Coffee With God

Reflection: Mt 28:8-15

We begin the Octave of Easter. Throughout this week, the liturgy focuses on the appearances of Jesus to his disciples in most varied forms. In today’s Gospel, Jesus appears to women who return scared but happy from the empty tomb. They were the first to notice the episode of the resurrection. Therefore, they ran to break the news to the other disciples when Jesus himself approached them. They are scared, but the first words of Jesus to them is to “Rejoice.” The resurrection is the greatest of all joys. This resurrection experience and the invitation to rejoice is also directed to us today. His second message to the women: “Do not be afraid; go, tell my brothers to go to Galilee; they will see me there”. The theme of fear is recurrent in the hours following the crucifixion and even in the resurrection scenes. The Risen Jesus called his former deserters, his brothers. That was the first and only time in the whole Gospel narrative, that Jesus referred to the disciples in that intimate way. Matthew invites his readers into the new nature of the relationship between Jesus and those who would become his followers. With Jesus, they could now share the risen life – as sons and daughters of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus. The risen Jesus has no enemies. His response to the sin of the world was forgiveness. Jesus had learnt the heart of his Father perfectly. His love excluded no one. While Jesus was on the Cross, dying, the chief priests had taunted him by saying: Let him come down from the Cross now, and we will believe in him [27:42]. Confronted now with the mystery of resurrection, they still refused to belief. What the chief priests asked the guards to declare was not logical. If the guards were asleep while the body of Jesus disappeared, how would they know it was the disciples of the dead man who came and stole the body? If they were asleep, they would not know how the sealed tomb got breached and how did the body disappear! And if they were awake, the forces that breached the tomb were beyond the guards’ control to stop them. If we believe in everything we celebrate these days, it is time to go out to meet our brothers and sisters and tell them that we too, have met the risen Jesus and that He is alive in our midst. For this, we must go to the “Galilee” of our times, and there we rediscover the suffering faces that need the good news of the resurrection.