On Easter Sunday, there are four different choices for telling the Easter story from the gospels. At my church, we heard the story of Jesus' resurrection from Matthew's gospel, where it is clear that the resurrection of Jesus is literally earth-shaking. Of the four different stories which have in common the women disciples and the empty tomb, only in Matthew does an earthquake accompany the unfolding drama: the arrival of the women at the tomb, the appearance of an angel, and the removal of the stone.

In stark contrast to the joyful trumpets resounding at churches everywhere on Easter morning, Matthew writes a lot about fear on that first Easter. Those guarding the tomb are afraid. The women are afraid. The angel and, later, Jesus both reassure them, "Do not be afraid."

"He is risen!" If that is such good news, then why so much fear? Perhaps it is frightening precisely because it is so earth-shaking. "He is risen!" Other kinds of good news are similarly frightening in the way they shake things up: "You've got the job." "You're pregnant." "I do." "I forgive you." "I love you."

Growing up in Northern California, I saw firsthand some of the things earthquakes can do. When the 1989 earthquake hit, I was at the grocery store, where an earthquake makes an enormous mess — toppling shelves and dumping their contents on the floor. In life, earthquakes make a huge mess of our plans and expectations.

That '89 earthquake also changed the landscape through landslides and cracks in the ground. When some highway bridges fell down, traffic had to be redirected and new roads built. Buildings fell down or became unsafe, and some people had to find new shelter. Earthquakes in life can do all those things, too: They rearrange the landscape of our souls, our relationships, our daily lives, or even our bodies — forcing us to find new roads, new landmarks, even new shelter.

So if the resurrection is doing all these things, I can see why the women might have been afraid. It is good news, but what is it going to mean? What claims is it going to make on them? How is it going to change the landscape of their lives?

By including the detail of this earthquake, Matthew tells us that this resurrection is indeed earth-shaking news for everyone. It is not just an amazing thing that happens to Jesus. This event changes the world. Earlier in the gospel Jesus had included "earthquakes" in a list of signs of the end times. The resurrection signals, as the R.E.M. song says, "It's the end of the world as we know it."

It's hard to withstand such momentous changes, just as it's hard to stand during a strong earthquake. It's natural to be afraid. But according to this gospel story, we have two choices.

We could be like the guards, who "shook and became like dead men." Their fear makes them oblivious to what comes next. So for them, what comes next is denial: They will devise a story that Jesus' body was stolen from the tomb, not risen. To them, this earth-shaking event is merely a political snafu. God's cosmic possibility couldn't be further from their minds.

On the other hand, we can be like the women, who were afraid, but hung in there to see what God would do next. When they leave the tomb, it is "with fear and great joy." Their fear is still present, but it does not incapacitate them. There is still room for joy.

So what do the women have or know that the guards do not? Is it because they are told, "Do not be afraid"? (Does that saying ever really work?) Or could it be that their relationship with Jesus carried them over the initial shock into the realm of possibility?

The resurrection we celebrate in this season really does shake things up, though we don't always notice. Sometimes we too are oblivious to the changes God is making in our landscapes. Sometimes we deny that this resurrection 2,000 years ago has anything to do with us, or that anything very earth-shaking happened at all. Sometimes we are afraid, either that it will change everything, or that it will change nothing.

Well, of course we're afraid — fear apparently comes with the territory of resurrection. Faith and life with the risen Christ are risky. Sometimes they call us to find new roads, new landmarks, new shelter. They make a mess of our best-laid plans.

But there is so much potential for great joy! Jesus offers new life, and he offers a relationship with him that can carry us through all our own earthquakes into the realm of God's possibility.

Matthew's gospel uses the word for earthquake — seismos in Greek — four times: at the resurrection, at the crucifixion, as a sign of the end-times, and as a "tempest" back in Chapter 8. There, a seismos arises on the sea while Jesus is in a boat with his disciples. "Save us, Lord, we are perishing!" the disciples cry. Jesus calms the storm and their fears.

For Matthew, these four "earthquakes" underscore the theme of God's abiding presence throughout the gospel. His story of Jesus begins and ends with that reminder: The One born as Immanuel, "God-with-us," appears to the disciples after his resurrection and promises, "I will be with you always, till the end of the age."

All the way in between, God is there when the storm rages and the earth quakes — reforming our landscapes, transforming our hearts, calming our fears, dying with us, and bringing us with Christ into new life.

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Rev. Rebecca Schlatter is an ordained minister in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Reno, Nevada. You can contact her at {email newhousesfromoldbricks@hotmail.com}newhousesfromoldbricks@hotmail.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Rebecca Schlatter.