Scripture: Matthew 28:8-10
Key Verse: “So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.” (Matthew 28:8, NRSV)
Reflection:
The women leave the tomb carrying two realities at once: fear and joy. The text does not resolve that tension. They move while holding both, driven by something stronger — an encounter that has already happened, a reality that will not wait for them to feel ready. Resurrection does not eliminate uncertainty. It creates movement within it.
We often assume that faithful action requires emotional clarity — that we need to feel confident, prepared, or fully convinced before we move. But the first witnesses of the resurrection do not meet those conditions. Their response is not driven by certainty. It is driven by what they have encountered. And that distinction matters, because most of the significant movements of our lives will not begin from a place of settled confidence. They will begin from exactly where the women are standing: knowing something true, feeling afraid, and going anyway.
There is a pattern in church life — not unique to any one congregation, but embedded deeply enough in the culture to shape how communities make decisions — where the fear of upsetting someone becomes the primary check on what gets said and done. Preachers soften what needs to be hard because someone might not come back on Sunday. Leadership tables a decision that would move the community forward because one voice in the room pushed back. A ministry that would cost something — in comfort, in convenience, in the disruption of familiar arrangements — never quite gets off the ground because the timing never feels right and the consensus never fully arrives. What presents itself as pastoral sensitivity is often something more honest: the fear of loss dressed in the language of care. The women running from the tomb did not stop to take a vote. They ran because the encounter demanded it.
Jesus meets them on the way while they are still moving, still afraid, still carrying both things at once. The whole week has been pressing toward this: resurrection is not a destination you reach when the fear resolves. It is what you find yourself inside of when you refuse to let fear make your decisions. What you carry into that movement — doubt, grief, uncertainty, the memory of what it cost — does not disqualify you. It is simply what faithful people look like when they go.
Where have you let the fear of someone’s disapproval determine what you were willing to do or say? Hesitation can be wisdom. It can also be the tomb with the door still closed.
Application:
Identify one conversation, decision, or commitment you have been avoiding because you are waiting to feel ready. Take the first visible step today — make the contact, say the thing, begin the action — without waiting for the fear to resolve first.
Writing Prompt:
What am I waiting to feel before I am willing to act—and what would it mean to move anyway?
Prayer:
Living Christ, meet me in my movement. Give me courage to act, even when I carry fear. Amen.