In the last sermon, because we touched briefly on the first part of the reading, today let us hear what follows. 'The angel answering,' he says, 'said to the women: Fear not; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord was laid' (Matt. 28). Do you suppose that the absence of Peter, of John, of all the disciples is reproached, that their sloth is chastised, in that the women first, alone, keep watch and ardently run to the risen Christ; that even the manly portion is so marked, that womanly weakness runs before to the glory of the resurrection? Far be it, brethren! This is a matter of purpose, not of chance; a mystery, not an accident; an ordering, not a fault:
for here the woman follows the man, she does not precede, where the man rises again in Christ. Perceive, therefore, that Peter yielded not to the women, but to Christ; not to a maidservant, but to the Lord; to the sacrament, not to sleep; to order, not to fear: for now man already was in Christ, when the angel came to the women, so that as much as the Lord excels the angel, so much might the man precede the woman in honour. 'Fear not.' Because love possesses the good, dread the evil; and fear terrifies the impious, affection consoles the pious. 'Fear not.' This is to say:
Let the Jew who betrayed fear, Pilate who condemned, the soldier who mocked, the impiety that crucified, the cruelty that offered the bitter cup, the savagery that besieged the buried One, the treachery that bought a lie and sold the truth, the inhumanity that grieves that its Lord has risen, and grieves not that it slew Him: but it befits you to rejoice, not to fear, because He whom you sought dead has risen, He whom you bewailed as slain is alive. 'For I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.' This is to say: Why do you seek the living among the dead—why do you seek Life in the tomb? Go rather to meet the Living One: and now do not run together to the service of the dead. 'I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified: He is not here.'
Thus the angel spoke, because he opened the sepulchre for this reason, not that Christ might go forth from it, who was already not there, but that he might show that Christ was already not there. 'He is risen, as He said.' It is a twofold power: both to return from the dead, and to foreknow things future. 'Come, see the place where the Lord was laid.' Come, women, come, see where you laid Adam: where you buried the man, where by your counsel you thrust down the man, whereby you brought it about that the Lord Himself should lie thus for the very servants; and understand toward yourselves the greatness of pardon, as great as was the greatness of the injury done to the Lord. 'Come, see the place where the Lord was laid.' The angelic power confesses that He who was crucified is Lord:
and does human weakness dispute whether He who rises is Lord? Christ took upon Himself human sufferings in such a way that He loses nothing of that which is of His divinity. 'And going quickly, tell His disciples that He is risen, and behold, He goes before you into Galilee; there you shall see Him.' Nor are the apostles set beneath the women, but the woman is absolved from guilt, while she carries the hearing of life, carries the hearing of resurrection, she who had carried the hearing of death and of ruin. 'And going quickly,' he says, 'from the tomb with fear and great joy.' The women enter the sepulchre, that they might become partakers of the burial, companions of the passion; they go out from the sepulchre, that they might rise first in faith before they rise in flesh. Going out with fear and great joy. And where is 'Fear not'?
Because the fear was not taken away, but changed; the fear had departed from guilt, but remained from reverent service; the fear of fault is evil, the fear of reverence is good: they had lost what was given to Adam, and they dreaded lest they lose the same thing when restored. 'With fear and great joy.' It is written: 'Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto Him with trembling' (Ps. 2). 'With fear and great joy.' Because 'the fear of the Lord is holy, enduring for ever and ever' (Ps. 18). In holiness, therefore, he abides who abides in the fear of God. 'They were running to announce it to His disciples, and behold, Jesus met them, saying, Hail.' To those running faithfully Christ meets them, that what they had believed by faith they might recognize by sight: and that His presence might strengthen those whom the hearing still held trembling.
'Jesus met them, saying, Hail.' He meets them as Lord, He greets them as a parent; by affection He animates, by fear He preserves; He greets them, that they may serve through love, not flee through fear. 'But they came, and held His feet.' He willed to be held, who suffered Himself to be held. 'They came, and held His feet'—that they might know that the man is in the head of Christ, and that they themselves are in the feet of Christ: and that it was given to them to follow the man, not to go before him through Christ. 'He says to them, Fear not.' What the angel had said, the Lord also says, that those whom the angel had strengthened, Christ might render more firm. 'But go, tell My brethren, that they go into Galilee; there they shall see Me.' Rising from the dead, Christ took up again the man, He did not abandon him:
He calls them therefore brethren, whom He made to be brothers of His own body; He calls them brethren, whom He adopted as sons of His own Father; He calls them brethren, whom, as a kindly heir, He made co-heirs with Himself. But while Christ rises, hear how impiety rises: 'Behold, some of the guards came into the city, and told the chief priests all things that had been done. And they, being assembled with the elders, having taken counsel, gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, Say that His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were sleeping.' They who give money buy not things to be lost, but to be kept; the Jews, when Judas sold, bought, that they might lose Christ;
now they poured out a large sum of money, that they might lose themselves, their law, their temple, their homeland. Men of blood and deceit, they set a price on falsehood, they fashion an instrument of treachery, by a cruel bargain they traffic in fraud against faith and robbery against truth: they corrupt the soldiers, that they may call theft what was the secret of the resurrection: 'His disciples came by night, and stole Him away.' Not content with having killed the master, they contrive how they might destroy the disciples, they make the crime of the disciples to be the power of the master. 'His disciples came by night, and stole Him away.' Plainly the soldiers lost, the Jews perished; but the disciples took away their master not by theft, but by faith; by power, not by fraud; by holiness, not by crime;
they took Him up alive, not dead: hence it is that they are sent into Galilee, that they might be able to see Him, because God is not seen in the place of treachery. But as to what He said: 'All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth.' He who gave it to Himself in Himself declares this, the Apostle attesting, when he says: 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself' (2 Cor. 5). The Son of God conferred upon the Son of the Virgin, God upon man, divinity upon flesh, what He ever possessed with the Father and the Spirit. And therefore He says: 'Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.' That one and the same power might recreate unto salvation all nations, which it had created unto life. 'And behold,' He says, 'I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age.'
He who is ever with the Father is ever with us, and He will come to us through this, that He took up from us. And what more, brethren? That He is born, that He suffers, that He rises again, that He receives—this is not, this is not of His own necessity, but of our salvation.