What does Resurrection Mean?

​ What is the point of the resurrection?  Matthew 28:1–10 

What is the point of the resurrection?

That may sound like a strange question to ask on Easter morning. Surely the point is obvious?

And yet… when we listen carefully to the different voices of the New Testament, it becomes less straightforward.

Paul the Apostle, our earliest Christian writer, speaks of resurrection as transformation, a metapmorphsis into “a spiritual body”, not simply flesh and blood brought back to life. And his encounter with the Risen Christ was not with a resuscitated physical body but with a voice and a light on the road to Damascus.   Gospel of Mark, the earliest Gospel, written after Paul’s writings, ends with an empty tomb and a promise, but no appearance of the risen Jesus at all.  Gospel of Matthew written about 20 years later gives us two brief encounters, mysterious, powerful, but not over-explained. And the later Gospels of Luke and John become more physical, more tangible in their descriptions of the Resurrection of Jesus.

And then in Matthew’s telling of the Resurrection story there is a strange detail, one no one else includes: The earthquakes. At the moment Jesus dies, the earth shakes, rocks split, tombs open. And again, on Easter morning, the earth shakes once more. Why?

If this were simply about reporting events, surely all the Gospels would mention something so dramatic. But Matthew alone tells it this way. Which suggests he is not only describing something that happened… He is telling us what it means.

For Matthew, the death and resurrection of Jesus are not small, contained religious moments. They are earth-shattering. They shake the very foundations of reality. The world, as we have known it - our assumptions, our certainties, our systems - is being shaken loose. It is as though something has come into the world that does not fit… and cannot be contained.

And that brings us back to the question: What is the point of resurrection?

Perhaps it is, first of all, this:  Resurrection is the announcement that death is not the end. That life is stronger than death. That what we see is not all there is. For people who live with the quiet fear that everything ends in loss… everything fades into nothing… Resurrection speaks a word of deep freedom:  You do not need to live in fear. Life is larger than you imagined. The story is bigger than death.  And perhaps that is why in Matthew’s telling of the story the first words of the Risen Christ to the women are the words: “Do not be afraid.”

But that is only part of it.

Because if resurrection were only about life after death, it could remain something distant—something for the future. Matthew will not let it stay there because the one who is raised is this Jesus. The one who taught love of enemies. The one who refused violence. The one who ate with prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners. The one whose radical love challenged both religious and political power. The one who embodied a way of being human that seemed, to many, naïve… impractical… even dangerous.

And what did the world do with that way of being? It rejected it. It silenced it. It crucified it.

Why?

Because the way of Jesus exposes something. It exposes how much of our world is built, not on love, but on fear. Not on truth, but on control. Not on trust, but on the anxious grasping of the ego.

And so here is the second meaning of resurrection:

It is God’s yes, the Divine yes, to the way of Jesus.

Where the world says, “This way cannot work,” Resurrection says, “This is the way of life.” 
Where power says, “Strength comes through domination,” Resurrection says, “True power is revealed in self-giving love.”  Where fear says, “Protect yourself at all costs,” Resurrection says, “Lose your life, and you will find it.”

And now, perhaps, we begin to understand the the deeper significance of the earthquakes in the story.

If Jesus truly lived in tune with the deepest reality, if his way is aligned with the very grain of the universe, then everything that stands against that way is, in some sense, unstable, out of alignment, built on shaky ground. And when that deeper truth is revealed - fully revealed in the crucifixion and resurrection - then the ground begins to move, the rocks split, the tombs open, the old world begins to crack. Because the resurrection is not just about what happens after death, it is about what happens when truth meets illusion, when love meets fear. When the way of Christ meets the ego-driven structures of the world, something has to give.

And Matthew tells us that it is the world, as we have known it, that begins to tremble. This is why the resurrection is not just comforting, it is also deeply unsettling. Because if it is true, if the way of Jesus is not just a beautiful ideal, but touches the deepest truth of reality, then it calls everything into question:  The way we live. The way we relate. The way we build our lives around control, status, security. All of it stands on ground that is not as solid as we thought.

And yet, this is not a message of destruction. It is a message of liberation. Because what is being shaken is not what is real - it is what is false. It is what cannot ultimately endure, so that something deeper… truer… more alive… can emerge.

And this is where Matthew leads us. The women meet the risen Christ. And what are the first words they hear? “Do not be afraid.” And then: “Go and tell…”

And at the end of the Gospel just a few verses later:  “Go and make disciples…”

This is the point of resurrection in Matthew’s Gospel. Not simply that Jesus is alive, but that a new way of being human has been revealed as true. That love is stronger than fear, that life is stronger than death. And that we are now invited, not just to believe it, but to live it, to become disciples of this risen life. And perhaps that is why Matthew describes the women falling down in worship and holding onto his feet.

What does worship actually mean?  The old English comes from two root words:  Worth and Ship  / Shape… and means to give worth or value… As they fall in worship and hold onto Jesus feet, they are affirming that in Jesus they have seen their highest value… holding onto his feet.

To worship Jesus it to declare that in Jesus we see our highest worth, to see in Jesus what is most valuable in life, To worship is to dedicate oneself to the way and the values of Jesus. It is not so much to put Jesus on a pedestal and constantly say how much better than us Jesus is. It is to commit ourselves to becoming like Jesus… discovering our own inner Christ-like potential and bringing it forth into the world, becoming who and what Jesus is. It is to put his teachings into practice. 

And perhaps that takes us to the symbolism of woman grasping Jesus feet? Firstly, it is a sign of deep respect. In the east, particularly in India to greet a great spiritual teacher one bends down and touches their feet.  It is a sign of humility, but also more than that, it is a symbolic way of expressing a desire to follow in the footsteps of the teacher, Feet are the means by which we walk through life, they represent the path we walk, to grasp Jesus feet is symbolically to affirm the way of Jesus. 

Resurrection message of Matthew is not just a message of admiring Jesus, it is in fact a call to follow Jesus. What t is the meaning of the Resurrection for Matthew?  It is a call to walk in the way of Jesus, to make the way of Jesus our own, it is to make his values and teachings our own, so that the Way of Jesus lives on in us -  love of enemies, being true to our word, loving our neighbours as ourselves, reaching out in compassion to the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, those in prison. 

And when that happens the earth is once again shaken… 

And so perhaps the question for us this Easter is this:
Where in our lives is the ground beginning to shake?
Where are the old certainties cracking?
Where is the way of Jesus quietly, persistently, unsettling the way we have learned to live?

Because that shaking… is not the end. It is the beginning. The beginning of resurrection.

Amen.