Jeremiah 31:1-6; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Colossians
3:1-4; Matthew
28:1-10.
Things become new, victories
celebrated, living set in a heavenly light – God’s work of resurrection.
Jeremiah 31:1-6.
This prophetic passage speaks of a new age of
reconciliation and prosperity for “the families of Israel,” who have known conflict and suffering for ages. God speaks the ancient promise: I will be your God and you will be my people. All begins from that!
The middle part of the oracle is about refugees
returning from exile who find “grace in the wilderness.” From a distance, they sight the goal of their
journey, the holy city. God speaks to
the city: “Again I shall build you and
you shall be built, O virgin of Israel.” The
personified city will go forth with “tambourines,” as the women always did in
victory dances welcoming home the successful warriors (see I Samuel 18:6).
And the vision extends into the future: “you shall plant vineyards on the mountains
of Samaria ... and shall enjoy the fruit” (verse 5).
Three big things here! (1) Vineyards take time to become productive; they represent a long-term investment of labor – and hope! (2) These vineyards will be on the hills of Samaria, the heart of the old Israelite northern kingdom. That can only happen if the Israelite tribes are re-united and working together in peace and harmony! (3) Those who plant the vineyards will enjoy the fruit! Peace will prevail for long periods so those who invest the labor will be around to share in the harvests!
Three big things here! (1) Vineyards take time to become productive; they represent a long-term investment of labor – and hope! (2) These vineyards will be on the hills of Samaria, the heart of the old Israelite northern kingdom. That can only happen if the Israelite tribes are re-united and working together in peace and harmony! (3) Those who plant the vineyards will enjoy the fruit! Peace will prevail for long periods so those who invest the labor will be around to share in the harvests!
And, lest we forget:
All this is promised for the holy city.
“Sentinels will call in the hill country of Ephraim [the old north],
‘Come, let us go up to Zion,
to the Lord our God” (verse 6, NRSV).
The prophetic word heard at Easter is about a great
age coming of peace and welfare for God’s people!
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24.
The Psalm reading returns to the great liturgy heard
on Palm Sunday. Only now we hear not
only the triumphal entry that climaxes that liturgy, but we hear also of the
great struggle that preceded it.
In the royal rituals of ancient Jerusalem, the king fought a ceremonial battle against the
nations. (The battle is reported in the
verses omitted from our reading, verses 10-13.)
The symbolic battle was fought somewhere away from the temple, probably
at some ominous place on the Mount
of Olives or in the Kidron Valley. The king himself describes the
violent struggle.
All nations surrounded me;
in the
name of the Lord I cut them off!
They surrounded me,
surrounded
me on every side;
in the
name of the Lord I cut them off!
They surrounded me like bees;
they
blazed like a fire of thorns;
in the
name of the Lord I cut them off!
I was pushed hard, so that I was falling,
but the
Lord helped me. (Verses 10-13.)
The chorus breaks in, speaking of the king as “the
right hand of the Lord.”
The right hand of the Lord does valiantly;
the right
hand of the Lord is exalted;
the right
hand of the Lord does valiantly. (Verses
15-16.)
The king himself declares that he is not
overcome!
I shall not die, but I shall live,
and
recount the deeds of the Lord.
The Lord has punished me severely,
but [the
Lord] did not give me over to death. (Verses
17-18.)
After violent effort, the king has been victorious,
and that is the occasion of the triumphal entry into the city gates performed
in the rest of the psalm.
The ancient rituals and liturgies of the sacred king
in Zion became revelation and reality for the followers of
Jesus the Messiah.
The word of victory for the ancient Davidic kings
has become flesh for the Jesus followers who have been swept up by the
resurrection of their Lord. That
resurrection was the enactment in their world of the ancient triumph of God’s
Anointed One on behalf of those who belong to God’s reign.
The victory of the resurrection makes possible a
new entry into the realm of God’s
righteousness. The Easter throng can
shout with exuberance,
This is the day that the Lord has made
let us
rejoice and be glad in it.
Colossians 3:1-4.
Easter should not, perhaps, be only exaltation and
celebrating. Perhaps some exhortation to
live a higher life is also fitting. The Epistle reading suggests that.
The persons caught up in Jesus’ resurrection as the
beginning of their own new lives are told:
“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on
earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (verses
2-3, NRSV). To be joined with the resurrected
one is to have died to the self-centered ties to earth.
The great paradox of the Lord who died in order to
bring new life is that one can now live fully in the world because one has died
to the world! Being “in the Lord” will
lead one to the kind of acts of love by which he fulfilled God’s will.
Matthew 28:1-10.
The Gospel reading on Easter is always the women
coming to the empty tomb.
In Matthew’s version, the women involved are those
faithful persons who stood at a distance to watch the death on the cross
(27:55-56). Some of them also followed
the body to the tomb when it was sealed (27:61). “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” wait out
the sabbath before returning to the tomb.
They go back to the tomb two days after the crucifixion, which in
Biblical idioms of time-reckoning is “on the third day.” (In counting Biblical days, today is always
the “first” day.) When they get to the
tomb, something special is waiting for them.
All the Gospels have an angel (or two) appear to the
women at the tomb, but only Matthew visualizes for us the splendid arrival of
this heavenly messenger:
And 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. His appearance was like
lightning, and his clothing white as snow.
For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. (Verses 2-4, NRSV.)
Only Matthew tells us this. He is demonstrating that something very
extraordinary is happening here. What we
have here is the work of God! The
heavenly forces are active.
The word “angel” means “messenger” (in both Hebrew
and Greek). So the business of the angel
is to tell the women what happened. “You are looking for Jesus who was
crucified…he has been raised…Come, see the place where he lay” (verses
5-6). It is certainly one of the
functions of the women that they must see the place where the dead Jesus was
put. The narrative has made clear that these
are the same women who saw him put into the tomb and the stone rolled in front
of it (27:59-61).
But the climax of the messenger’s mission is to direct
the women to the future. “Go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has
been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you [disciples] to Galilee; there you will see him’ ” (verse 7).
The women get the message, though with a mixture of “fear and great
joy,” and they start out quickly to carry the word.
“Suddenly” the women’s excited flight is interrupted
(verses 9-10). Jesus himself looms up before them and says, “Greetings!” (How did the Gospel reciter express
this? What kind of intonation and volume
might she or he have used for this one-word confrontation? One can imagine several
options.) The women apparently say
nothing. They only fall down before
Jesus, take hold of his feet, and they “worshiped him,” which means they
prostrated themselves before him.
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"Mary Magdalene in the garden with Jesus." Mosaic in the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.
Rowan and Irene LeCompt. Picture courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity School Library.
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What Jesus now says adds nothing to what the
messenger had already told them. Do not
fear; go tell the disciples to go to Galilee.
The unqualified purpose of this little interruption
scene is to show the women worshiping the risen Jesus. Unlike John’s version of this scene, the
risen Jesus is not too fragile to be touched (see John 20:17 ). His feet
can be grasped in the adoration of his closest followers, perhaps especially by
these perceptive and faithful women.
The women at the tomb is only a beginning. They
receive instructions to help get some new things started. For a moment they have had the ecstasy of
direct worship of their Lord, now in his glory, but then they are sent on their
way.
The Easter message is intended to do that.
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