Christ Goes On Ahead

April 5, 2026

Matthew 28:1-10; Colossians 3:1-4

            Listen as God continues to speak from Colossians. 

            READ

            Easter sermons can be difficult to write.  That’s just the truth of the matter.  I mean, this is the big day… this resurrection is central to our faith… to our theology.  Even though culturally we make more of a to-do over Christmas… Easter is really what it’s all about.  So… as you might imagine… that creates a yearly pressure for us preachers to get it right.  And… looking at that blank page this week… trying to figure out how to get started for today… feeling that pressure to get it right… of course, my brain comes up with the brilliant idea to first get it wrong. 

What if… what if in the journey to the good news of Easter we first go through the wrong news of Easter? 

For example… I wondered what would be the headline… or the click bait… that grabbed our attention but ultimately would be wrong.  Wrong in the sense that it emphasized the wrong thing… making the wrong thing the main thing… and in that way obscuring the truth of God that is revealed through Christ’s resurrection.  The wrong headline for Easter is “Dead Man Comes Back to Life!”  That’s not the deeper truth of the resurrection.  That’s not the deeper truth that our passage from Colossians is pointing us towards.  That’s not the matter of life and death in those verses.  In the Bible, there are stories of the dead being brought back to life by the Old Testament prophets Elijah and Elisha.  In 2 Kings there’s a strange little story about a man being buried in the same grave as Elisha… and as soon as the dead man touches the bones of Elisha… he comes to life and stands up in the grave.  But that isn’t a story of the resurrection.  In the different gospels Jesus brings a few people back from the dead.  In the book of Acts, both Peter and Paul bring dead bodies back to life.  In Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus dies on the cross the curtain of the Temple is torn in two… there is an earthquake… and it says “many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.”  We celebrate none of those as stories of the resurrection.

Jesus is not the first dead body come back to life nor is he the last.  “Tomb loses occupant” is not the main thing.

Following that same line of thought… I suppose you could say that the initial encounters at the empty tomb are also not the main thing.  No offense to Mary Magdalene… and not to say that they aren’t interesting in and of themselves… but those first encounters are a little too zoomed in… do you know what I mean?  I think we often pay more attention to those first encounters and the different details… more attention than is needed… because that’s usually what’s in the scripture verses we read on Easter morning.  The verses about how the tomb is empty… and then that first encounter with the resurrected Jesus.  In those first encounters at the empty tomb, the instructions that Jesus gives Mary are never about the empty tomb.  Jesus never tells Mary to go get everyone else and bring them back here to the tomb.  The truth is… the tomb is only a receptacle for the dead.  We don’t look for the living among the dead.

In Matthew’s telling, the instruction given to Mary is to tell everyone to head to Galilee.  Jesus will see them there.  In the verses that follow where our reading ended this morning… there will be those who will listen to what Mary has to say… they will go all the way to Galilee… they will see Jesus the dead body come back to life… and they will still doubt.  For some, seeing a dead body come back to life will still not be enough for them to believe in resurrection. 

In those same verses that follow our reading from this morning, some of the guards who witnessed the same thing Mary Magdalene and the other Mary witnessed… these guards will go back to the priests and the elders… and a plan will be devised to pay them off to lie… to tell people how a dead body did not come back to life… his followers came and stole the body in the night because they… these guards… had fallen asleep.  I like how Matthew even adds the sentence, “And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.” 

A dead body brought back to life can be disbelieved even if you see it with your own eyes.  A dead body brought back to life can be easily lied about through a well-placed bribe.  A dead body brought back to life can be made dead again. 

Resurrection is something more.  Resurrection is the life that is of God… the life that cannot die… the life that is everlasting.  We talk about Jesus as being the light in the darkness.  On this morning, we can say Jesus is the life in a world of death, and death will not overcome it.

Ever since Jesus came into Jerusalem, people had been trying to  cover him in death.  Last Sunday, we talked about the wrong hopes and expectations that fueled the cheers and the palm waving of the crowd.  Expectations that came from the desire for freedom and liberty… but were mired in forms of death… in the manner of justice where my freedom… my good… comes from the suffering of another.  For me to rise in power, others must have their power taken away.  For me to take control, others must suffer and die.  For me to walk away from the tomb, others must fill that tomb behind me.  All that is just different forms of death… not resurrection.  All week the authorities and the crowds tried to cover Jesus in death.  They dealt falsely as they sought to publicly discredit him.  They lied and gave false testimony.  They convinced themselves it was better for one man to suffer than to risk themselves.  Apathy.  Jealousy.  The call for Barabbas was a direct call for death over life.  Betrayal.  Denial.  Desertion.  The fear of death driving people’s actions.  Mocking.  Deriding.  Taking pleasure in the spectacle of it all.  When none of these little deaths would stick to Jesus… when he wouldn’t pick them up and employ them himself… when he wouldn’t play the game how it’s supposed to be played… they brutalized him and murdered him.  Death would have its way.

The sadness of Holy Week is it feels like just another week for us.  It could have happened last week.  It did in so many ways.  The practices of death were everywhere.  It will happen again this week.  Death surrounds us.  Death is a constant of the darkness in which we dwell.  And like the people in all these gospel stories… we embrace death… we believe using death makes us strong… believe it gives us the power we need to control our many fears that we refuse to cast out.

The life of Jesus is the life of resurrection.  “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”  These verses are not talking about the sweet by and by… they are talking about resurrection life.  Here.  Now.  In each of you. 

The beauty of Maundy Thursday is in the concise revelation of resurrection life.  Jesus washes the feet of the disciples… he sets for them an example of service to one another.  He goes further as he sets the example of giving his very body and blood in the service of one another.  What is your life if you are already dead in the world?  You must lose the life of death if you are to be raised to resurrection life.  He shows them the way… commanding that they love one another.  Jesus does all this sitting at table with betrayer, denier, and deserters all.

The things that are above are not subject to the practices of death… things like compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  You cannot know the things that are above through the practices of death.  Death leads to the tomb… and only the tomb.  The good news is death has been left behind in the tomb… and Jesus has gone on ahead to Galilee… to meet you there.  You must journey in faith from the tomb to Galilee to meet him there.  Resurrection is not something we stand still and stare at.  Resurrection is something we must walk toward.  Something we walk into.

The world of death does not get the last word about who we are.  The practices of death need no longer shape your thinking… your imagination… your choices in this life.  The fears that seek to control us… need no longer define our future.  If we have been raised with Christ, then the darkness no longer gets to tell us what is possible… and what is right… and what is true.

Christ is our life.  Not the life shaped by fear or scarcity or competition.

Christ is our life.  Not the life that needs someone else to lose so that you can win.

Christ is our life… and he has gone ahead of us in resurrection… into the ordinary places, into the world where we live.  He meets us there… calling us into a life free of death… a life where love is not afraid… a life filled with a hope that doesn’t end.

Saints, this is the good news of Easter.  Resurrection… the love of God that cannot die… has found us, claimed us, and raised us to new life.  Let us leave the tomb and death behind and go and live through the resurrected Christ.  Amen.