Fear and Great Joy

“And they departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy, and did run to bring his disciples word.” Matthew 28:8

On Sunday the Christian Church celebrates Easter. Choirs will resurrect George Frideric Handel’s oratorio, Messiah. It concludes a week filled with drama, pomp, passion and re-enactments of the Biblical events surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s the great cathedral of Christian truth, the tallest spire of divine revelation.

All four synoptic Gospels recount the events surrounding the discovery of the empty tomb. Details vary. But in essence, they’re too similar to dismiss their credibility. In the excerpt cited above, only Matthew reports the occurrence in a special way…the phenomenon of an earthquake. He writes:

“And, behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.” 28: 2

I’ve never experienced an earthquake. Those who have report there’s a rumble, things wobble, trees sway and swing, houses vibrate, the ground moves, shifting underfoot. The ground yawns, splits open, swallows houses, crumbles buildings. They say the ground bubbles, roads become rubber. The fear is terrifying. It’s beyond the control of humans. Perhaps this is what the first visitors to Jesus’ tomb experienced.

Yes, women were the first there. Mary Magdalene, another Mary and other women. To add incredulity to it, Mary Magdalene was the one from whom Jesus had cast seven demons. Who would believe her account? Go figure. They discovered the abandoned grave and received instructions from the angel who waited there. And where were the disciples of Jesus? Those bold, fearless men? Why, they were huddled together and holed up in some safe-house, quaking in their sandals.

So here we have it…a crowd of mourning women, an earthquake, a huge stone miraculously rolled away, an empty sepulcher, an angel that shone like lightening, and a tale too incredible to comprehend. The women, upon receiving the angel’s mandate, “…departed quickly…with fear and great joy.” How would we react?

Fear and great joy…ruling emotions of the human makeup. Who has not feared? Or had great joy? They’re obverse sides of the same coin. Yet, how can they co-exist? Which one rules? Weekly TV reality shows like Survivor and Fear Factor permeate our culture. They’re substitutionary escapes, producing cheap, vicarious thrills for entertainment, caricatures of reality for our amusement. They leave us where they find us…nothing’s changed. We become immune to them. But Easter occurs only once each year. It comes with a real power. It transcends fear and replaces it with great joy. It’s the Real Deal !

The ‘great-joy’ part of the equation is what trumps fear. It has as its companion the prospect of Hope, the lack of which makes life a miserable endurance. Fear backs us up in a cave…hope flings the door wide open, inspires us, affirms the fact that miracles of resurrection can, and do, occur every minute of life.

Great joy is the ruling emotion as we depart our places of worship on Easter. The cross is no longer draped in purple…it sprouts flowers, sparkles with the Son’s reflection and is symbolic of new life. Hope is our ruling disposition. It affirms that the faith we have in a risen Savior is, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, sufficient to overcome the doubts and the earthquakes of life.

Like the women at the first Easter, may we run forth likewise on Sunday, shouting the Hallelujah Chorus and spreading the good news…“He is risen indeed!”

Bud Hearn
April 5, 2012