“This is the day”
Easter’s first Monday is not “back to normal.” The Church insists that the Day of the Lord’s rising is too large for one sunrise, so we stretch it across an octave. The Alleluia of Psalm 118 becomes our frame: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.” The liturgy keeps us inside the light long enough that it can begin to seep into our habits.
Today’s readings hold together three scenes: a cover-up in Jerusalem, a meeting on the road, and a sermon that explains what happened. Together they ask whether we will live by rumor or by witness, by fear or by joy, by our own spin or by the Spirit’s truth.
Fearful yet overjoyed
Matthew tells us that Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” leave the tomb “fearful yet overjoyed.” The mixture is important. Easter does not erase fear by magic; it meets fear and reorders it. On the way to tell the disciples, Jesus himself meets them, greets them, and receives their homage. Only then does he send them: “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”
The Risen One does not scold them for trembling; he speaks courage into their fear. This is how resurrection meets us, too; on the way, with our adrenaline still high and our questions unresolved. We are not told to manufacture fearlessness. We are told to cling to him and move.
There is a tenderness in the instruction: “my brothers.” The same disciples who fled are called brothers and invited to the place of beginnings. Galilee is where they first heard his voice over the slosh of nets and the clatter of boats. Easter sends us not to an abstraction but back to our real lives; the towns, kitchens, offices, phones, and sidewalks where our love either begins again or withers. “There you will see me.” The promise is local.
Where is that Galilee for you today? Not the idealized life that might have been, but the actual people and tasks entrusted to you. The Risen Christ does not bypass the ordinary; he inhabits it.
Rumor, money, and the management of appearances
While the women run with good news, another report is being crafted. The guards tell the chief priests what happened. The elders convene, choose a narrative, and fund it: “Say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep.’” Hush money will cover the gaps and keep the governor satisfied.
Matthew’s contrast could not be sharper. Easter generates both worship and PR. From the beginning, the resurrection confronts a world skilled in the management of appearances. We know this world. We live with spin, curated feeds, non-apologies, and the small internal bargains that keep us from hard truths. Sometimes it is not money that tempts us but approval, convenience, or the relief of not standing out.
The Gospel does not invite outrage at “those people” but vigilance within ourselves. Whose words do we carry forward? Do we allow ourselves to be purchased by fear of consequences? The women do not have funds or institutional power. They have only encounter and obedience. Yet their unadorned witness endures when the well-funded rumor fades.
“It was impossible for him to be held by it”
Acts lets Peter preach what the women saw. On Pentecost he stands “with the Eleven” and announces not a theory but a fact: “God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses.” He reads Psalm 16 not as vague uplift but as prophecy fulfilled: “You will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your holy one to see corruption.”
Two claims matter here. First, the resurrection is not a private spiritual experience or a metaphor for spring. It is the decisive act of God in history, vindicating Jesus’ identity and mission. Second, this act reveals something about death itself. Peter says death could not hold him. Why? Not because Jesus evaded death, but because the One who is Life entered death and burst it from within. Death retains its sting in our experience, but its dominion is broken. The psalmist’s confidence; “my body, too, abides in confidence”; becomes more than poetry. Christian hope is bodily.
This matters on ordinary Mondays. The confidence of Psalm 16; “I set the Lord ever before me; with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed”; is not bravado. It is the stance of people whose future has been pried open by Another. Anxiety still visits. Grief still aches. But the horizon has changed.
Death and life have contended
The ancient sequence Victimae paschali laudes puts it this way: “Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous: the Prince of life, who died, reigns immortal.” The women are asked, “What did you see on the way?” Their answer is not an argument but a catalogue: an empty tomb, angels, cloths left behind, the living Christ who goes before.
Our world prizes arguments and data, and there is a place for them. Yet the Church begins with witness. The hallmark of witness is not perfection but fidelity: to have been met by the Lord and then to speak and live as one who has been met.
Truth-telling in a culture of cover stories
One contemporary thread runs straight from Matthew’s council chamber to our timelines: the weaponization of narrative. Institutions, families, and even friendships can sometimes survive only if the truth is muted, the awkwardness managed, the story controlled. The Gospel does not naïvely despise prudence; Jesus himself tells the women to go to Galilee, not to the high priest’s courtyard. But prudence differs from manipulation. It guards the good without falsifying the real.
Where does this land today?
- In workplaces where metrics tempt us to quietly exaggerate or hide failure, Easter steadies our hands. We serve the One “at the right hand of God” who poured out the Spirit of truth. Integrity becomes our craft.
- In families where old hurts have their own cover stories, Easter allows a different kind of courage: to name what is true without weaponizing it, to ask for help, to refuse complicity in harm, and to choose reconciliation where possible.
- In our inner life, where shame constructs plausible deniability, Easter moves us from self-narration to confession, from image maintenance to mercy received.
The guards “did as they were instructed.” The women did as they were commanded. The difference is not only who gave the order but what reality each group aligned with. Resurrection is the ultimate reality. Aligning with it may cost reputation, opportunity, or the approval of some. But it gives us back our voice and our joy.
The path to life
Psalm 16 ends with a promise: “You will show me the path to life, fullness of joys in your presence.” Notice the verbs. God shows; we are shown. The path to life is not invented; it is revealed and walked. Peter says the Risen Jesus, “exalted at the right hand of God,” has poured out the promised Spirit. That same Spirit counsels in the night, steadies our steps by day, and makes witness possible.
How might we walk this path today?
- Keep a small sentence ready: “Do not be afraid.” Whisper it when fear spikes. Let it be a cue to cling to Christ before you act.
- Return to Galilee. Name one concrete place where you will look for the Lord this week: a conversation you have avoided, a task you have postponed, a person you overlook. Go there expectantly.
- Practice truthful speech. Choose one situation in which you will speak simply and clearly without spin. Let your yes be yes, your no be no, and your apology be without adornment.
- Pray the psalm. Before sleep, repeat: “I set the Lord ever before me; with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.” Let it meet your night anxieties.
Met on the way
Easter begins not with a program but with an encounter on a road. Fear and joy can run side by side; rumor can be loud; power can seem to control the narrative. Yet the living Christ steps into the path and speaks a word that creates a future: “Go to Galilee… there you will see me.”
The women go. Peter proclaims. The psalm teaches our mouths how to sing before our hearts have caught up. And the Church, still wayfaring, keeps answering the old question: “What did you see on the way?” An empty tomb. A mercy stronger than death. A King who reigns by wounds. A path to life that begins wherever we are standing. Alleluia.