Do not be afraid

Matthew 28:1-10 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. ²Suddenly, there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, and going to the tomb, he rolled away the stone and was sitting on it. ³His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. ⁴The guards were so terrified of him that they shook and became like dead men. ⁵The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid! I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶He is not here. He has risen, just as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. ⁷Go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead! And look, he is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him.’ See, I have told you!”

⁸They hurried away from the tomb, with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” They approached, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him.

¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go, tell my brothers that they should go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the end of time he will stand over the dust. ²⁶ Then, even after my skin has been destroyed, nevertheless, in my own flesh I will see God. (Job 19:25-26) Amen.

What fears do you, like the two Marys, carry with you this Easter Sunday morning? 

Fear of the spread of the pandemic. Fear that the economy is irreparably broken. Fear that your small business isn’t going to make it. Fear of those not wearing masks and gloves. Fear of social isolation. Fear that there are no children’s athletics to attend, no sports to watch, no vacation or prom or graduation to enjoy.

Perhaps never in our lifetimes has it been so easy to identify a single, predominant fear that grips three billion people around the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic has captured the attention of a world-wide audience. 

It isn’t hard to explain the fear, is it? How powerless we feel as we anxiously watch the relentless advance of this tiny, invisible-to-the-naked eye virus army while we are armed, so it seems, with little more than Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, and homemade masks. At present, medical science doesn’t know exactly how to treat those who contract the illness. Many researchers are engaged in a race against time to develop a vaccine, but they wisely make no promises how soon that will be.

But dig a little deeper. The depth of the fear goes beyond merely the illness itself. Behind COVID-19 is a rider on a very pale looking horse. St. John tells us what he sees in Revelation 6:7,8. “I looked, and there was a pale green horse. And its rider was named Death, and the Grave followed closely behind him. They were given power over a quarter of the earth, to kill people with the sword, with famine, with death, and by the wild animals of the earth.” The Black Plague, the Spanish Flu, AIDS, SARS, Covid-19 – they are all reminders that the pale rider of Death may look weak and sickly, but he is alive and well. He rides regularly to kill people with the sword or disease or natural disasters

As the death toll in our state, country, and world rises, who among us is not struck with the realization of our mortality? “Dust you are, and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19). God spoke that curse upon Adam in Eden. That curse is acutely felt by each of the sons and daughters of Adam as we stare into the face of the pale rider of Death.

But dig a bit deeper yet. COVID-19 and even death would be nothing to fear except that lurking behind both is this – we have rejected the Creator of the world because we arrogantly believe we own and operate our own lives. Fear is actually a very fitting response to the utter futility of the I-can-be-my-own-god experiment that Adam and Eve began in Eden. We are not in control. Each of us wavers between precaution and paranoia. We think we might be overly cautious … but then we become anxious when we think others aren’t being cautious enough. We lash out in anger because of our fear, indecisiveness and lack of control.

Without faith, there is only fear. The enemies are always real but without faith we are left with only our enemies, threats, fears and worries. We become anxious in our uncertainty, knowing that on our own, our only certainty is death. The guards who watched over Jesus' tomb had a great deal to fear, and so do we and our children.

Ever since God’s curse fell on this world, God allows every groan of his creation (Romans 8:22) to testify to the futility and hopelessness and fear of living apart from the Giver of life . Weare afraid in this life because we have lost by nature the trusting relationship our Creator designed us to have with him. If we do not learn that reality during our lives, fear will rule us forever in ways far beyond any COVID-19 pandemic.

Before this pandemic, we were lackadaisical with life. We filled up our days with busyness, but not with godly business. We did not take God’s commandments seriously to put him first in our lives.

Someone said this recently: “In three short months, just like He did with the plagues of Egypt, God has taken away everything we worship. God said, ‘You want to worship athletes; I will shut down the stadiums. You want to worship musicians; I will shut down Civic Centers. You want to worship actors; I will shut down theaters. You want to worship money; I will shut down the economy and collapse the stock market. You don't want to go to church and worship Me, I will make it where you can’t go to church.’”

God strips away almost everything else we enjoy in life. Now he is all that is left. Maybe God is forcing us in this time of isolation to remove the distractions of the world and focus on the only thing in this world that really matters – the crucified and resurrected Christ.

The only answer to fear is to learn that our entire lives actually rest in the hands of a Creator, who, even while calling the world to repentance, is still simultaneously proving himself patiently merciful with his fallen creatures. He longs for each of us to know that his saving love is far bigger and more powerful than anything that wants to make us afraid – viruses, illnesses, or even death itself.  

