The Holy Shaking: An Easter Liberation Sermon

There were three boys in sixth grade in a Catholic school who were two grades behind, too big for their desks, the only ones in puberty, and bully all the others.

Their teacher goes to the principle and says, "We gotta get the kids out of 6th grade." The principle says, "Ask them one question that will show they have learned something correctly and pass them."

Teach goes to Davey, "what is the meaning of Easter?" Davey, "That's easy, that's when all the kids dress up and go door to door for candy and when they don't get what they want, to they come back and Throw Eggs". Teach sighs, "you flunk".

Little Billy "I know, I know, that's the time of the year when that fat man comes down the chimney and gives presents to good kids, I don't like that guy."

Teach shakes her head...

Teach "Johnny, please tell me you know the answer".

Johnny "Sure, that about the greatest man in all the world, Jesus. He was so good, and so many people followed him that others feared and hated him".

Teach, "Yes, yes, Johnny, go on, go on."

Johnny, "They hated him so much they crucified him. He was placed in a tomb. Three days later he came out, saw his shadow, and went back in for six more weeks."

Scripture: Matthew 28:1–10

I. The Morning of the Great Interruption

On the first day of the week, as the first light touched the hills of Jerusalem, the world didn’t just wake up; it was jolted awake. St. Matthew tells us that "behold, there was a great earthquake."

In the modern world, we often treat earthquakes as purely geological—the release of tectonic stress, a snap of friction. But in the biblical imagination, an earthquake is a divine punctuation mark. It is a "theophany," a divine revelation, a moment where the physical earth can no longer contain the weight of God’s glory.

But why did the earth shake on Easter morning? It didn’t shake to announce a religious ceremony. It shook because the Roman Empire—the "Idol of Death"—had used its full military and legal power to bury Love in a hole and roll a stone in front of it. The earthquake was the "No!" of God. It was the cosmic breaking of the seal. It was the literal "shaking of the foundations" of a world built on the cross, the whip, and the grave.

II. The Tectonic Stress of Injustice

Matthew was not the only biblical writer that talks about earthquakes. In the Book of Amos, we hear of a "megaquake" that struck Israel two years after a shepherd from Tekoa warned the rich that they were "trampling the heads of the poor into the dust." Science tells us that earthquakes are the result of built-up stress. Liberation theology tells us that society also has "tectonic plates." On one plate, we have the "Logic of Empire": the belief that security requires walls, that peace requires detention, and that some lives are "illegal" or disposable. On the other plate, we have the "Logic of the Kingdom": the belief that every person is an imago Dei, a sacred reflection of God.

When these two plates grind against each other, the stress builds. We have felt that stress all over the world this year. It is being felt in Iran, Palestine, throughout the Middle East and the Ukraine.  We felt the "shaking" in the deaths of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. We felt the "rupture" in the story of our Indigenous peoples for historic wrongs and ongoing violence against women and girls. We may even feel the waves of energy being released as students protest the massive cuts to OSAP, jeopardizing their ability to get a good education, and as generations of younger Canadians are facing a future where they may never be able to afford their own home.

When we read Matthew’s Gospel, we must realize that the earthquake at the tomb is the direct answer to the "earthquake" of state violence. God does not just "observe" our suffering; God enters it, is crucified by it, and then—violently, beautifully—breaks out of it.

III. The Angel on the Stone

Matthew gives us a stunning detail: the angel of the Lord rolled back the stone and sat on it.

Think about that image. The stone was the symbol of "Finality." It was the "Case Closed" of the Roman Governor. It was the "Deportation Order" that cannot be appealed. It was the "Death Certificate" that says the poor will always be with us and the powerful will always win. And the messenger of God uses it as a chair.

This is the "defiant joy" of liberation theology. It is the laughter of the oppressed who know that the "unshakable" systems of this world are, in fact, incredibly fragile when God begins to move. The angel sitting on the stone is a mockery of the powers that thought they could contain Life.

For the victims of war and violence, for the scapegoated trans community and new immigrants, for the "crucified peoples" of ICE detention—Easter is the promise that the "stones" placed in front of your lives are not permanent. They are temporary obstacles that God is already preparing to roll away.

IV. "Do Not Be Afraid"

The first words to the women were "Do not be afraid." Fear is the primary tool of the "crucifiers." Fear is how you keep people from protesting in the streets. Fear is how you keep neighbors from opening their doors to those in need. Fear is the "friction" that keeps the plates of injustice stuck in place.

But the Resurrection is the ultimate "Fear-Breaker." If even the grave cannot hold the Son of Man, then what power does a mafia of billionaires and authoritarian dictators really have? When we lose our fear, the empire loses its grip. When the women left the tomb "with fear and great joy," they were the first revolutionaries of a new world. They didn’t go back to the status quo; they went to tell the brothers that the world had changed.

V. The Eucharist of the Risen Body

As we come to the table today for our Easter Communion, we are not just eating a "snack of memory." We are participating in a "Feast of Liberation." In the "old red hymnal," we sing: "Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain." That grain is Jesus. But that grain is also every victim of injustice whose name we have carried in our hearts this Lent. To receive the "Body of Christ" is to commit ourselves to the "Bodies of the Oppressed."

We cannot eat the bread of life and remain indifferent to those who lack their daily bread. We cannot drink the cup of the New Covenant and remain silent when the blood of the innocent is shed in our neighborhoods.

The Eucharist is our "seismic energy." It is the food that gives us the strength to "take the crucified down from the cross," as Jon Sobrino urged us. It is the nourishment that allows us to be the "aftershocks" of the Resurrection—ripples of justice that continue to shake the foundations of our city until every "illegal" child or ‘less than’ minority is seen as a beloved heir to the Kingdom.

VI. Conclusion: Go to Galilee

The angel told the women: "He is going ahead of you to Galilee." Galilee was not the center of power. Galilee was the "borderland." it was the place of the marginalized, the poor, and the "unclean." Jesus does not stay in the empty tomb, and he doesn’t go to the palace in Jerusalem to gloat. He goes back to the people. He is going ahead of us into the detention centers. He is going ahead of us into the homes tainted by fear. He is going ahead of us into the hospitals where the victims of war are recovering.

Easter is not a "happy ending"; it is a radical beginning. The earth has shaken. The stone is a bench. The Grave is empty. And the Risen Christ is already on the move. May we have the courage to follow Him. May we have the strength to be part of the "Holy Shaking." And may we never forget that while the night of the cross is long, the morning of the earthquake brings a Justice that can never be buried again.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!