A PRAYER TO START
The first ten verses of Matthew’s final chapter pack in a cosmos of energy and potential! The necessary sacrifice made, the mourning of the essential tragedy well underway, the shock and surprise of a dead man, now living, proclaiming “Greetings!” to those whom he called friends. A world changed in ten verses! Let us with pray with similar energy and potential alongside Nan Doerr and Virginia Owens…
Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Praise be to God our Father!
Everlasting God, you established the new covenant of reconciliation; grant that we who are reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s body may show forth in our lives what we profess with our faith. Amen.
TAKING A LOOK AHEAD
On any journey, whether a hike in the mountains or a trek to the grocery store, it is important to be aware of your surroundings, to be present. It’s also important to know where you are going! To look up, and take a peek at what is ahead.
And, what is ahead is the end. Well…sort of. It’s an ending that is the beginning. Much like the end-of-the-world death of Jesus that was really just the birthing of a new world (see 27:51-53 & 24:6-8); so too Jesus was raised as “the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Romans 8:29). The ever spreading birth of a new world and a new people who would be immersed in a renewed relationship with our Father.
Read Matthew 28:1-20, As you are reading take notice and note of the following:
Who are the characters in the story? Explicitly named and those assumed.
Where does the story take place? Physically, & how is it connected to what proceeds it?
What repeats? Within the section and from other sections. Words, characters, actions/events, sayings, descriptions, etc.
What surprised you?
What might have surprised the people Matthew was writing to?
What questions does the story raise so far?
CONNECTING THE DOTS
A prominent and powerful Pharisee name Niccodemus—yes, even a Pharisee can end up following Jesus(!)—once asked via comment why Jesus could teach, preach and preform in such miraculous ways as he did. Jesus’ response, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:1-3). A new birth would be required for one to recognize the world she was gifted into by God. A new birth that would allow him to participate in a new world.
Years later, the apostle Paul, who would encounter the risen Jesus on a road to Damascus, and from that experience come to believe that the new birth of resurrection was indeed the core of our faith; that Matthew’s final chapter of this gospel story was indeed the center of our story. In fact, our faith lacks any substance if not for the reality that Jesus both died and rose again.
“Now, let me ask you something profound yet troubling. If you became believers because you trusted the proclamation that Christ is alive, risen from the dead, how can you let people say that there is no such thing as a resurrection? If there’s no resurrection, there’s no living Christ. And face it—if there’s no resurrection for Christ, everything we’ve told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you’ve staked your life on is smoke and mirrors. Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ—sheer fabrications, if there is no resurrection.
If corpses can’t be raised, then Christ wasn’t, because he was indeed dead. And if Christ wasn’t raised, then all you’re doing is wandering about in the dark, as lost as ever. It’s even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection, because they’re already in their graves. If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Chris has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.”
(1 Corinthians 15:12-20, The Message, embolden added)
Everything Matthew has been sharing with us will hinge on this great event in history when a man, dead, greeted his friends! What makes the resurrection of Jesus so important to a life of faith, a faith that is actually alive? You need to answer that question. Seriously. The answer to the question could be the difference in experiencing an existence in which your faith becomes sight or settling for only what you can see.
A THOUGHT TO PONDER
“We live our lives in the practice of what we do not originate and cannot anticipate. When we practice resurrection, we continuously enter into what is more than we are. When we practice resurrection, we keep company with Jesus, alive and present, who knows where we are going better than we do, which is always ‘from glory to glory.’”
(Eugene Peterson)