That’s why our trip to the tomb with the Marys this Easter is so important for us. It is fitting that at the grave the angels tell the women: “Do not be afraid.” It is fitting that the risen Jesus tells the women walking away from the tomb: “Do not be afraid.” And it is fitting that Jesus tells us this Easter as we are sequestered in our homes: “Do not be afraid.”

There at that tomb we hear a refrain that resounds almost 100 times in just the New Testament: “Do not be afraid.” The Marys had come out to the grave of their (supposedly) dead master with a mixture of fear, powerlessness, and hopelessness. But suddenly they find out that their dear Lord was no longer dead. Just as he had promised, death held no power over him. In his saving power, they no longer had any reason to live in hopelessness and fear. 

As they left the tomb, already the Easter message allowed the fear in their hearts to begin to mix with a great dawning joy. Then, as if the angelic messenger’s words had not been enough, Jesus suddenly stands before them. They hear their risen Lord’s lips repeat the refrain: “Do not be afraid.” His repetition displays the patient mercy of the Savior who knows how difficult it is to drive fear from the hearts even of his believers! His repetition reveals he will not abandon them to their clinging fears. He wants them to know that their lives – and their eternal lives – are in the hands of a crucified and risen Lord. There is nothing more to fear.   

That same Easter message still resounds to this day: “Do not be afraid.”  Easter proclaims that there is nothing in ancient times, current times or future times that can rightfully make us afraid. Our lives have never truly been in our own hands. Our lives rest in the nail-marked hands of the crucified and risen Christ. And even though fears still want to spook our hearts until heaven, yet here is where we go to silence them – our hope is not in ourselves. Our hope is not in mankind. Our hope is in the God who wondrously created us and still more wondrously restored us to himself in the life, death, and resurrection of his Son. Even in a fallen world where pandemics and death hunt us down, Jesus still patiently reassures us: “Do not be afraid.”

This is a weird way to spend Easter. On our computers. No Easter breakfast at church. No Easter luncheon with the family. No Easter egg hunts with the neighborhood kids. Many of the traditions we associate with Easter are not a reality this year.

Though our traditions are not doable, the message of Easter remains the same. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! The Church is not a building. It is not a place where we go to wear fancy, new clothes. The Church is people – it is you and me. The Church is the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). And though this body of Christ has been sequestered in isolation for a time, it is more active and lively than I have seen it in a very long time!

Brothers and sisters, as Jesus calms your fearful hearts, he has handed you the only real cure for the fear that grips our world. As Jesus once pointed the women to speak comfort to “my brothers,” so Jesus points us to our brothers and sisters still struggling with fear and anxiety. Even as you admit how your own heart still wrestles with fears, Jesus sends you out to speak of peace. 

This pandemic is peeling away the proud and self-reliant façade people have created for themselves. Dust and ashes mortals like to hide their fears. Honestly acknowledge your own fears right along with them but also speak of the Easter hope that answers your fears. This Easter message, after all, had its first proclamation in a graveyard that suddenly became a place of hope rather than fear. 

Death's back is broken. Satan has been stomped. Jesus' body is planted like a seed in the ground to bring forth the firstfruits of the resurrection of the dead.

We live in a world of fears. Only a fool would tell you we have nothing to fear. The root cause of all fear is humanity’s ongoing stubborn arrogance that we can answer every fear apart from our Creator and Savior! The Risen Lord and the angel at the tomb are not saying your enemies are not real. They are announcing the reality of a power stronger than death, a righteousness that covers the worst of our sins, and the hope which allows us to live a confident life in an uncertain world. Death is the final enemy. If death is done, nothing else can win.

Death lies broken and defeated. And now you get to decide whether the rest of your troubles, the worst of your fears, and the greatest of your anxieties for this mortal life are worth your worries, whether their terror can live up to their claims, and whether these should be your focus or Christ and His resurrection.

We alone can answer human fear. It is found in a graveyard. It is found at an empty tomb. It is found in a message that calms our fears while simultaneously making us messengers to the fearful hearts of others. “Do not be afraid,” says the angel. “Do not be afraid,” says the risen Lord. “Do not be afraid,” say you and I.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! You have no reason to be afraid. Amen.

Death is swallowed up in victory. ⁵⁵ Death, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory? ⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Corinthians 15:54-57) Amen.