The angels in Matthew’s gospel remind me of a UPS delivery person. They’re very focused on their job. They are there to deliver a package, not to sell it to me. “Hello, I understand you have seasonal allergies. Here is a humidifier from the Sharper Image. It got an excellent Consumer Report rating. There is a rebate coupon enclosed. I highly recommend it.” He’s there to deliver a package, not there to be my buddy or to empathize with me. “Hey, how are you feeling about this humidifier? I know anxiety can be part of the process of receiving a package so I just want to reassure you that it will be a positive addition to your home and to encourage you in the big step of accepting it into your home. “No, the UPS driver is there to ring the doorbell, hand me the package, and hold out the clipboard for me to sign for it. They’re there to deliver their package, and it’s up to us to sign for it, open it, and use it.
The Good News is only ever preceded by one short, preliminary sentence: “Don’t be afraid.” “Don’t be afraid, Zechariah, your wife Elizabeth will bear a son and you will name him John.” “Don’t be afraid, Mary.” “Don’t be afraid, shepherds. I bring you good news of great joy that shall be to all people.” “Don’t be afraid, Joseph, take Mary as your wife. Her baby is conceived by the Holy Spirit. Name him Jesus; he’s going to save all people from their sins.” “Don’t be afraid,” the angels say. And then they deliver the package, you sign for it, open it, and use it.
I especially like the angel in Matthew’s version of the Resurrection. This is an angel who knows how to make an entrance. He comes in like a rock star! He rolls back the large, sealed stone then an earthquake. This is an angel with an attitude. It’s like that song, “Thunder, feel the thunder, lightning and the thunder.” After he rolls back the stone, he sits on it, and crosses his angelic arms. He glances over at the guards who are displaying certain physical symptoms of extreme terror. HA! He doesn’t tell them not to be afraid, I assume, because he doesn’t care if they are afraid or not. That message is reserved for someone else, or two someone elses. This angel rolls his eyes, as if to say: “Take that, Caiaphas. Take that, Pilate. That’s what God thinks of your effort to put the Messiah in a tomb! A tomb as a prison for the Prince of Peace, the Son of God? I think not! A tomb for his final resting place? Not gonna happen.” Then, for his main message, he turns his bright angelic eyes toward Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (whom in Matthew is probably the mother of Jesus) and says: “Don’t be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. He has been raised, as he said.”
Matthew wants to make sure we notice these three little words “as he said.” Because in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus told you so—three times. Jesus tried to deliver the good news package to the disciples in his gospel three times, but they refused to sign for it. Why do we—like them—despite the witness of Scripture, tradition, and our life of worship and service, still come to so many situations looking for death when we have been promised life is waiting there for us? Is it because when we look to the past we see that life has dashed our high hopes or delivered tragedy? Things didn’t turn out like we hoped? Circumstances went against us? Other people disappointed or hurt us? “You’re breaking up with me now? And through a text?” “I thought I was in line for that position.” “I’ve watched my diet and exercised three times a week. What do you mean I have cancer?” “There were no signs that she was depressed. She baked a cake this morning.” “Shouldn’t there be a heartbeat at twelve weeks?” Our situations rank from self-centeredness and selfishness to some of the most heartbreaking moments a person, family, friend, or church or nation can encounter.
The thing is we know that a delivery can be bad news, bills we can’t pay, eviction notices, death notices, medical results, dear John letters and the like. These are the deliveries of the world and they create an understandable environment of fear and right now fear is being weaponized in our world. It is being packaged, sold and shipped at a dizzying rate and fear is the weapon that is used to control us and enslave us. We have to check the packaging and return address. Does the message come bearing the hallmarks of love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? This is how we know it is from God, from a place of righteousness and that we can open without fear.
I want to pause and be very honest. So often the Gospel is made to sound very flippant, sort of like a snake oil remedy. “You hear the message and believe then everything will be great.” The fact is, life will continue to deliver packages filled with darkness. Bad things will continue to happen, but that message that the angel delivered shows us that Jesus has conquered the darkness. He brings light, love and comfort in the midst of the bad things, and that death, that thing that we fear the most, has been defeated. Jesus rose from the grave and we too shall be raised on a day where there are no more packages of pain and sorrow or messages of darkness. For now, our baptism is where we receive that gift and God begins his deliveries of Life. Why do we come to so many situations alert to signs of death, disappointment, and defeat, when we have been promised life and hope and victory is waiting there?
So often the dark packages cause us to lose hope. One pastor was invited to the “Two by Two” Sunday School class at a large church in Dallas, Texas some time ago. They wanted her to teach a session on the parables. She deduced that this was a couple’s class of mature adults. As instructed, she arrived at 9:20, came in the side entrance, went up the stairs and turned right. A lady named Alice greeted her and called over another lady whose name was also Alice and they compared notes about being Alices for a while. Looking around she noticed there were a lot more women than men. There was another lady standing to the side with a sort of pensive look on her face. She greeted her and she brightened up a bit. “When was this class founded?” she asked. “My husband and I joined the class in 1955. He died last year. The group has been together for years. But now all of us are old and a lot of us are dead.” Then, realizing how that sounded, she smiled brightly and added, “And we’re so glad to have you join us this morning!”
“We’re all old and a lot of us are dead.” Here is a tomb moment. A moment that the angels message needs to be heard. Fear not, I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised. A message from God a message of light. Whatever age we are, let us receive the Good News that Jesus rose—not just died. In the face of the losses that come with increasing age, or suffering, or death, or failure or miserable junk life has to throw at us. Answer the door. It’s an angel at your door with a delivery. “Don’t be afraid. He has been raised from the dead and is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him. This is my message for you.” Sign here. The angel’s work is done. And now yours begins. Will we open the good news, unwrap it, and live by it?
Our future is a series of situations, whether garden bowers or graveyards, where Christ awaits us to meet defeat with victory, to meet disappointment with hope, to meet death with life. He is not here. He has been raised. Come and see the places where he lay. Those situations, the hard times in life, that is where the cross of Christ is planted. I’m not telling you that since Jesus rose from the dead that if your response to the hardships of life is not smiling like everything is sunshine and roses, that you are doing it wrong or that you aren’t being faithful. No, the message is this: Christ’s resurrection gives the cross fulfillment and hope. On that cross God, in Jesus Christ experienced the totality of our human experience, pain, suffering, betrayal, humiliation, the whole nine yards. God stands by you in your pain and cares enough to have broken the bonds of death through Christ’s death and resurrection.
So the messenger makes the delivery, “don’t be afraid, the grave is not the end”. How will we put our gift to use. When we open up our baptism, we return to the cross because we no longer fear it. It has lost its power over us. There we stand in the muck, the sorrow, the pain and the death alongside the suffering….and we hold them, walk with them and comfort them out of the thankfulness we experience at the empty tomb and those who have comforted us. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Angel of the Lord, with a message. Don’t be afraid! He is risen! Now go to your friends and enemies and love and serve them. Amen.
Leave a Reply