Scripture: Matthew 28:5-7
Key Verse: “Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee.’” (Matthew 28:7, NRSV)
Reflection:
The angel’s words do more than inform—they dismantle certainty. The women are told that Jesus has been raised and that he is already ahead of them. That is not a comforting announcement. It is a displacement. The one they were prepared to mourn has already moved beyond the place where mourning makes sense. The disciples are not invited to return to what was; they are told to go to where something new is happening.
We want clarity before movement. We want assurance before obedience. We want God to meet us in the spaces we understand, in ways we can manage. Resurrection moves beyond expectations. It refuses to be contained by our timelines or our need for control.
There is a formation problem underneath this that runs deeper than any single congregation’s habits. The church has spent generations teaching people that careful discernment, thorough planning, and broad consensus are the marks of faithful leadership. And they can be. But when those practices become the precondition for every act of obedience — when nothing moves until everything is understood, until everyone is aligned, until the outcome is sufficiently predictable — they stop functioning as wisdom and start functioning as a way of not going. We have trained communities to treat process as a spiritual virtue without examining whether the process is serving movement or substituting for it. The disciples are not given a strategic plan. They are given a direction and told that the one they are following is already ahead of them. That is not an invitation to careful deliberation. It is an invitation to trust.
But the instruction is clear: go. Not when you understand. Not when it feels secure. Go because life is already unfolding beyond where you are standing.
How often do we delay movement because we are waiting for certainty? How often do we remain in familiar patterns because they feel safer than stepping into something unknown? The women do not have all the answers when they leave the tomb. What they have been given is a direction and a promise that the one they are following has already gone there.
Application:
Identify one decision you have been postponing because you want more clarity. Take one concrete step today toward it (make the call, schedule the meeting, begin the action).
Writing Prompt:
Where have I mistaken the feeling of readiness for the call to go — and what has that cost me?
Prayer:
God who goes ahead, teach me to trust your movement more than my need for certainty. Lead me into the places where life is already unfolding. Amen.