He Is Risen!
Why Do You Look for the Living Among the Dead?
Matthew 28:1–15It is the first day of the week, very early in the morning, while the sky is still painted with the colors of dawn. Mary Magdalene and another Mary walk quietly toward the tomb where Jesus has been buried. Their hearts are heavy with grief. They loved Jesus deeply, and now He is gone — or so they think.
Suddenly, the ground trembles and shakes beneath their feet. An angel of the Lord comes down from heaven like a bolt of lightning. His face blazes like the sun, and his clothes are as white as fresh snow. The Roman soldiers standing guard at the tomb begin to shake with fear, and they fall down like dead men.
The angel rolls back the great stone from the entrance of the tomb and sits on top of it — not to let Jesus out, but to show everyone that Jesus is already gone! Then the angel speaks to the trembling women: 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here. He has risen, just as He said!'
Just as He said. Those words are so important. Jesus promised this would happen. He told His disciples He would be killed and rise again on the third day. And now, exactly as He promised, the tomb is empty. God the Father has raised His Son from the dead!
The angel invites the women to come and see the empty place where Jesus had been lying. Then he sends them running with a message for the disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him.'
The women run fast, filled with both trembling and great joy all at once. And then, right there on the road, Jesus Himself meets them! They fall at His feet and worship Him. Jesus speaks gently: 'Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me.'
Meanwhile, some of the frightened soldiers hurry into the city to tell the chief priests what has happened. The religious leaders pay the soldiers money to spread a lie — to say that the disciples came and stole the body while the guards slept. But no lie can stop what God has done.
The resurrection of Jesus is the greatest event in all of history. God has kept every promise He ever made. The grave could not hold the Son of God, because death has no power over the One who is Life itself. The covenant God made to rescue His people has been fulfilled. Jesus is alive, and nothing will ever be the same.
Christ in This Story
The resurrection of Jesus is the moment when God's entire covenant plan bursts into its full and glorious completion. Every sacrifice, every promise, every story in all of Scripture was pointing to this empty tomb. Just as God promised through the prophets that death would be swallowed up in victory, Jesus rises as the firstfruits — the proof and guarantee that all who belong to Him will be raised too. Because Jesus is alive, the covenant between God and His people can never, ever be broken.
Historical Context
Roman soldiers guarding a sealed tomb was a serious matter in the first century. Pilate authorizes a guard unit in Matthew 28:11–14, and the penalty for a Roman soldier falling asleep on watch was death. This makes the guards' testimony — that the disciples somehow stole the body while they slept — almost laughably implausible to anyone familiar with Roman military discipline. The chief priests' willingness to bribe the soldiers and promise to protect them from punishment (v. 14) reveals how desperate the religious leaders were to suppress the news.
The 'other Mary' mentioned in Matthew 28:1 is widely understood to be Mary the mother of James and Joseph, referenced earlier in Matthew 27:56. In first-century Jewish culture, the testimony of women was not typically accepted in legal proceedings, which makes it historically striking that all four Gospel accounts place women as the first witnesses of the resurrection. This detail is the kind of 'embarrassing' evidence that historians note is unlikely to be invented — writers fabricating a story in that culture would have chosen more 'credible' male witnesses. The very awkwardness of women as primary witnesses actually strengthens the case for the account's authenticity.
✦ This story also appears in the Quran
For parents: This biblical account has a parallel in the Quran (Islam's holy book), but the two versions differ in important ways. The Quran retells many Old and New Testament stories — sometimes similarly, sometimes with significant changes in detail, meaning, or theology.
This is a great opportunity to help your children know the biblical account well, so they can recognize differences if they ever encounter them. The Bible is our authoritative source; where the Quran diverges, we hold to what God's Word says.
Let's Pray
Heavenly Father, thank You that Jesus is alive and that the tomb is empty! Thank You for keeping every single promise You ever made. Help us to run and tell others the good news, just like the women did, so that more people can know that Jesus has risen. Amen.