Sunday, April 5, 2026: "Resurrection Inclusio"
The First United Presbyterian Church
“Resurrection Inclusio”
Rev. Amy Morgan
April 5, 2026
Colossians 3:1-4
So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.
Matthew 28: 1-10
After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Each of the four gospels reports the resurrection a little differently. Mark’s account is brief and ends in fear and confusion. Luke’s simply has an empty tomb and men who don’t believe the report of women. And John’s involves a comical episode where Jesus is mistaken for the gardener.
But Matthew’s account is powerful and dazzling. The earth trembles and shakes. An angel in lightening clothes drops out of heaven and rolls away the stone and, just for good measure, sits on it. This odd little detail is a declaration that the God of Life is King of the Mountain, not even something as strong and enduring as stone can prevent life from springing up.
But there’s one detail included only in Matthew’s gospel that changes the whole story. In fact, the way Matthew’s gospel is structured, the resurrection story is really what biblical scholars call an inclusio. An inclusio is a literary device where one story is bracketed within another story. Matthew uses this device liberally throughout his gospel narrative, but this particular inclusio has been overlooked, I think, because of the importance of the resurrection story and the fact that the story that brackets it never appears in the lectionary.
After Jesus dies on the cross, he is put in a tomb, and a large stone is rolled in front of the door. We’ve all heard that part. But what we don’t read very often is what happens next. The day after the crucifixion, Matthew tells us, the religious leaders go to Pilate, the Roman governor, and warn him that there may be some funny business in the works. They tell him that Jesus promised to rise from the dead in three days. They suspect Jesus’s followers might go and steal his body and tell everyone he was resurrected. They request a guard of soldiers to secure the tomb. Pilate grants their request, and they go with the guards and seal the stone to the tomb. That’s the first part of the bracketed story.
And that is why Matthew’s resurrection narrative is the only one that includes Roman soldiers at the tomb. One thing we might miss in English translations of this story is that the word for “earthquake,” the Greek word seismos, is from the root of the word for “tremble,” seio. In Greek, we would easily hear the connection between the trembling of the earth and the trembling of the guards. The resurrection inclusio depicts the earth and the powers of the earth - the collusion of religious and political power that placed guards at the tomb of an innocent man unjustly executed by those powers – the earth and those powers of the earth are both shaken, they both tremble. The resurrection is not just about one man, or his followers, or any religion they might later establish. The resurrection is cosmic, and it is devastating for earthly authorities. The resurrection doesn’t just abolish the power of sin and death. It abolishes the powers of injustice, oppression, and destruction that fuel sin and death.
The resurrection inclusio is bracketed on the other end by the guards waking up and scratching their heads and then running into the city to tell the religious leaders everything that had happened. It’s interesting that they didn’t go to their actual boss – Pilate – to make this report. They relied on the religious authorities to protect them from the civil authorities, to cover for them messing up at their job. And the religious leaders promised to do exactly that. Matthew’s gospel tells us they gave a “large sum of money” to the soldiers and instructed them to lie, telling people that Jesus’s disciples snuck in while they were sleeping and stole the body. And if Pilate heard about it, the religious leaders promised to cover for them.
In his commentary on this passage, New Testament scholar Matthew Skinner writes that this story “has specific implications for how the church understands imperialistic authority and the alliances that despots forge with death. It matters that a crucified man, a man Rome sought to make a nobody, was raised from the dead. Matthew’s attention to the guards at Jesus’s tomb calls our attention here.”
The words Matthew uses around the actions of the women in this story also enhance this power dynamic between empire and oppressed. The women go to “see” the tomb, but the word Matthew uses here is not one of the general words for seeing or looking in Greek. It is the word theóreó, from which we derive the English word theater. They are going to gaze upon, experience, take in the tomb. They are going for a cathartic moment. Earlier, Matthew tells us these women kept vigil until they had to go home to observe the Sabbath, but they return to continue that communion with the dead, that solidarity in suffering. This is the practice of oppressed people. This is an act of faithful resistance. To be a witness to cruelty and injustice instead of fleeing from it or turning a blind eye to it.
The angel at the tomb acknowledges this intention when he discerns, I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. Again, the word translated as “looking for” is not a Greek word for seeing. This word is often translated as seeking or seeking after, either in the sense of an object of worship and devotion or in the negative sense of stalking. But it also carries the connotation of investigation, of going to any lengths to get to the bottom of a matter. The women have come as active witnesses, to gather evidence and figure out the mystery of this awful crime. They want proof of this injustice so that Jesus’s life and death can stand for something, perhaps even empower positive change.
Jesus’s life was silenced by a cruel death. But the women come to the tomb to make sure his message will carry beyond the grave.
Imagine their shock when they discover that he can speak for himself.
His first message to the women when they literally run into him is, “Be joyful!” Translating this word as “Greetings” is really a miss. It is the imperative for joy. The women are already filled with great joy, mixed with fear. Jesus encourages their joy and assuages their fear. And he instructs them to go tell his siblings to meet him in Galilee.
We must remember that these folks Jesus calls family have deserted him and left him for dead. They did not keep vigil. They did not come to bear witness and investigate his death. They did not stand up for him. They ran and cowered.
Jesus does not rise in resentment. He rises in redemption. He rises to love those who feel unlovable. He rises to restore relationships that have been broken. He rises to bring joy and hope to those who are grieving and in despair.
This is the message of the resurrected Jesus. This is the message religious and political powers sought to silence. This is the message that must continue to be proclaimed by followers of Jesus Christ.
And there has never in our lifetimes been a moment when that message is more important to speak than right now. Around the globe, the collusion of religious and political power is causing oppression, abuse, and war. Endless energy is being poured into gaining and maintaining the power to silence the critics and enemies of authoritarian leaders. And nothing silences like death and the threat of it.
In just the last year, a Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota and a right-wing political activist were assassinated. Innocent people were murdered by government agents. Wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and Iran have caused immeasurable devastation and suffering. Terrorist attacks in Austin and Michigan followed the outbreak of war in Iran. We all carry within us the list of atrocities that have resulted from earthly powers of destruction and cruelty.
The resurrection isn’t what happens to end all of this chaos. It is the thing that happens right in the middle of it. It is the thing that breaks open what earthly powers hoped to keep concealed, that sits victoriously atop hardened realities we thought could not be altered, that shakes the earth and earthly powers to the core. The resurrection is an inclusio that shapes the story around it. It is not defined by the bracketed narrative; it transforms how we understand the larger story.
Right in the middle of all the scheming and fear-mongering, Jesus rises. Right in the middle of the lies and betrayals, Jesus rises. Right in the middle of the cruelty and bigotry, Jesus rises. Right in the middle of the resentment and repression, Jesus rises.
We may still be surrounded by all the ugliness of the world. But right in the middle of it all, the resurrected Jesus changes the narrative. He commands joy, not shame. He commands courage, not fear. He commands bold proclamation, not submissive silence. He makes us a family and goes ahead of us to prepare the way for hope, peace, justice, and love.
Jesus is risen, friends. And we are commissioned, along with the women who were the first witnesses to the resurrection, to be joyful, to not be afraid, and to share this good news. The powers of the earth will continue to try to silence this message. Joyful, courageous, and hopeful people are hard to manipulate and control. But the risen Christ is with us, leading us and empowering us to be the people who will not let the dead stay silent, who will sit at the tombs and investigate the injustices and carry Jesus’s message of redemption, of love and grace, to every corner of the earth.
Alleluia! Amen.
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