Why?
The story of the empty tomb fascinates me. The subtle differences between the four synoptic gospels’ telling of the story is particularly interesting, and because of those differences I find we can view the scene at the tomb in different ways.
The telling of the story in the Gospel of Matthew is especially exciting. An earthquake, an angel - with a countenance of lightning - descends, the stone rolls away: it’s all very dramatic. But what the angel does next has always rather amused me:
…an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.
He sat on it. Doesn’t that seem strangely nonchalant? Angels are so often depicted in artwork as extremely regal, stately, majestic beings, truly other-worldly. But scripture mentions them sitting or walking, such a mundane and ordinary act, not infrequently. And I love that Matthew writes of the angel sitting on the stone. When I was growing up I had a copy of The Good News Bible (I was a child of the ‘80’s, we all had them) and at this passage in Matthew, there was a small line drawing of the tomb, with the stone rolled away, and an angel sitting atop the stone, sort of leaning with his elbows on his knees. Very relaxed. Entirely nonplussed by the epic scene of which he is an important part.
In Luke’s telling of the Easter morning story, two angels appear to the women who have come to anoint Jesus with spices, and the angels say to them,
Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.
And in the book of John, Mary Magdelene is asked twice, once by the angels at the tomb and once by the Risen Christ Himself,
Woman, why are you weeping?
Why?
So why is the angel so relaxed in the midst of this wondrous thing that has happened? Perhaps it is because he knows what we ought to remember, what the disciples and the women of the Easter story were told, what we we were told, what we can too easily forget:
Christ is Risen. He is Risen indeed.
