[These "passes" are designed to help the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, where I serve as pastor, to prepare for worship. Because we use Scripture lessons appointed in the Revised Common Lectionary for the Church Year, I hope that others find the passes helpful as well.]The Gospel Lesson: Matthew 28:1-10
The lectionary gives us a choice between Matthew's or John's account of the first Easter, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead. I'm choosing Matthew's account.
Verse-by-Verse Comments: 1After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
(1) The Jewish Sabbath ran and runs from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. Just as Sunday was dawning, we're told that two of Jesus' followers go to Jesus' tomb.
(2) Of course, even lackadaisical readers notice that the details given by Matthew differ from what we find in the other three Gospels. Some might be disturbed by the differences and deem them reason for dismissing Jesus' resurrection. One woman or a group of women or just two? Did they go to anoint Jesus' body or, as Matthew says, simply "to see the tomb."
Frankly, I take the differences in the accounts to be an indication that the assertion that Jesus rose from the dead is absolutely true. It means that there was no "conspiracy" hatched to ensure that everybody told the story in exactly the same way. Instead, as some commentators suggest, we may have the echoes of the kinds of claims all witnesses of events, great and small, engage in: "I saw Him first...," "She saw Him first...," "It was like this..."
The bottom line is that Jesus' first followers staked their lives and good standing on a proclamation that nobody--including them--was inclined to believe: that Jesus, once dead, rose from death.
2And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.
(1) Matthew is the Gospel writer always anxious to show that the events surrounding God's intervention in human history has cosmic manifestations. It's Matthew who tells us, for example, that when Jesus was born, a star announced the event and led wise men from the East to the house in which the infant Savior was by then living in Bethlehem.
In last Sunday's Gospel lesson, Matthew's account of Palm Sunday, we're told that Jesus' entry into Jerusalem brought "turmoil" (Matthew 21:10). The word rendered as turmoil in that text is the word for earthquake, appearing at the crucifixion (Matthew 27:51) and here (Matthew 28:2). (My mentor and professor, Pastor Bruce Schein, spoke of "cosmic convulsions" relative to Matthew's account of what happened at the moment of Jesus' death on the cross.) Jesus is more than a milquetoast in a bath robe and His life, death, and resurrection are defining moments in the history of the universe, marked by tremors.
3His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.
(1) The word angel, of course, means messenger. This visage of this messenger from heaven, like Jesus at the mount of Transfiguration, reflects the glory of God.
4For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.
(1) The guards were plenty afraid. But the angel assures the women that they needn't be. Angels often greet people in this way, a sure indication that something about them would make even the most stouthearted a bit fearful.
6He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.”
(1) "Come...then go..." Every week, we Christians invite others to experience the risen Jesus by worshiping with us. Then, Christ commissions us all to go into the world to tell others how Jesus changes those who believe in Him from God's enemies into God's friends.
(2) Jesus, the angel says, "is going ahead of you to Galilee." Dead men don't run. But Jesus, the risen Lord, is running ahead of the disciples. He's doing that still. Our call is to follow.
8So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
(1) Their emotions weren't easy to define. They felt both "fear and great joy." But they weren't paralyzed by their emotions. They obeyed the message brought by the angel from heaven.
9Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.
(1) The angel's message seemed to indicate that Jesus wouldn't be seen by His followers until they'd gone to Galilee. Maybe the point here is that the old saying "seeing is believing" is all rot. The real truth is that "believing is seeing." The women trusted that this impossible news was true and so, they met the risen Jesus.
(2) The phrase "took hold of his feet" is fraught with meaning. The risen Jesus wasn't some milky, ethereal "soul." He was risen flesh and bone, just as we who die trusting in the Savior, will one day rise again bodily.
(3) They "worshiped him," an acknowledgement that Jesus was not just a man. He was (and is) God. Jesus would be guilty of the blasphemy with which He had been charged by the religious leaders if He accepted worship and wasn't really God.
10Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
(1) What might have caused the women to be afraid at this point? I'm not sure. Maybe Jesus' words were meant to be part of His message to the "brothers," that "bold" crew who had abandoned Him as He underwent His trial and crucifixion. Only the women had stayed near Him for long. (In defense of the men, it may be that it was riskier for them to stay close to Jesus. In that deeply sexist culture, women weren't regarded as a threat in the same way in which men were.)
(2) There's forgiveness in Jesus' message. He calls those who had abandoned and denied Him His "brothers." Jesus builds His Church on people like these...people like me and you, imperfect, sinful, flawed, unstable.
(3) One general point: Had the early Church made up the story of Jesus' resurrection and wanted it to be accepted in that culture, they certainly would not have admitted that women were the first ones to be told about it, or be the first ones to carry it to others. Jewish law specifically excluded the testimony of women, regarding females as completely unreliable witnesses. Not so, Jesus!
The very fact that the Church proudly trumpeted the testimony of those their culture would have summarily dismissed is an indication that Jesus' resurrection is no myth, but a fact.
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