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Reflection for April 6, 2026
The Earthquake of Joy and the Stone of Denial
The Gospel leaves us at the empty tomb with Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary,” trembling yet overjoyed (Matthew 28:8). But the lectionary quickly adds a jarring coda: the chief priests bribing the guards to lie, saying, “His disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep” (Matthew 28:13).
In just seven verses, we witness two radically different responses to the same impossible fact: an empty tomb.
The Women’s Response: Fear Transfigured
Notice the beautiful paradox Matthew gives us: the women leave “with fear and great joy.” This is not a contradiction but the only sane response to God upending death itself. Their fear is the awe of standing on the edge of the cosmos cracking open. Their joy is the certainty that Love has won. They do not argue; they run to obey the angel’s command: “Tell my brothers to go to Galilee.” Their trembling becomes mission.
The Guards’ Response: Facts Buried
Meanwhile, the professional soldiers—eyewitnesses who saw the angel descend, the stone roll away, and the tomb vacant—accept a bribe to spread a lie. The chief priests, who demanded a guard to prevent a hoax, now fund one. Notice the irony: they argue that the guards were “asleep” (how could sleeping men know who stole the body?). Their fear is not holy; it is political. They choose a comfortable lie over a terrifying truth.
A Catholic Lesson on Witness
The Church has always held that the Resurrection is not a metaphor but an event in history. The “stolen body” theory was so common in the first century that Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho, 108) still debated it. Matthew refutes it not with philosophy but with a simple appeal to the guards’ ongoing presence (“this story has been circulated among the Jews to this day”).
For us today, this passage asks a pointed question: When faced with the impossible claim of the Resurrection, do we run with trembling joy to announce it, or do we invent comfortable excuses to stay in the tomb?
The women ran to Jesus. The guards ran from the truth. May we, like the holy women, let our fear be conquered by the overwhelming joy of a stone rolled away—and a Savior who waits for us in Galilee, which is to say, in the ordinary stuff of our everyday lives.
Saint Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, pray for us that we may run, not hide, from the empty tomb.