NOTES for Mat 28:1-20
The main feature of the Resurrection was its unexpectedness, and that absolutely for everyone, both for the friends and for the enemies of the Risen One. The women went to the tomb in order to complete the unfinished burial rite; the encounter with the risen Jesus was a complete surprise for them. And the apostles, even after hearing about the Resurrection, did not believe it: as we can see, they decided that the women had simply imagined something in the darkness.
A natural question arises: why? With the enemies of the Risen One everything is clear: for them His Resurrection was the most nightmarish possible end to this story. But when reading the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection, at times one begins to think that, paradoxical as it may sound, even to Jesus' disciples His Resurrection appeared strange and even unnecessary. They refuse to believe; it seems to them that all the stories about the Resurrection only trouble people. Of course, they really did not expect anything of the kind. But there may have been something else: Jesus' disciples still could not free themselves from their traditional and very human ideas about the Messiah and messiahship.
After the terrible night of Gethsemane, they understood only one thing: everything was lost; He was not the one they had taken Him to be; there would be no messianic war; the dream had to be abandoned. And at the same time there remained the sacred memory of the Teacher, whom they could no longer forget, with whom, despite failure, too much was connected to renounce the memory of Him. This, too, is a fully formed way of seeing the world, even if a tragic one, which a person can carry through a whole life and with which he can live that life. And suddenly it turns out that not everything is over, that the nightmare and horror of the paschal days already lived through were not enough, that the story has not yet ended; people say He has again been seen alive! What else now? What this time? What other hopes will He give and then destroy? Or is it not Him at all? Maybe the women simply went mad with grief? The last thing needed was for the Teacher's memory to be darkened by mad women crying out.
It is no wonder that after His Resurrection Jesus has to convince His disciples again and again that He is Himself, that He is truly alive, that the most terrible thing is really already behind them, and ahead lies a whole life with Him in His Kingdom. And that only there, in the Kingdom that has "drawn near," will history be completed. And life will begin. Life in all its fullness.