Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, April 5, 2026
Good morning. I invite you—if you hear something that resonates—you can say yes. You can say amen. You can say hallelujah. Because we are not scared of the risen Christ this morning, are we?
So, for those of you who don’t know, Lent—the season of Lent—was originally a season for new converts to prepare for their baptism on Easter. They would engage in studies about the Christian tradition. They would study what was central to Jesus’s life and ministry. They would study what the gospel—the good news—really was.
And if you’ve been here this Lenten season, starting on Ash Wednesday, we’ve been talking about grounding ourselves in the good news of Lent.
Y’all remember that good news: when the host of the banquet found out none of his friends would come and eat with him, he told his servant to find the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, and bring them in—and there was still room. Y’all remember that good news?
Y’all remember the good news when Jesus wanted to keep the party going at the wedding at Cana, and he saved the best wine for last—and there was still more. Y’all remember that good news?
Y’all remember the good news that together, the impossible is possible with God—when we had a couple loaves, a couple fish, and he made it multiply?
Y’all remember the good news rooted in justice and mercy—when Jesus found this woman caught in adultery and said, “You who have not sinned, why don’t you pick up a stone and cast it?” Our God of mercy—that’s good news.
Y’all remember the good news from last week that inspires us to act? When Jesus came into Jerusalem on a donkey—nothing fancy, not a warrior, not on a throne—but on a pile of cloaks his disciples had put down. No red carpet, but palm branches cut from the fields where the people worked, waving, shouting, “Hosanna.” Jesus saying, “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.” Y’all remember that good news?
And now today, church—on Thursday—when the good news washed even Judas’s feet, when the good news was crucified and buried and silenced in a tomb—I am here to proclaim to you that the good news is alive in the world. The good news is alive in the world.
Today we learn that death—even death—cannot stop the good news.
And we learn it in Matthew’s gospel. I like Matthew’s version of this story—it’s shorter. For those of you who read your Bible, if you want to find a shorter one, this is it. It doesn’t go into too much detail for those of you who aren’t very detail-oriented.
But this passage is seismic.
There was an earthquake in those hours when Jesus was crucified. And there is an earthquake in this passage. There is lightning in this passage. There is an angel descending from the heavens like lightning, wearing blinding clothes, white as snow. And the angel comes and rolls the stone away—and sits on top of that stone.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine an angel going, “Hey, how y’all doing?”
And the guards were so scared. So scared at what they saw. So scared at what it might mean that Scripture tells us they shook and fell over like they were dead.
Y’all, if this ain’t some Monty Python kind of scene—they shook and fell over like they were dead.
And we know that Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene—two of the women who stood and watched as their Savior, their son, was crucified—are the same two women who come to the tomb to see.
And let’s have a little Greek lesson here. That word “to see”—theomai—it’s the same word used when the women were looking and seeing Jesus hanging on the cross. It doesn’t mean some kind of casual looking around. No—“to see” means to observe, to intentionally look.
And I don’t know if they expected to find the risen Savior, but I know they intentionally wanted to observe something. It was not an accident that they came to see.
Women are so good at showing up and bearing witness to pain, are we not?
So they go and see. And we get the earthquake, and we get the angel, and we get the guards—but the women are scared too. The women are scared too as the ground shakes and lightning strikes the sky.
And the angel looks at them and says a phrase—the most repeated phrase that God says in Scripture. Y’all want to guess? Somebody’s got it.
“Don’t be afraid.”
Don’t be afraid.
“I know it’s hard to trust in resurrection and to believe in hope, Mary—but don’t be afraid. I know it’s hard to see that light is on the other side when these seismic shifts come—but don’t be afraid.
“I know that you are looking for Jesus—the Jesus that was crucified. I know you are intentionally trying to observe something. And I am here to tell you—he’s not here. He’s not here. He has been raised. He has been raised.”
Y’all remember at the beginning of the birth story, when an angel comes to the shepherds—this ragtag bunch, this smelly group of guys—and they were scared as heck, and the angel says to them, “Come on—what? Don’t be afraid.”
And you know what they do next? They run with haste.
And in this passage, when the angel says, “Don’t be afraid,” the angel says, “Quickly—go tell the disciples.” And so quickly, Mary and Mary Magdalene set off.
The poet Mary Oliver—I’ve got to quote her today—she says, “The instructions for living a life are: pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it.” Pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it.
And I love this part. So the angel goes on: “Tell the disciples he’s been raised from the dead. He’s going ahead of you. There you will see him.”
Jesus is always a few steps ahead of us. Jesus is always on the loose as we scratch our heads and wonder how we keep up with him.
Nowhere in Scripture does it say, “Worship me,” but everywhere it says, “Follow me. Come on—I’m way up ahead of you. Come find me. Come follow me.”
