In the Episcopal Church we have this tradition of not saying the word “Alleluia” during Lent.  As someone who grew up in the Methodist Church, I was surprised to learn in my first Lent that we don’t sing songs that have the “a word” in them for six weeks, we eliminate liturgical responses that usually contain alleluias, and even our psalms for those six weeks do not contain the forbidden alleluias.  For some churches, they offer a ceremony for the children where they “bury the alleluias” – collecting written versions of the word around the tables at Shrove Tuesday and sealing them away in a box until Easter Day.  I’ve even had families who needed a funeral during Lent who asked if we needed to avoid any music or parts of the liturgy that say alleluia.  And while the answer is, “No, a burial is an Easter celebration,” you can see how ingrained the practice is for those in the Episcopal Church.

Given that taboo, you can imagine how liberating singing, saying, and shouting our alleluias are today.  We have fasted from that word of praise – the word that literally means “Praise the Lord!” – for six weeks.  And now we get to feast on alleluias.  We sing them – a LOT!  We say them in their normal places.  We add them in at the dismissal.  And in some settings, we even ring little bells every time an alleluia is shared.  If we have buried our alleluias, the kids release them with gusto.  This is a day of true celebration and joy.

While for some of us, the alleluias are what we came for:  we came to celebrate Easter, we came to gather with our family and friends and take pictures to remember the day, we came to jump off the Easter feasts we will enjoy later today, we came to be encouraged in a season that for many has been quite discouraging.  We want the alleluias, the egg hunts, the Cadbury eggs, the feast.  Meanwhile, for others, uttering those words of celebration – those alleluias – feels a bit…harder.  We really only need ten minutes of reading the news to know that this is no time in the world for celebration.  We only need ten minutes on social media to see the bickering and us-versus-them discourse to know that an alleluia is not going to wipe away our deep, deep divisions.  We only need ten minutes to recount all the people in our lives, and maybe in our own selves, that are suffering, dealing with a new diagnosis or a loss, who are missing loved ones or a broken relationship, to know that alleluias almost feel inappropriate. 

So how do we receive the gift of an alleluia today or even wholeheartedly shout those alleluias with such torn hearts and spirits?  Well, I like to go back to the text from Matthew’s gospel today.  We learn first that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary do not come to the tomb in joy – they do not come with flowers, with celebration clothing, or even with celebration words.  They come in grief.  They come to mourn.  As scholar Rolf Jacobson says, “The two Marys approach the tomb, expecting to see the tomb – the final resting place of Christ, the last sad chapter in his once promising story, the closing scene in the saddest story ever told.”[i]  So right off the bat, the Marys give us permission to come with all our stuff – our grief, our loss, our anger, our sense of helplessness. 

But perhaps even more encouraging from the text today is what the Marys do after the tremendously, shockingly good news.  We are told, “…they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy…”[ii]  I love that the text suggests that these two emotions – fear and joy – while contrasting, are also tremendously compatible.[iii]  The Marys are tremendously joyful.  They have learned that what awaits is not the saddest story ever told, but a story that ends with joy – with alleluias!  Jesus is risen.  The tomb is empty.  Death does not have the final say.  Alleluia, indeed.

And the women go in fear.  Their alleluias do not negate their fear, do not wipe away all that has been.  They have questions, they have lingering grief for what might have been, they do not know what an empty tomb really means for their everyday life.  Scholar Richard Dietrich describes the two Mary’s fear and joy, “They are altogether too full:  they are afraid for joy.  It is the kind of feeling we have when we fall in love, when we witness the birth of a child, when we lean over the rim of the Grand Canyon, joyous and fearful at the same time.  The women are running, afraid for joy…”[iv]

And that to me is the greatest gift of Easter.  We do not leave here with the sugary promise that the empty tomb makes life roses and sunshine.  We do leave here with an assurance that everything in the world that is hurting our heart will be just fine.  We do not leave here with all the answers about what will happen next in our world, even if we know what comes next in Matthew’s gospel.  But what we do leave here with is permission to be full of joy with our fear.  We leave here with a commission to share the Good News of the empty tomb with people cowering in fear elsewhere.  We leave here with a word lingering on our lips that lets us be gloriously afraid for joy.  Alleluia!  Christ is Risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!  Amen.

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[i] Rolf Jacobson, “Commentary on Matthew 28:1-10,” April 24, 2011, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/resurrection-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-281-10-2 on April 1, 2026.

[ii] Matthew 28.8.

[iii] Matt Skinner, “Commentary on Matthew 28:1-10,” April 5, 2026, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/resurrection-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-281-10-14 on April 1, 2026.

[iv] Richard S. Dietrich, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 351.