Easter Sunday A (Matthew 28:1-10)

Let’s take a moment and imagine ourselves with Mary Magdalene and the other Mary on that first Easter morning. Right now, it’s about 9:50 a.m. for us—but for them, it would have been just before sunrise, maybe four or five in the morning—still dim, still quiet, still heavy with grief.

They had witnessed the death of their beloved Jesus only two days earlier. So this first act of Easter doesn’t begin with trumpet sounds or alleluias—it begins with sorrow. They go to the tomb. Why? Matthew says simply: to see the tomb. Mark and Luke tell us they brought spices and perfumes to anoint him—to finish the burial rites they didn’t have time for on Friday.

They come not expecting life, but to tend to death. They stand near the tomb because love makes us linger. You might know that feeling—standing at a gravesite, hoping to sense some trace of the person you love, a presence that memory keeps alive.

And then—it happens. The stone is rolled back. An angel appears. The scene must be overwhelming—earthquake, light, fear. Yet the heart of that moment isn’t the spectacle but the message: “Do not be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here.”

The tomb is empty. The body is missing. The women are terrified. This is how resurrection begins—not in triumph, but in confusion and wonder. The empty tomb might have looked, at first, more like a crime scene than a miracle. (In fact, people in the 18th and 19th centuries who stole bodies for medical schools were called “resurrectionists.” It’s an eerie coincidence.)

But the angel goes on: “He has been raised, as he said.” And something shifts. Fear gives way to joy—quiet at first, but real. And in that joy, Jesus meets them. He greets them. He sends them out: “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Notice that the joy comes before they see Jesus—it opens their eyes to see him. They began the morning “to see the tomb,” but by the end, they are running “to see the resurrection.”

Now, there will be no Easter Sunday service here at St. Agnes’ next year—or in the years after. For many of us, that reality stings. We may find ourselves, like Mary and the other Mary, lingering around what feels lost—an empty building, an empty space where memories live.

But perhaps this empty building can remind us of that empty tomb. Not a sign of the end, but of the beginning. Not a place of absence, but of promise. He is not here. He is risen.

So where is he now? The same voice that spoke to Mary and the other Mary speaks to us: “Go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Where is your Galilee? The place where Christ’s life meets your life. The place where love still calls your name. Go there—and you will see the risen Christ. 

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