BE NOT AFRAID!

That’s what Jesus said to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary at the tomb on that first Easter morning!

BE NOT AFRAID, go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.

Fear and great joy! Earlier in the passage, the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.”

As I read those words for the first time last Sunday evening, I kept wondering when and where I had read them before. And then on Monday, it occurred to me, it was from the gospel of Luke, when an angel appeared to shepherds announcing Jesus’ birth.

Hear those words:

Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

The same angel song that was given at Jesus’ birth is the one that is given at his resurrection!

DO NOT BE AFRAID, GOOD NEWS OF JOY!

Those words bracket his birth and resurrection. And they are threaded throughout his life. The people for whom the gospel of Matthew was written lived a generation after Jesus’ life and death. About 80-90 AD, after the Destruction of the Second Temple, when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and its temple. That event shook Jewish identity to its core. Jewish communities were redefining themselves. Followers of Jesus (many of them Jewish) were trying to understand their place. Tensions between synagogue communities and Jesus-followers were growing. Matthew speaks into that uncertainty and conflict. The fear isn’t theoretical… Fear of persecution… Fear of losing identity… Fear of an uncertain future after Jerusalem’s fall. So when Jesus says, “Do not be afraid,” it’s a grounding message for a community navigating loss, change, and risk.

In Matthew 8: 26, Jesus said to fearful disciples, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm.” I confess I have problems with that… as if all you have to do is have faith and everything will be okay!  We all know that is not the case. But… but… there is the reality that Jesus can see us through the storms of our lives… that he can be an anchor…

Many of you know that one of my favourite passages is from chapter 14: 27, it’s part of my email signature: But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Take heart… en couer… to be encouraged… to live into the fullness of what is possible even when afraid. There are more instances in Matthew when Jesus tells both the disciples and his many other followers to not be afraid.

But I’m coming back to the resurrection account. And fear and joy! I’m not going to stand here and tell you that there are not legitimate reasons to be fearful. There are… we all know them… I don’t have to list them. But… let’s not suppress the joy! Let’s not fear win! Those faithful women who showed up at the tomb that first Easter morning had every reason to be fearful… just showing up was an act of bravery. They stood by and had seen their friend crucified, taken down and buried. And they came to the place where he has been laid. There’s an earthquake, an angel… and remember, angels in the Bible were often fearful looking creatures! Like lightning! The guards were so afraid they became frozen like dead men. The angels’ message to the women was that Jesus had been raised. And we are told that they left the tomb with FEAR AND JOY to tell the other disciples.

And here’s the thing… that line—fear and great joy—it sounds strange to our ears. We tend to think that joy and fear cancel each other out. That if you’re joyful, you shouldn’t be afraid. And if you’re afraid, well… then joy must be gone. But what if that’s not true?

I was reading this week from Inciting Joy by Ross Gay, and he writes about joy in a way that made me rethink some things. He says that joy is not separate from sorrow… it’s actually entangled with it. That joy shows up not when everything is perfect, but precisely because we care… because we love… because we are vulnerable to loss. And suddenly, that Easter morning makes a whole lot more sense. Because those women didn’t go to the tomb feeling light and happy. They went carrying grief. Shock. Fear. Their world had fallen apart. And when the angel speaks, and when they hear that Jesus is alive…their fear doesn’t disappear. It stays. But something else rises up alongside it. Joy. Not because everything is resolved. Not because they understand it all. But because love has not been defeated. Ross Gay says that joy is what happens when we allow ourselves to stay open… to the world, to one another, to love…even when it hurts. And that’s what those women do. They don’t shut down. They don’t run away from the feeling. They run with it. Fear in one hand. Joy in the other. Running to tell the story.

And maybe that’s what resurrection looks like. Not the absence of fear… but the refusal to let fear have the final word. Not a tidy, everything-is-fixed kind of joy… but a defiant, stubborn joy that says: Love is still here. Hope is still alive. God is still at work. So when Jesus says, “Do not be afraid,” maybe he’s not saying, “Stop feeling fear.” Maybe he’s saying: Don’t let fear close you off. Don’t let fear stop the story. Don’t let fear keep you from joy. Because Easter doesn’t ask us to choose between fear and joy. It tells us the truth: Sometimes… the most faithful thing we can do is carry them both… and keep running anyway. Thanks  be to God for the challenge and the opportunity of feeling both on this resurrection morning! Amen.

Matthew 28: 1-10

April 5, 2026 – Easter – SJ