Reassurance

Matthew 28:  8-15

 Fear Not

⁸ So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹ Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

The Guards’ Report

¹¹ While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. ¹² When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, ¹³ telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ ¹⁴ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” ¹⁵ So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

Even the close friends and followers of Jesus had to be reassured that he was truly alive, so unique was this phenomenon of his return from the dead. They were sure when they place him in the tomb, encased in the traditional spices, that he was definitely dead, so they had to be reassured that indeed he was now alive again. Jesus assured them and asked them to spread the word.

In our day with so much secularist anti-faith feeding an ever unhappy world population, we need to hear the simple truth, "He is Risen", make sure it is the foundation of our faith, and share it with others by our words and deeds. Let us not be like the chief priests and guards, but live and spread the truth that HE IS RISEN!  

Bro. Rene

 
Father, thank you for the Easter joy with which you have blessed us. Drive this joy ever-deeper in our hearts, that our fears may dissolve and that we may find strength to give witness to our encounters with the risen Christ. Amen. 

Rev. Chase Pepper, C.S.C.