THE BIBLE – TODAY’S TREASURE HUNT
COMMENT FOR EASTER DAY – 16-04-06
Acts 10:34-43
Some years after the Easter event the apostles are telling the story. Peter has a dream which clarifies what he is thinking. He accepts an invitation and visits the Roman occupation forces commander in Palestine. As he tells the Jesus story the joy and the wonder of the Easter event is understood and accepted by these sophisticated Romans. So the Jesus experience jumps the barriers of race and culture.
Psalm 118: 1-2; 14-24
This Psalm is a liturgy of thanksgiving. It was Luther’s favourite. He said of it “this is my Psalm which I love”. We can imagine it being said or sung at the feast of the dedication of the Temple. It is especially apt for today as we remember Jesus saying that his resurrected body would become the new temple of the emerging faith.
1 Corinthians 15: 1-11
As the Jesus story was told various aspects of it would fire the imagination of different people. So Paul gives this compelling summary of the story. For him the Easter faith is the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures. He is still grasped by the wonder of the grace of God that transformed his own life.
Mark 16: 1-8
In the early dawn when the world had exhausted itself in officially organized of brutality, the miracle happened. John (6:63) remembered the words of Jesus – “it is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless”. So those who came trying to serve some kind of purpose in the place of death on that Easter morning found that the hate which kills had been overcome by the power of love which brings life.
This is a Good Friday question:
At this time we see the death of this Jesus when rejected by the political and religious leadership of his day in a clearer focus. His kingdom of the love of God was too much of a risk in the real world. How much of that kingdom of the love of God can we risk today?
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