Virtually every detail of Matthew’s account takes us back to the beginning of his gospel story. In the end is the beginning, because in the beginning is the end.
Two Marys come to the tomb on the first day of the week. One of them is Mary Magdalene, but the “other Mary” is the “mother of James and Joseph,” the mother of Jesus (Matthew 13:55). Mary was there when Jesus first emerged from her womb, and Mary is there again as he emerges newborn from the tomb.
An angel appears, descending from heaven to roll away the stone and to announce that Jesus is risen, and this too takes us back to the beginning. Angels appear to Joseph several times at the opening of the gospel, telling Joseph where to go to escape the Herods who want to kill Jesus.
Jesus carried out His early ministry in Galilee, but after His transfiguration he set His face toward Jerusalem and left Galilee behind. Now that he is raised, he is heading back to Galilee again, and he instructs the women to tell His disciples to follow him there.
Early on, the gospel story followed this sequence: Jesus battled Satan in the wilderness, proving Himself the true Son, the true Israel of God. When he was finished, angels appeared to him and strengthened him. Then he withdrew into Galilee, and began preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
At the end of the gospel, Satanic temptations are back. In Jerusalem, Jesus’ enemies challenge His claim to be Son of God, just as Satan did. In Jerusalem, the Jewish leaders ask for a sign, just as Satan did. In Jerusalem, the chief priests mockingly demand that Jesus come down from the cross, just as Satan tempted him to avoid the cross altogether. Jesus’ trials and death in Jerusalem are a second entry into the wilderness, and now that he has emerged victorious, an angel appears, he goes to Galilee, appears to His disciples in Galilee of the Gentiles, and beyond to all the nations of Gentiles throughout the earth.
Jesus’ ministry hasn’t ended with His death. Because of His resurrection, His ministry is reset.
Easter is not, however, simply a return to the beginning of the gospel. Matthew reaches back beyond the beginning of his own story to the beginning of all beginnings, to the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth. More than any other gospel, Matthew emphasizes that Jesus’ coming constitutes heaven’s invasion of earth. According to Matthew, Jesus proclaims the “kingdom of heaven,” a phrase never found in the other gospels.
The Bible is largely a history of the estrangement of heaven and earth, of earth’s rebellion against heaven. But the gospel announces that heaven has not left earth to its own self-ruination. Through Jesus, heaven comes to earth, so that God’s will will be done on earth as in heaven. Jesus spent His life overturning powers—the power of disease, death, the devil, and when an angel descends from heaven to open the tomb on Easter morning, heaven displace the powers of earth more fully yet.
All the powers of the world conspire to kill Jesus, and to keep him dead. A Roman governor crucifies him, and a guard stands at the tomb. Jewish leaders manipulate and pressure Pilate into condemning an innocent man. Jesus is rendered utterly powerless, and when Joseph rolls the stone over the tomb, Death, which ruled earth since Adam ate the fruit, seems to have its final triumph. – The first week of the world ends with the corpse of the Son of God lifeless in the tomb.
Jesus’ resurrection is an earthquake that shakes the powers until they shatter. One by one, the powers that conspired to kill Jesus are toppled. When the angel descends from heaven, the large, hefty grave stone is rolled away, bold and battle-scarred guards fall in fear as dead men, and the conspiracy of Jew and Gentile to kill Jesus and to keep him dead unravels. Most importantly, the power, Death, is dethroned. For the first time in history, Death yields up a victim; for the first time, a man is raised to life beyond the reach of Death. The powers that have oppressed earth are overthrown by an invasion of heaven’s King.
What looked like strength is exposed in its impotence, while, on the other hand, what looked like defeat and weakness is transformed to power. Passive women are mobilized and dash off to tell the disciples, knowing that the whole mission of the church depends on their getting a message to the disciples. A crucified man, still bearing the scars of His execution, appears in a garden to Mary, walks through doors, eats fish with His disciples, claims to have inherited all authority in heaven and on earth.
Men have always dreamed of a new beginning. They have always wished that time could be run in reverse and we could have a new start on the sorry spectacle of history. Those who pursue that dream usually end up with more of the same, only worse. The old week of human history ended in a cross, and the dream of going back to Day One has ended with guillotines and Gulags. But that sobering reality should not lead to despair. We cannot reverse time, return to Eden, and make sure that this time round Adam stays clear of that tree until it’s time. We cannot, but God can , and Easter announces that he has .
