8 April 2026

St. Matthew makes two contrasts in his account of the resurrection. The first is between the women and the soldiers. After the earthquake, the angel descends from heaven and Matthew says, ‘For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.’

A little comedy has been woven into the fabric of Easter. The Roman soldiers charged with guarding the tomb and ensuring that the crucified Christ remains a prisoner, fall down as if they were dead whilst Jesus is alive!

It is a truth which proves elusive to the world’s dictators wrecking so much misery, destruction and barbarity in so many corners of the earth. Love conquers death and God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong!

If resurrection means anything, it means this that the victory does not belong to the wicked oppressor but to the bereaved mothers, the children with broken limbs, the dead underneath the rubble for  now we know, ‘Nothing can separate us from the love of God’.

The second contrast is between the material and the spiritual. When the two Marys met the risen Christ,  ‘They came to him, took hold of his feet and worshipped him.’  We have an immediate intimation that the Jesus who was raised retained his own physical form.

It also shows our earthly need to hold on to life. But  it is a truth that we cannot hold onto the resurrection. No-one saw it. The women were witnesses to the empty tomb and the risen Jesus but did not see the resurrection. It is a mystery which cannot even be scientifically explained nor contained in words.

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