ll believe.”  When it comes to God you don’t need the big
stuff; you don’t need the flashy stuff.
    Jesus is asking us
to live differently than everyone else…to swim against the current.  He’s asking us to start all over…change our
ways…to be born anew, to be born again…and then open our eyes to see what there
is to see in the world around us.
    When the smile of
a loved one, when laughter of a little child, when the smell of a flower, when
an arm around our shoulder, when a lump in our throat, or when a tear of joy
runs down our cheek, when these and a thousand more signs of abundant life are
right there in front of us…all we need to know is that He is Risen, Indeed!
    When we know this,
we’ll know about life, life abundant, and that is what Jesus so desperately
wants us to know.
    In 2018 Episcopal
priest, Jake Owensby, wrote a book called A Resurrection Shaped Life” to
help us understand that resurrection is not simply for the world beyond this
life…but is for the world we live in today.
    He wrote that “We
celebrate Jesus resurrection today, but before we can celebrate we needed to
grieve.  In fact, we spent all of Holy
Week mourning the hardships Jesus went through, including his own grief, the
misconceptions and guilt and pain of the disciples who didn’t understand him
and of course, his own death.  By working
our way through this grief we can confidently stand here today in true
celebration of God’s amazing grace.”
    “This amazing
grace that God gives to us, this miracle of new life, become ours today.  This is the gift that Jesus gives us, that
because he lives, so can we, not only in the afterlife, but in this life, in
the here and now” (Jake Owensby, A Resurrection Shaped Life: Dying and
Rising on Planet Earth).
    The resurrection
is not simply an event to remember - it is a call to action…a call to new
life…to an abundant life.  So let us
leave here today carrying the hope of Easter into every corner of our lives,
and in doing so let us show the world around us that the Resurrection, the
light of Christ, is not only alive but is working in us and through us.
    May you shine as a
living testament to God’s hope, in God’s grace, and in God’s love.