The Good News Is...Alive in the World
A reflection on Matthew 28:1–10 | Easter Sunday | April 5, 2026
Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from a sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing at Guilford Park Presbyterian Church. It has been edited for web reading while preserving the heart, movement, and theological emphasis of the original message.
Easter is not a day for answers.
It is a day for astonishment.
It is a day for standing at the edge of mystery and hearing the impossible announced as good news. It is a day for listening to the words of the angel at the tomb. It is a day for looking again at what we thought was settled, sealed, finished, and beyond hope. It is a day for hearing, perhaps with trembling, that death does not get the final word.
That first Easter morning, the women came to the tomb carrying grief. They came to mourn. They came to keep watch. They came to stay near the one they loved. In their minds, death had already answered the question. The empire had done what empires do. Violence had spoken. The stone was in place. The story was over.
And yet, when they arrived, everything had changed.
Easter does not begin with certainty. It begins with astonishment.
The earth shakes. The stone is rolled away. A heavenly messenger appears. The guards are overcome with fear and become, as Matthew says, like dead men. The women are afraid too, but unlike the guards, they remain open. They are trembling, yes, but they are still listening. They are still moving. They are still able to receive what God is doing.
That is part of the wonder of Easter: resurrection does not wait for us to become fearless. It meets us in our trembling and calls us forward anyway.
Do Not Be Afraid
The angel gives the women four commands: do not be afraid, come and see, go quickly, and tell. Those movements are not just for them. They are for us as well.
Do not be afraid.
Those words do not mean that nothing frightening has happened. They do not deny grief. They do not erase trauma. They do not pretend that death, loss, violence, and despair are not real. Easter is not sentimental, and it is not denial.
Instead, the message is this: what scares you is not the truest thing anymore.
Death is real. Grief is real. Empire is real. But none of them are ultimate.
That is the difference Easter makes. The resurrection of Jesus does not wave away the world’s pain. It declares that pain will not reign forever. It proclaims that violence is not sovereign. It insists that despair is not destiny. It tells frightened people that there is a truth deeper than the tomb.
Come and See
The angel then says, Come and see.
That invitation matters. The women are not asked to bypass reality. They are not told to distract themselves with vague spiritual comfort. They are invited to look closely, honestly, carefully. To come near the place of death. To face what has happened. To see where he lay.
This, too, feels like Easter faith.
All through Lent, we have been learning not to look away. We have tried to face suffering, betrayal, injustice, vulnerability, and death without pretending they are not there. Easter does not reverse that discipline. It deepens it. Come and see, the messenger says. Look honestly. And then look again.
Because what we have seen is not the end of the story.
Easter does not ask us to look away from the world’s wounds. It teaches us to look again and discover that death is not the end.
Go Quickly
Then comes the next command: Go quickly.
Resurrection does not leave the faithful standing still. The good news is too alive to remain at the tomb. Easter is not a private consolation to be hoarded. It is a living word that sends us back into the world.
Back into the places where fear still lingers.
Back into the places where grief still aches.
Back into the places where love is still needed.
Back into the places where hope must be practiced, embodied, and shared.
This is one of the most important things Easter tells us: the risen Christ does not pull us out of the world. He sends us back into it.
Tell
And finally: Tell.
The women arrive at the tomb as mourners, but they leave as witnesses. They are entrusted with news that is too strange, too beautiful, too world-shaking to keep to themselves.
To tell the story of Easter is not to solve the mystery. It is not to tidy up the unanswered questions. It is not to explain away the wonder. It is simply to bear witness and say, with trembling joy: Look. He is not here. Christ is risen. He is alive.
To tell is not to solve the mystery. It is to bear witness to it.
That is the calling of Easter people. Not to master resurrection, but to proclaim it. Not to control the mystery, but to be changed by it.
Back to Galilee
In Matthew’s Gospel, the women are told that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee. That detail is easy to miss, but it matters deeply.
