The resurrection is the most important event in the history of the world. Think about what these women must have expected when they approached the tomb that morning. Jesus was dead. They had watched Him die. They sat across the tomb while Jospeh of Arimathea and Nicodemus took His body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in the brand new tomb (27:60-61). And now they were coming back to honor Him properly with spices and anointing tools. But death was no where to be found. Only a tomb. An empty one.
An angel was waiting for them, sitting on top of the stone that'd been rolled away. He told the women, "He isn't here, for He has risen, just as he said" (v. 6). No explanation, just the bare bones truth, with a little kicker..."just as he said." It's as if the angel wanted His followers to be reminded, I already told you this was going to happen. They are scared, scattered, and hiding. But Jesus is going to regather them, reassure them, and get them out of Jerusalem and back to Galilee. There's work to do.
As the women process, they're flooded with emotions of all kinds. "Fear and great joy" (v. 8) mix together and fuel an urgency unlike anything they've ever experienced before. And so they run. Fast. Eager to report their discover to the others.
But they don't get far before Jesus meets them on the journey and greets them with a word unthinkable to them just a few hours prior, "Rejoice!" (v. 9). He has conquered the great and last enemy that humanity has desperately tried to overcome: death.
And while the enemy was afoot, plotting and scheming, fabricating a lie to cover up the truth, the disciples received Jesus' message and high tailed it back to Galilee, back to the mountain.
They worshiped Him there, they listened to Him teach again just as before. But this was hard. Minds were swirling, trying to make sense of everything and come to grips with the truth that this really did happen exactly like He said it would. And so some were doubtful. But they listened. They listened to their resurrected Messiah as He make perhaps His most extraordinary declaration to date: "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth" (v. 18).
And it's this One who now possesses all authority that commissions His disciples to go and "make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you" (v. 19-20).
And with that, Matthew's gospel account comes full circle. What begins with Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, and ends with Jesus sending His disciples to all the nations. For a Jewish reader, Abraham's name would immediately bring to mind the promise God made him: "In you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). What began as a promise to Abraham is now being carried outward through the Church, through His bride, His body, His hands and feet on earth with Him as the head (Ephesians 1:22-23, 5:23; Colossians 1:8). Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth are about to be transformed by the power of the Gospel message (Acts 1:8). The final stitching in this story that God has been weaving for thousands of years is finally being sewn into the story of His redemption, our redemption.
And then Matthew leaves us with one final promise from Jesus himself, "And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (v. 20). The One who conquered death is with us. And He will never leave us.