A number of women who had traveled from Galilee with Jesus to the Passover in Jerusalem had arranged to meet at the tomb early on Sunday morning to complete the burial custom for His dead body. It was hastily interred Thursday evening before the start of the required sabbath for the first day of Unleavened Bread, and the seventh day Sabbath on Saturday had prevented them from attending to it until then. The two Marys who had seen where Joseph and Nicodemus had laid the body arrived first, just as the day was dawning (Mat 28:1), “there yet being darkness” (Joh 20:1). They unexpectedly found the stone already taken away from the tomb, about which on the way there they had just been discussing who would roll it away for them. They didn’t seem to have known that the Jewish leaders had sealed the tomb and stationed a guard, which would have hindered their access to it, but it didn’t matter. For God had sent an angel to roll away the stone, which caused the earthquake, and frightened the guards so much as to leave them frozen in terror. It was just moments later that they arrived, by which time the angel had moved inside the tomb. Disoriented by the earthquake and the frightened guards as well as the early hour and dawning light, they entered the tomb and were further perplexed, and alarmed to find not Jesus’ body, but a young man sitting at the right, so that their immediate thoughts would have been if they were even in the right location. But God had sent the angel knowing how mystified they would be by what had actually happened. It was also the Jewish day of first-fruits, and He wanted to make clear that it was on that exact day, according to His perfect timing and plan, that Jesus was resurrected as the first-fruits from the dead never to die again. After assuring the two Marys that they were in the right place and the tomb was empty because Jesus had risen from the dead, he then commanded them to go quickly and tell His disciples.
Did the angel tell them they should expect to see Jesus on the way or later that day? What did he tell the two Marys in regard to His disciples seeing Him? See Mat 28:7, Mar 16:7. Was the instruction for His disciples to meet up with Jesus in Galilee after His resurrection totally random and out of the blue? See Mat 26:32, 28:16. Later when these same women met Jesus Himself, what did He specifically command them in this same regard? See Mat 28:10. Although Luke and John note that Jesus appeared to Peter and then the other disciples later that day and again a week later, and then at the Sea of Galilee, Matthew omits these appearances and instead emphasizes as most important His appearance in Galilee at a designated mountain; why is that, and is there any other reference in Scripture to what he considered that all important appearance? See 1Co 15:5-8 and think: a Jesus appearance to one person can easily be dismissed as a hallucination, and to a small group of His closest friends and followers as wishful thinking, but an appearance to over 500 brethren at the same time whose testimonies would have spread among the Jews would be much harder to deny. Consider too that Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience at a time when all of the gospel testimonies we have recorded in Scripture had already spread orally throughout Israel and were then going out to the Gentiles. This caused many of the Jews who were on the fence to harden their hearts and reject it out of animosity, not just against the Gentiles but also against those Jews, like Paul, whom they viewed as fraternizing with them; cf. Act 22:18-22. Under such circumstances, the personal testimonies of a few of Jesus’ closest followers whom they likely didn’t know and were biased against for associating with Gentiles would not have been nearly as persuasive as His appearance to over 500 of their countrymen, some of whom they may very well have known.
What is the last thing Matthew says the angel told the two women? See Mat 28:7. While it is clear from our written account that he had just told them, what is the significance that he specifically stated that they had been told? Think: although real, would their experience with the angel be described primarily as a spiritual or a physical encounter? And although at that instant in time they would have accepted at face value their experience as real, what would their natural inclination be to think after the angel had disappeared and could no longer be found? How difficult would it be to share with others their experience, knowing the ridicule to which it would expose them for such foolishness, and even contempt for promoting false hope to those who were already in the throes of sorrow? See Mar 16:8,11,14, Luk 24:11, Joh 20:2,25 for how those same fears that we ourselves would have in a similar situation were not unfounded. In what way then would the angel’s words, “Behold, I have told you,” have added an element of accountability to their experience to make them feel the need to share it with others even though another part of them would seek to dismiss it as something they had just imagined? What does this teach us about how intimately God knows all of our inner thoughts, and takes them into account in His dealing with us? Although none of Jesus’ followers could immediately grasp what had happened, even in spite of God’s miraculous intervention, do the accounts we have try to spin it any differently? How does this help us to understand how truly honest the gospel accounts are in faithfully recording exactly what happened, so that rather than conflicting accounts that cannot be reconciled to be believed, in fact their faithful witness to “just the facts” as Jesus’ followers experienced them provide a powerful witness that their eyewitness testimony of the resurrection is true? What does this teach us about the importance of such simple honesty in sharing “just the facts”, not just in our own gospel witness about what the Lord has done for us, but in all the things we say and do in life? Does God need for us to understand everything clearly before He can use us, or does all He need is a willing witness to share from a good and honest heart?