And then we read that they left the tomb quickly—with fear and great joy.
With fear and great joy.
I went on a backpacking trip with my best friend about 10 years ago. We backpacked in the Pasayten Wilderness in central Washington. We were out there for a few days—we didn’t see anybody out there, y’all.
And as we backpacked, my best friend Eliza became more and more scared that we would see bears. She became frightened that bears were going to come out of the woods and attack us—which I found kind of funny. Like, we’re going to be good. There aren’t any bears out here.
And the second day that we backpacked, the fear had overwhelmed her so much that she bent down and picked up a giant stick from the side of the trail. And she started hiking, holding this giant stick.
I looked at her and said, “What are you doing? You’re ruining the fun.”
And she said, “The way for me to have fun right now is to carry this stick. The way for me to express and experience joy is to take my fear with me.”
With fear and great joy.
And y’all, there have been years where I am not ready for Easter. I want to sit in the damp, dark tomb with Jesus, because the darkness feels more comfortable than the light. I’m not ready for the resurrected Christ—for the flowers to bloom, for the light to come in. I am afraid.
Maybe you are afraid too.
Maybe fear has overtaken you right now in these times. And maybe you showed up here not too sure about a message of hope. And I’m here to remind you—and to remind myself—that the good news means you can be scared, and you can proclaim joy anyway.
I want to say that again: you can be scared and afraid of what’s happening, and you can proclaim joy anyway.
You can be scared and you can run quickly, and you can announce that love has the last word.
You can be scared and you can see—no, you can observe—those resurrection moments happening in your life. Whether they are small, like that flower bursting out of the ground, or whether they are grand and seismic, like an angel coming down like a lightning bolt.
Who here has watched Game of Thrones? I see my friend Mark—yeah, you got me. Bran, at one point in the show, asks his dad, “Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?”
And his dad says, “That’s the only time a man can be brave.”
Why would they be afraid? Why would Mary and Mary Magdalene be so afraid?
Maybe they were afraid because the guards—the ones who shook with fear, the ones who flopped over like they were dead—they’re going to wake up again. And they are going to—what we learn in a couple chapters—try to suppress the good news that Jesus is back, to confront in a nonviolent way the powers that be.
They are scared because Rome never runs out of crosses.
And as Victor Judith Jones says, they are scared because tyrants and empires devote endless energy toward maintaining the power to silence their critics and foes.
There is reason to fear, church. I know you see it.
And resurrection moments are everywhere. Everywhere. If we are willing to go with haste—to sprint quickly and find them—they are everywhere. I am telling you what.
So what’s going to happen in this story? What’s going to happen to this ragtag bunch of resurrection believers who offer testimony in response to state-sanctioned death? What’s going to happen to them?
What’s going to happen when the God who shakes the earth cannot be stopped by armed guards or an official seal?
What’s going to happen?
This story begins with fear and overwhelming joy. And that’s how it continues.
It ends with resurrection, and it ends with the promise of deep hope—not cheap hope.
Cheap hope, church, prances around as blind optimism, failing to acknowledge the cross and what has happened. But deep hope—Christian hope—knows that the shadows are still here in the night and chooses hope anyway. Hopes anyway. Hopes despite it all.
Because we know the end of the story. We know what has the last word. And it is not death, and it is not threat, and it is not violence—but a deep hope and a man who rose against all odds.
So my question for you is: do you count yourselves among this ragtag bunch of resurrection believers? Or have you given up because the powers that be have capitalized on your fear?
Not to be offensive—but I’m looking at a ragtag bunch.
I am looking at a ragtag bunch who forget to set the table wide. Who forget to save the best wine for last. Who forget to wash the feet of people who have betrayed them. Who forget that the impossible is possible with a God who can multiply out of scarcity.
We are ragtag, and we are sometimes getting it wrong.
But I’m looking at a ragtag bunch who woke up this morning, who put on your Sunday best—or your Sunday casual. We don’t care here. And you showed up.
Maybe you were dragged here. Or maybe something brought you here—that deep hope that there still is light streaming through the darkness, that we still flower a cross of death.
When Mary and Mary and the disciples reach Jesus, he meets them and says, “Greetings.”
“You didn’t think I was coming back, did you?”
And you know what they do? They take hold of his feet and they worship him.
And then he looks at them and says the verse that God says the most in Scripture:
“Don’t be afraid.”
Even as I hear those words, I know there are shadows in the night. I know that Rome never runs out of crosses.
But this ragtag pastor will never run out of hope.
I believe the good news is alive in the world. I see it here. I’m asking you to see it with me—like Mary and Mary did—to tiptoe to the tomb and wonder if there is something going on.
So I’m asking you: if you are scared, pick up that stick and follow me—in your fear and in your joy.
Because, church—he is risen. Hallelujah. He is risen indeed.
Amen.