Easter Monday
Today is Monday of Easter Week, and just below (scroll down) is today's gospel reading from our Lectionary. I'm no lawyer or judge, but if the story were told in court, the opposition lawyer surely would rise, "Objection: hearsay," and the judge would rule, "Sustained."
Or at least that's what would happen in a television series courtroom drama.
Matthew's post-resurrection story originates at Mark 14:28 where Jesus says, "... after I'm raised I'll go ahead of you to Galilee," followed by Mark 16:7 where, inside the empty tomb, the young man dressed in white (presumably an angel, although Secret Mark offers other possibilities) tells the women, "... he is going ahead of you to Galilee."
Matthew's story about fears that Jesus' disciples would come steal Jesus' body (which also is told in the non-canonical Gospel of Peter https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/gospelpeter-brown.html ) is told by the gospel evangelist retrospectively, retroactively, to counter circulating stories that the disciples stole Jesus' body and whisked it away secretly so they could pretend that he had been raised from the dead. If we are going to stake our lives on the historicity of biblical post-resurrection stories, I may cut off at Mark 16:8 where the women flee because they are terrified, and Paul's testimony at 1 Corinthians 15:8 (Luke's story at Acts 9, of Paul seeing Jesus on the road to Damascus, is Luke's story about Paul, not Paul's testimony about himself) about Jesus appearing to him last.
How does Jesus appear? Seems at first spiritually in visions, then later as the stories develop he appears bodily and proves it by showing witnesses his scars and eating a piece of broiled fish. What's the truth? Maybe it's all in the mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
Today's gospel: Matthew 28:9-15
Jesus met Mary Magdalene and the other Mary and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."
While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, "You must say, `His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.' If this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.
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The Resurrection of Christ
Testimony of Paul (1 Corinthians 15)
1 Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2 through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.
3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
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The Resurrection of Jesus
Gospel according to Mark (16)
Mark 16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
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Very early yesterday I was writing to include this in my blogpost, but Time ran out on me and I dropped it. I'd found myself really taken with Fr Rohr's meditation for Easter Day. It's spiritual writing, seems eminently impractical and doubtful except that it offers hope to one is looking round desperately hoping there is something more to life and creation than what we experience - - that is to say, what we experience and "know for sure" while we are here, which is dead children in Uvalde, Sandy Hook, Parkland, ... 7 October, Gaza, ... . EITHER we are animals sufficiently advanced to be aware of death and afraid of dying that we devise religion with Easter to allay our fears, OR Christ IS risen, Alethos anesti, Truly risen. I appreciate the way Fr Richard expresses his faith as hope not certainty, even as I personally stand here with Doubting Thomas on the evening of Easter Day.
RSF&PTL
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Resurrection Is Assured
Richard Rohr explains how the resurrection offers us hope, especially in challenging times:
I often wonder why so much of human life seems so futile, so tragic, so short, and so sad. If Christ is risen, why do people die before they begin to truly live? Why has there been nonstop war? Why are so many people imprisoned unjustly? Why are the poor oppressed? Why do we destroy so many of our relationships? If Christ is risen, why is there so much suffering? What is God up to? It really doesn’t make any logical sense. Is the resurrection something that just happened once, in his body, but not in ours?
I believe the resurrection of Christ is saying that the final judgment has already happened. It’s nothing we need to fear. It’s nothing we need to avoid or deny. God’s final judgment is that God will have the last word! Easter reveals that there are no dead ends; ultimately, nothing is going to end in tragedy and crucifixion. Of course we look around us, at history and at life in its daily moments and it seems, “No, no, that isn’t true.” And yet, ever and again, here and there, more than we suspect, new life breaks through for those who are willing to see and to cooperate with this universal mystery of resurrection.
We’re so lucky in my part of the world that Easter coincides with springtime. If this applies to you, I hope you’re going out and seeing the leaves and the flowers being reborn after months of winter. I went out early this morning to see the Easter sunrise. Sure enough, the sun rose as it always does and peeked over the horizon, just between two mountains. It appeared not so much like a sunrise but as a groundswell. The light was coming from the earth. It was coming from the world we live in. It was coming not from the top, but from the bottom. It seemed to say that even all of this which looks muddy and material, even all of this which looks so ordinary and dying, will be reborn.
Easter is the feast of hope. This is the feast that says God will have the last word and that God’s final judgment is resurrection. God will turn all that we maim and destroy and hurt and punish into life and beauty.
What the resurrection reveals more than anything else is that love is stronger than death. Jesus walks the way of death with love, and what it becomes is not death but life. Surprise of surprises! It doesn’t fit any logical explanation. Yet this is the mystery: that nothing dies forever, and that all that has died will be reborn in love.
So to be a Christian is to be inevitably and forever a person of hope. God in Christ is saying this is what will last: my life and my love will always and forever have the final word. +