Earth-shattering news: Easter Sunday 2026

 

Easter Sunday 2026

Acts 10.34-43, Matthew 28.1-10

Acts 10.34-43

34 Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. 37 That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40 but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’

 

 

Matthew 28.1-10

28 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” This is my message for you.’ 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.’

 

We’ve just heard Matthew’s version of the Resurrection story. It’s a dramatic tale, with an earthquake and an angel appearing, shining like lightning.

 Each of the Gospel writers tells the story of the Resurrection slightly differently. Different numbers of women come to the tomb, meeting different numbers of angels, or perhaps Jesus himself. Different things happen afterwards. All the Gospel writers agree on is that the tomb was empty, the women were witnesses of that, and that it changed everything…

 But back to Matthew’s account. He’s the only one who actually shows us  the tomb being opened, and the guards shaking “like dead men” when it happens. He’s the only one who tells us about the earthquake: his story is literally earth-shattering.  

 That’s all of a piece with the rest of his Gospel. From the outset he has painted his picture of Jesus’ life on a large scale. When Jesus was born a star appeared in the sky – the very cosmos was reordered. Wise men from the East turned up at the palace, the political heart of the nation. “King Herod was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him” we are told. Not for Matthew a bunch of humble shepherds who no one would have noticed or heeded. No, this is a very public event – so public that it unleashes a massacre of the children of Bethlehem and means the Holy Family have to run for their lives.

 Much later, when Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday, it’s not just his disciples who notice. Once again “The whole city was in turmoil”, Matthew says. And when Jesus dies on the cross there isn’t just darkness over the land – all the Gospels have that – but according to Matthew there’s another earthquake, prefiguring the one that will accompany Jesus’ resurrection.  “The earth shook, the rocks were split . The tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised….”

Sometimes Christians are told that they should keep their noses out of politics, or economics, or science or whatever else they’ve made some comment on that has annoyed someone, that they should restrict themselves to the spiritual, the personal, the private. But Matthew’s Gospel isn’t having any of that. Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection sends quite literal shockwaves through the world of his time, having an impact even on the earth itself. Everything is changed by this, says Matthew.

 And as I said earlier, the other Gospel writers agree with him, even if they tell the story in slightly different ways. The reason they are all so confident about this is that the resurrection had changed everything for them.

The Gospels were written in hindsight, looking back at the events they describe from several decades later. And they are written by and for people whose lives have been set on a different course because of the resurrection, people who have become part of new communities, with a new message for the world. We catch a glimpse of that radical change in our first reading.

St Peter is preaching to the household of a Roman centurion called Cornelius, a Gentile leader in the army that is oppressing Israel, someone who ought to be his enemy. But Cornelius has heard about Jesus and has asked Peter to come and tell him more. When Peter gets there, having struggled over whether to go or not, he finds that Cornelius and his household have had an experience of the Holy Spirit – God has got there before him. And he realises – and rejoices - that this is how it is going to be in God’s new creation, in the kingdom Jesus’ resurrection has ushered in. He sees new life, forgiveness, barriers broken down, resurrection happening all around him.

I have no idea what we would have seen if there had been a video camera livestreaming that first Easter Sunday at the tomb. I have no idea how the resurrection could have happened, but I am convinced that it did happen – even if I can’t understand or explain it - because the first followers of Jesus were so changed by their experience of it, filled with such hope and faith, that they were prepared to die for affirming it.  They had nothing to gain by lying about it – there was no power or glory on offer for them, only persecution. And yet they said that it was true, and went on saying it, and passed it on to the next generation and the next, and people continued to find hope in it, right down to us in our own time. The ultimate proof of the resurrection is us, the Church, Christians stubbornly insisting, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, that “Goodness is stronger than evil; Love is stronger than hate; Light is stronger than darkness; Life is stronger than death; Victory is ours through Him who loves us”

Another Bishop, Mervyn Stockwood, then the Bishop of Southwark, told a story of a time when he was in Moscow, before the fall of the Soviet Union, when Brezhnev was president. He had gone into the hairdresser’s salon in his hotel for a shave while on a visit to the USSR. It was around the time of Easter. As she shaved him the hairdresser noticed his episcopal cross and ring. “Was he a bishop?” she asked. He was, he said. Evidently she’d had an orthodox background, because she stopped shaving him, took his cross in her hands and kissed it, and did the same to his ring. And then, lifting up the razor blade she was shaving him with she called to the customers in the barber’s shop “Alleluia, Christ is risen” and with one voice they all replied “He is risen indeed, Alleluia!” Stockwood wrote in his memoirs that he thought to himself at that moment “Poor old Brezhnev: sixty years of atheism, and still the Galilean conquers!”

This Easter Sunday, I wonder where the Galilean needs to conquer in our lives and our world. Where are the tombs of despair and hatred that need to be broken open? Where are the place that seem godforsaken where we need to find the God who never forsakes us at work? He is there, if like those women at the tomb, we will only go and look for him. I wonder what the reality of the resurrection looks like in our lives? Matthew told his story in his way. Peter told his in another. Mark, Luke and John told it too, in their ways, but how would you tell it, this story of the empty tomb that changes everything…?

Amen