Matthew 28: 1-10

After Shabbat as the first day of the new week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb when suddenly there was a big earthquake, caused by the descent from heaven of a messenger from Yahweh, who rolled back the stone and sat upon it. Its appearance had the effect of lightning and its clothing glistened like snow. Out of fear, the nearby guards trembled and looked as if they'd had strokes, being immobile. The messenger said to the women, "Don't be afraid; I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He isn't here, because he has been raised as he said he would be. Come over here and see the place where his body was put. Then go quickly and tell his followers this: 'He has been raised from the dead and is going ahead of you back to Galilee. You will see him when you get there.'" Then the messenger said to the women, "This is my message for you." So the women left the tomb in a big hurry feeling at the same time both fear and joy, and ran to tell Jesus' followers. But as they went, they all of a sudden encountered Jesus who greeted them [in a normal fashion, e.g. by saying  "hello."] The women approached him, wrapped their arms around his feet and paid him homage, whereupon Jesus said to them, "Don't be afraid; go tell my companions to get on their way to Galilee where they will see me." (Translated, condensed and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook.)

The Revised Common Lectionary lists this Matthean passage as an alternative to John 20:1-18. Since John has had a lot of attention in recent weeks (Lent II, III, IV and V), the FINDINGS V edition for Easter will treat of the Matthew reading (see above).

What is important to remember about any of the resurrection narratives is that they appear not to have existed in written form before Mark's original proposal post-70 CE. Yet a good many scholars make the case that such narratives were among the earliest oral traditions -- a case that finds some support in the predominance of named women said to have been the first to know that something extraordinary seemed to have happened. On the other hand, the first century world of antiquity was a cultic bazaar of dying and rising sons of the gods -- sure attention-getters in that competitive religious venue. It may be, therefore, that earlier Sayings Gospels gave way to both infancy and resurrection narratives as the story matured and responded to market realities.

Others are making the case that the Gospel of Thomas and the early collection of sayings attributed to Jesus -- known as "Q" or "The Source -- are the initial documents of Jesus Judaism. Neither Thomas nor Q includes narrative material concerning the origin or the end of Jesus. Why would they not have? One answer might be that the sayings were one thing and the story another. Yet a different answer might be that the sayings could not sustain a community reeling from the destruction of 70 CE. Needed was a story that ended in victory rather than defeat. Mark tried mightily to provide it, yet his gospel ends on the first day of the week with the women frightened into speechlessness (εφοβουντο γαρ). Matthew, Luke and John would eventually come along to provide the resurrection/ascension narratives that turned an itinerant street prophet into a mythical god-like entity. Some would say that was progress. I would not.

What must be so vexing to women -- and perhaps for a very long time -- is that at least four gospel compilers placed women, in each case named, at the scene of what is called "the resurrection." Matthew has Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" come to see the sepulcher. Mark had Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James and one Salome come to the place of interment with spices for anointing. Luke has Magdalene, one Joanna and James' mothers come with spices. John has Magdalene come solo "to see the tomb." The significance of women being at and involved in this pivotal scene, whether historical or not, cannot be underestimated.

There are at least two ways to view it: 1) The consistent presence of named women -- though different in each case -- may mean that the story (or stories) have in one way or another some basis in fact, or 2) Mark decided in his original narratives, used at least by Matthew and Luke, if not by John, to place women at the resurrection scene to make a point about the essential importance of women in emerging Jesus Judaism. Perhaps both. 

Also vexing, this time to systematic theologians, is that no gospel actually provides an eyewitness account of the resurrection. No one saw it or claimed to have seen it. If such an account is desired, it can be checked out in the document known as the Gospel of Peter 10: 38-42. At a glance anyone would know the account has no credibility, that it represents some kind of vision -- and a bizarre one at that. Perhaps the most honest prose having to do with the "resurrection" appears at Mark 16:8: "So they (the women) went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid (εφοβουντο γαρ). "

Now to focus on the Matthew reading: the scene begins in the last hours of darkness, about 12 hours after the end of Shabbat. Matthew omits Mark's rationale for the women's visit to the tomb. They go there merely "to see it." Whereupon Matthew conjures up the second earthquake in three days as Yahweh's messenger is depicted as arriving to roll away the stone, announces the resurrection of Jesus and invite the women to see the physical evidence, i.e. the place where his body had been laid. Those who are predisposed to believe in the reanimation of dead tissue will interpret the absence of the corpse to mean just that. But it could also be the result of body snatching. See 28: 11-15, not included in the appointed reading. There Matthew depicts the dumb-founded guards having been bribed to say Jesus' body had been stolen while they slept.

Matthew fixes that problem by having the women meet Jesus on the way to telling the disciples about what they had seen . . . and not seen. If, as it is said, a prophet cannot be killed outside of Jerusalem (see Luke 13:33), perhaps a resurrected leader must return to Galilee out of which nothing good can come (see John 1:46) in order to be fully appreciated.

Then comes the Galilean mountain at which, in what is surely a later addition to the gospel (28: 16-20), Jesus issues the so-called Great Commission that has become such a prickly locution in a richly pluralistic world. What "all nations" might have meant to the redactor, we cannot know. Meanwhile, no reputable student of the gospels can produce credible evidence that Jesus ever said any such thing.