Summary: Despite many differences and variations in detail, our Gospel accounts share in common a message of triumph over death. We share that message in an age of doubt by finding that Gospel core and living it.
Ever since there has been a church there have been, as you know, four gospel accounts of the resurrection which the church has traditionally regarded as "canonical," which is to say, ultimately authoritative: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The most basic familiarity with all of them leads to the inevitable conclusion that their accounts of the central message of our Christian faith -- that is, three days after his brutal murder at the hands of the State, Jesus was raised from the dead -- are very different with regard to little details about what "really happened" on that first Easter morning.
And we need not be daunted by that, not even in this age of declining church attendance, of "nones" and "ex-vangelicals" (and ex-liberals and ex-mainliners, too) and all around, ever-increasing doubt.
In the first place, we need not be anxious about the differing accounts of Jesus' resurrection. Most of us have heard of the "telephone" game -- you know, one of those deadly serious "kids' games" in which somebody at one end of a long line of people whispers something into the ear of the person right next to her, and that one whispers it into his neighbor's ear, and so on down a long line of "ear-witnesses." As we all know, what is repeated by the person at the end of the line is often not a "repeat" in any strict sense of the word, but a very different statement from the one originally whispered into the ear of the first person.
What the telephone game proves is simply a very real aspect of our shared human life: that different people, for a variety of reasons, hear -- and see -- very different details when they witness the same event. Eyewitness accounts of what "really happened" at an automobile accident can be wildly different. It has been said that eyewitness testimony is not really all that reliable. It is simply a fact of life that we all notice different details, that we each filter real events through our own biases and expectations. And we know that the resurrection accounts circulated orally for a long time before they were written down. All of that is in play here in these accounts of Jesus' resurrection. We need to acknowledge that.
To be sure, we could insist that, when all is said and done, the Resurrection, on that first Easter, may very well have happened just as it's written. "Let's throw a little honest doubt at the veracity of our doubts!" we might say. We doubt everything except the significance of our doubts! Accounts of what really happened vary significantly, so should we conclude that therefore nothing happened at all? Now that's a mental leap as irrational as any other!
All well and good. We could pound the table and insist upon that line of thinking. Many of us do. But if we are in pursuit of what really happened, we need to ask "What really happened according to who -- Matthew? Mark? Luke? John? Again, the most cursory glance at the record shows significant differences in terms of details.
"After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb" -- so today's version from Matthew begins. "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary" are confronted by an angel, a heavenly being who quite dramatically descends and lands on earth, strides over to Jesus' tomb, and physically rolls the stone away. And the guards are literally paralyzed with fear -- so that they become like dead men.
Wait. Who? The guards? What guards?
Well, the guards in Matthew's account of this central event of our faith. Yes, Matthew's account of the Resurrection is the only one in which there are "guards." Check it out, when you get a chance. And Matthew name-checks Mary Magdalene, to be sure -- but who, exactly, the "other Mary" is isn't clear at all.
What other details are we given in these accounts?
In our text for today, this angel, very clearly a physical being, terrifying to behold, literally descends from the sky and lands on earth like Superman, strides over to the tomb and rolls away the stone.1 The guards are literally paralyzed with fear. The angel's first words to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary are, "Do not be afraid." And then the angel says to the women "...You are looking for Jesus, who was crucified ... he has been raised ...."
In Mark's gospel, as indicated earlier, no guards are mentioned. One "young man dressed in a white robe" says to Mary Magdalene and to another woman named Mary, quite specifically identified as "Mary the mother of James and Salome": "You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised ...."
Luke's account tells us that two men in dazzling clothes say to "Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James," and a group of unnamed "other women with them," 'Why do you look for the living among the dead...? He is not here but has risen ....'"
And in John -- a significantly different report. Not one angel, but "two angels said to Mary Magdalene only, 'Woman, why are you weeping?'"
We need to understand that, really, no one knows specifically what, in terms of details, really happened on that first Easter morning. There is no direct line back to some set of an actual, historical report with all detail agreed upon. All we have here are differing accounts from different witnesses -- different people, with different remembrances of different specifics.
But while we can't say for sure what really happened, we don't need to. Strictly speaking, our faith is not based on some rigorous and unassailable account. That's because our faith is based upon a series of promises. Our faith is rooted in the angels' message to the women named Mary and the various other women, and to the Twelve -- and ultimately, to us.
For all the differences, these accounts do have some things in common.
The first point of agreement is the day of the Resurrection. Matthew states it as "After the Sabbath" -- that is, Sunday. Mark agrees, saying "When the Sabbath was over ...." Luke and John both identify it as "the first day of the week" (again, Sunday).
But how is this day different from all other days?
On that specific day, three days after Jesus' brutal murder at the hands of the state, abetted by functionaries of what people today loosely describe as "organized religion" who are protecting their own prerogatives and interests, something happened -- something that made that day different from any other day in history.
There was, as this woman or these women approached Jesus' tomb, "An earthquake...."
Was it a real earthquake? We might well answer that question by posing another: does the earth really "shake" at an "earth-shaking" event? For this was an "earth-shaking event"; on that, we should all agree. After all, here we are still talking about it over 2,000 years later.
There are angels, or simply "young men." They have a common message for Mary Magdalene, and another Mary and the other women who may or may not have been with them:
"Do not be afraid," in Matthew;
"Do not be alarmed," in Mark.
"He is not here but has risen" in Luke;
"He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said," in Matthew.
"He has been raised, he is not here," in Mark.
In the Gospel of John, the outlier, we are told that Mary Magdalene encounters Jesus himself, and he says, "Why are you weeping"?
Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" also encounter Jesus himself in our text for today, the Gospel of Matthew, and he repeats the angel's message to them: "Do not be afraid."
"Do not be afraid...He is not here ...
... for he has been raised ...
... as he said."
Our message, even in the midst of doubt and conflicting small details, do not be afraid. We have no reason to fear...anything. Not even death itself.
We need not be afraid. And as a result, we can separate ourselves from the distorted kind of "organized religion," that seeks first its own power and prerogative, rather than the radically human message of the Risen One.
Do it! Do not be afraid! He has risen from defeat to conquer even death itself!
The accounts of Jesus' life, death and new life may vary. Jesus may not be where "religion" expects him to be; he is -- somewhere else.
Don't be afraid!
He has gone on ahead, to Galilee, to where he began, to where we began, to where we first met him, to where his radically human message first spoke to our soul. May we follow him there. May we find him there. May we go on "ahead" -- to our "Galilee," where it all began. May we speak to the world his message of love and peace with God. May we live that message in a way that stares down death itself. And perhaps the world will see, in us, the reality of his new and everlasting life.