28 Now after the Sabbath, towards the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.
Matthew's narrative of the Resurrection seems to partake of the symbolism of much of the rest of his gospel. It is as if he were seeking to convey, in the kind of language he uses to describe these tremendous events, something of the inner significance of what happened on that first Easter Day. This is something we would do well to ponder. For although, of course, the truth of the resurrection is of quite cardinal importance, it is not something the gospel writers, or the apostles, for that matter, set out to prove, as such. They state the facts, yes; but their concern is not to prove that it happened. What they do is to bear witness to it. And one suspects that if we had the apostles here with us and spoke of proving the resurrection they would politely say, 'Quite so; but are you not missing the whole point?' It is not the fact of the resurrection - that was assumed - but its significance that was so important. And even to prove, from the evidence, that it happened, is only an elementary preliminary to the real issue, namely, that of being touched and gripped by a sense of its meaning and significance. The early Church did not try to prove the resurrection: they proclaimed it, proclaimed it, moreover, in a context which makes it plain that the real problem for them would have been, not that Jesus should have risen from the dead, but rather if He had not risen. That, from the New Testament point of view, would have been the unsurmountable difficulty; to them, it was not possible that He should be holden of death (Acts 2:24) because of Who He was. But His victory over death was something that needed to be demonstrated, and demonstrated it was, decisively, in His being raised from the dead.