Fearful Yet Overjoyed

Matthew 28:8-15

After seeing the empty tomb of Jesus and hearing an angel announce his resurrection two women named Mary, “fearful yet overjoyed,” ran to tell the other disciples. On the way, they met the risen Lord. It was good news for them but no everyone, especially those who had sought to have him executed.  

The Good News remains so for many but not for everyone, especially for those “powers and principalities” that are contrary to it: the culture of death, all of our personal and social vices, and all of those who profit from the degradation of the human person. They will always resist it and will seek to trivialize, marginalize or crush it if necessary.  

We who have been charged with proclaiming the Good News “in season and out of season”—a charge rooted not in ordination but in baptism—know well its power to disrupt and transform. It’s been doing that to us throughout our lives! So we, too, are “fearful yet overjoyed”—fearful of what it may cost us yet overjoyed at the hope and promise of new life that it offers us and the world. –jc