I was looking at Matthew 28 and was struck by the three different responses to the resurrection. There are the women who first see the empty tomb, the soldiers and religious leaders who guarded and subsequently lied about the empty tomb and then the disciples of Jesus who see him face to face on the mountain. There are lots of different bits of scripture you can do a bit of a compare and contrast of the responses to an event or person, but there were a couple of things I particularly noticed here.

The response of the women. According to Matthew, there was a massive earthquake followed by an angel who rolled the stone away from the tomb and then sat on it. As the women come to the tomb, the angel tells them Jesus isn’t there and to go and tell the disciples that he has risen. The women don’t hesitate. They are frightened, but filled with joy and rush off to tell the disciples. Jesus greets them on the way, at which point they worship him and then, following his instruction, continue on to tell the disciples.

Matthew then presents the response of the religious leaders and the soldiers guarding the tomb. The religious leaders bribe the soldiers and tell them to put the story around that the body was nicked. They take the money and pass around a lie.

Perhaps the most interesting response is that of the disciples. The remaining eleven (Judas has killed himself at this point) head up to the mountain Jesus told them to go to. They see him, worship him, but – and this is the most surprising part – some of them doubt. They are witnessing the risen Lord Jesus, speaking with him and able to touch him, yet some of them doubt it is really him. It is an interesting little detail.

The thing that struck me reading the passage is how status seems to play a particular role in the responses. The ones who most readily believe, the women who first went to the tomb, are the ones with the least to lose. In a society in which the status of women was incredibly lowly and whose testimony was likely to carry no water, they are the ones who simply believe at first sight. The angel is there, he tells them the score, they believe him and subsequently see Jesus whom they worship and believe in too. But the women have very little to lose affirming that Jesus is risen from the dead. They have no status as it is and so their station and life chances are unlikely to be significantly affected by affirming what they see.

The ones who actively refuse to accept the reality of the situation are the religious leaders with the most to lose. If Jesus has risen from the dead, their entire position as Israel’s religious leaders is under threat. They stand to lose their position, their authority, their status and, worse, all of Jesus’ condemnation of Israel’s leaders will be seen to be true. They have a strong and vested interest in not affirming reality and, despite knowing it, actively seek to cover the matter over.

The disciples are an interesting in between. In one sense, if Jesus has risen, they have been vindicated. But the shame of the cross and the dejection of the last few days make it seem impossible that what they are seeing is really true. Some no doubt lean in the direction of belief and vindication, others in the too-good-to-believe-their-eyes camp. Clearly, in the end, they accept reality. All of them worship Jesus and all go on to affirm that Christ is indeed risen. But it is amazing that even seeing Jesus up close and in the flesh, some of them still doubt it is really true.

These responses are, interestingly, very much in line with one of Matthew’s repeated themes in his gospel. The first shall be last, camels through eyes of needles, let the children come to me, and other such comments all point in the direction that those with much will find it hardest to come into the kingdom. These responses seem to push in a similar direction. The women, with nothing to lose, have no problem believing. The religious leaders, with everything to lose, cannot countenance belief. The disciples, for whom believing could be both good and bad for them in different ways, are minimally reticent among some of their number. Those with a lot to lose have trouble believing whilst those with nothing to lose are quite ready to put their faith entirely in Jesus.

For us today, two things seem worth thinking about. First, on a personal level, it is worth considering how our status, possessions and money impact our ability to believe in Jesus and stand faithfully for him. The dominant culture of the UK church so often seems to assume that money, status, privilege and power are obvious things to go after. Whether that is always seeking promotions at work, moving for bigger and better jobs, getting position in civic and public life and all manner of similar things. But there rarely seems to be much reflection on the impact of these things on belief in Christ and faithfulness to him. The more status we have, the more pressure on us to deny him. The more money and influence we have, the more we have to lose when these things hang in the balance concerning of belief in Jesus. If it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, and if the religious leaders of Jesus day were the most vociferously against Jesus’ message, whilst such things are not inevitably wrong, we are foolish if we think they will not provide similarly strong reasons for us not to believe.

Second, on a wider church/mission level, it is worth thinking about these things strategically. Matthew seems keen to point out that it is the poor and disenfranchised who are most ready to believe. Jesus has a particular heart for the poor. Yet our mission strategies, church planting and flocking together has been consistently to wealthy, affluent and aspirant areas. We then bemoan the ‘day of small things’ and wonder why the UK seems so hard to reach. Might it be less that our country is especially hard and more that the particular people we congregate around and live amongst happen to be those most disposed to disbelief? We seem ready to ignore the disproportionate numbers of people flocking to the Lord in deprived areas – both from indigenous British backgrounds as well as those from majority world nations who find themselves living in poorer parts of the UK – in favour of planting ever more churches amongst those who, whilst most alike to the majority of UK Christians in terms of class and culture, have the most to lose and are most prone to disbelief. In short, might Matthew have something to say about our mission strategy and where we ought to be sending most of our resources and planting our churches?