Galilee is not just a location. It is where so much of the story first began. It is where ordinary lives were first interrupted by grace. It is where water became wine. It is where disciples first learned to follow. It is where abundance first broke through scarcity. It is where the ministry of Jesus took shape among ordinary people in ordinary places.
So when the angel says the risen Christ is already ahead of them in Galilee, the message is clear: resurrection is heading back into real life.
Back into neighborhoods and meals.
Back into friendships and work.
Back into the places where people live, grieve, hope, and try again.
Resurrection is not an escape from the world. It is God’s refusal to abandon it.
The tomb is not where the story ends. Galilee is where resurrection starts traveling.
That means Easter sends us not away from the world, but back into it—back into the ordinary places where good news must now be lived.
Where We Have Seen Good News
Throughout this Lenten season, we have been asking where good news is breaking through in a weary world. Week after week, we have tried to keep company with those who know how to say, “Look,” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.
We have seen good news at tables where everyone is invited and no one is beyond the reach of grace. We have seen it in places where scarcity did not get the last word. We have seen it in acts of tenderness, hospitality, mercy, courage, and shared abundance. We have seen it in the vulnerable and the overlooked. We have seen it in the refusal to throw stones. We have seen it in humble processions and basin-shaped love.
And on Easter morning, we hear that all of those glimpses were pointing us here: to the declaration that Christ is alive in the world.
A Glimpse of Resurrection
Sometimes resurrection arrives with the force of an earthquake. Sometimes it comes with blazing brightness and an empty tomb. But sometimes it appears in quieter ways—through tenderness, attention, and unexpected mercy in the middle of grief.
This past week, my family and I caught a glimpse of that kind of good news.
After Tricia’s grandmother, Myra, died at the age of ninety, we drove to Richmond to say our goodbyes. It was our daughters’ first real experience with death. The moment was holy and heartbreaking. We held hands. We spoke words of love. We grieved together.
Later, after we checked into our hotel, a housekeeper noticed the sadness on our daughters’ faces. When she learned why we were there, she asked if she could hug them. Then, the next day, after a long day of grieving and sorting through Myra’s things, we returned to our room and found a handwritten note waiting for us, along with a basket of snacks for the girls and for us.
It was a small act. A tender act. A quiet act. But it was holy.
Sometimes the good news arrives with the shock of an earthquake. Other times, it comes with the tenderness of a kind note from a stranger.
In that moment, in the middle of sorrow, it felt like a sacrament of ordinary grace. A reminder that love still moves through the world. A reminder that grief does not have to be carried alone. A reminder that resurrection does not only belong to grand and dramatic moments. It also glimmers in blueberry muffins, kind words, open eyes, and compassionate strangers.
Sometimes water becomes wine. Other times, grief becomes a bond between people who did not know each other a day before.
Sometimes five loaves and two fish feed thousands. Other times, a small gift basket changes the atmosphere of a room and gives weary people the strength to keep going.
Look
That may be what Easter finally teaches us: how to look.
How to look for signs that grace is still alive.
How to look for beauty in broken places.
How to look for the risen Christ not only at the empty tomb, but in the living world he loves.
Mary Oliver writes of keeping company with those who say, “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads. Easter makes such people of us. It teaches us to become witnesses to wonder. It teaches us to notice what fear would have us miss. It teaches us to recognize that Christ is already ahead of us, alive in the world, drawing us back into life.
For Christ is risen. He is alive in the world. Look.
And so we go into this Easter season not with all the answers, but with astonishment. Not without grief, but with hope. Not as people who have mastered the mystery, but as those who have glimpsed it and been changed.
Christ is risen.
He is alive in the world.
Look.
Reflection Questions
- Where have you seen signs of good news breaking through in ordinary life recently?
- What fears feel most powerful right now, and how might Easter be speaking into them?
- What does it mean for you to “come and see” rather than look away?
- How is the risen Christ sending you back into the world to love, serve, and bear witness?
Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing preached this message on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026, at Guilford Park Presbyterian Church.
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