After the Sabbath, before morning grew,

Two women came where the sealed stone still stood.

Then earth shook hard as an angel came down,

Rolled back the stone and sat over the ground.

Lightning in visage and white in his dress,

Guards fell like dead men beneath sudden dread.

But fear was forbidden to those at the grave:

The crucified Jesus was risen, not laid.

He is risen. Look where he lay.

Death has an empty place at break of day.

Go tell the brethren; Galilee lies ahead.

The tomb has been opened, and Jesus is not dead.

Fear and great joy ran together that morn,

The women left quickly to carry the word.

Then Jesus met them alive on the way,

They held to his feet and bowed where he stood.

Again came the message: go tell them to leave,

The brothers will see him in Galilee.

They worshiped the One they had mourned as the dead,

Then carried the message exactly as said.

Eleven climbed up to the mountain assigned,

Some worshiped at once, some wrestled with doubt.

Then Jesus came near and authority framed

A mission no border or nation could cage.

Make disciples everywhere peoples are found,

Baptize and teach what he handed them down.

And though he would leave their immediate sight,

His presence was promised through all of their days.

He is risen. The stone could not hold.

Death has an empty place where a body lay cold.

Go to the nations; the command has been given.

The Gospel of Matthew ends facing the world.

The women ran from the grave.

The disciples went toward the nations.