If Disney were making a movie about Jesus, I expect they’d use Matthew’s version of the story for the ending.
Mark gives us the empty tomb as a cliffhanger. Luke shows it as a high point in the final episodes setting up a spinoff series. John writes it as a set of open-ended scenes that pave the way for more complex theological narratives.
But Matthew? Matthew gives us a classic happy ending.
It’s got drama: an earthquake breaking the stillness of the dawn; a brilliantly super-human messenger, the startling collapse of the tomb guards – we have all the special effects to make the scene exciting.
The angel moves the action along quickly, offering the women reassurance, an invitation to see for themselves, and the command to carry the happy news away, almost all at once. Seizing the dismay and uncertainty you’d naturally feel, seeing a dear friend or family member’s grave wide open, and pushing it to action, resolution.
(“It’s okay. See? Let’s go!” I can hear the background music swelling…)
And so the women leave the tomb, carrying us with them in the heightened emotions of narrative climax, and here
– at last, so quickly –
is Jesus.
Risen Jesus.
Not dead, after all. Living Jesus.
The tragedy of Good Friday, of death and abandonment, is resolved, the tension of the empty tomb is released, because here is Jesus,
himself, alive, returned.
[All better?]
Whose first word is “Rejoice!”
For these women, for Jesus, “chairete” would have been as commonplace and unremarkable a greeting as “hello”, or “good morning” is for us – but, literally, it’s “rejoice!”
This is a happy ending.
A joyful ending, in a world – and a faith – where lots of endings aren’t happy, and some stories have no end in sight.
This reunion of Jesus and the women – which I cannot help seeing in bright, warm, happy-looking light – offers more reassurance, and more promise. They will see this renewed Jesus again, when they gather their friends in Galilee, able to be confident once more that all God’s promises will be fulfilled. That all will be well.
Where we stop reading this morning is not quite the end of Matthew’s story. He pauses to stamp out a rumor that resurrection is just a trick, and finishes with this morning’s last promises fulfilled.
The disciples do gather in Galilee, as invited,
and do see Jesus, as promised, and the story is complete with a look toward the future, with a commandment to share the story and bring others into the fulfilled promise.
All of it a happy ending. A sense of completeness.
An assurance that that all will be well, that ever after is real, and meaningful, and we can rejoice in it.
I love a happy ending.
I’m a re-reader, especially of stories that have a happy ending, a resolution that makes the future look bright, and whole, and joyful.
I go back to those stories because I need that touchstone of reassurance – from fiction, movies, and true stories – that things can work out even when everything has gone wrong.
It helps me keep going, stay hopeful, keep the faith.
Dipping into fictional or true remembrances of joyful outcomes helps me navigate through the real world in the places where nothing gets finished, the times when you have to accept that some things stay broken, as well as in the places where the happy ending is still possible.
And that’s what Matthew offers us.
Matthew invites us today to re-live that experience of dramatic resolution, that reassurance of promise fulfilled, to rejoice in the happy ending for the grieving women, the lost disciples, for God and you and me.
It’s not always enough.
Sometimes what we need from Easter, from the impossible defeat of death itself, is not reassurance, but provocation. Open-ended possibility or new questions.
Sometimes we need God’s power not to tie everything up neatly, but instead to yank us out of our comfort, upend our assumptions, and change everything.
All of that is there, every Easter Sunday.
Every time you or I turn our attention to the fundamental impossibility of what still must be true – that Jesus, truly dead, vanished from the tomb in which he was sealed,
and lives again, in power beyond our comprehension –
every revolutionary possibility we need to jolt us alive is there.
And sometimes even the joy and reassurance of a happy ending – the confidence and hope of all things made well – can be the jolt or disturbance we need when we’ve gotten adapted to hopelessness and everyday tragedy, when we’ve lowered our expectations to rock bottom, or stopped spending the energy to even imagine a better world.
Easter – resurrection – does not let us get stuck in the things we’ve always known.
But sometimes what we do need from Easter is the simplest truth of a happy ending.
A moment when we can’t help but smile, even when life doesn’t seem to offer anything to smile about.
A deep breath of satisfaction – never mind that every single thing at work and home is incomplete.
Sometimes we need that reassuring sense that all can become well,
that the end of the traumatic, messy story you or I may be living right now can also bring a whole-hearted opportunity to rejoice.
[Because what God wants - for the world, and for you and me particularly - is that our joy may be complete.]
So we tell this story.
We read, remember, retell this dramatic, strange, bright and powerful happy ending Matthew offers us this morning.
When no end, happy or otherwise, seems in sight, we can let this be our touchstone, a solid reassurance kept in our pockets for our fingers to brush, or a token that lets us measure what in the world we can hold true:
That God’s promises are fulfilled.
All can be well. All may already be well.
You can return to this happy ending as often as you might need it to build up your strength for another day of unhappy middle-of-the-story work or waiting.
I can return as often as I might need to exercise the muscles of hope and trust in my heart and soul.
We can repeat this story – to ourselves, to others, as we do today – to renew the promise and invitation of joy in a world that almost always needs more joy.
We can re-read, re-watch, re-live this happy ending – and I believe we should – not only when we need and long for it, but when things are ordinary, average, and boring, too.
Because the joy that Jesus invites us to – the joy and assurance that grow our hearts, expand our spirits – opens up space in the world for more and more joy.
More of the longing for a happy resolution that moves us into action instead of passivity.
More of the confidence that risks transformation,
more of the hope that opens our hearts, and invites others into joy.
So rejoice with me today.
Hear Jesus’ joyful greeting, and celebrate, even if joy isn’t quite the story you’re living today.
Receive reassurance, confidence and hope today, even if you didn’t ask for it.
Accept balm for your grief, even if you are not grieving.
Enjoy a visit to happy ever after, even while you’re keeping your eyes and actions on resolving the injustices here and now.
Because today before our story ends, before your storyline resolves, before you’re ready:
living, renewed, resurrected, impossible Jesus comes to meet us, looks at you and me in our unresolved, ordinary lives, in whatever fear and hope we carry,
and says to us, “Rejoice!”
And today, wherever we are in our stories, you and I get to respond, “Alleluia!”
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