Seeing and believing
Commentary
We live in a very visual world! Year after year, season after season, movies are made that draw people to the box office by the millions to spend millions. Almost every small town in America has a video outlet. In many homes the television is on from morning until night. Magazines are becoming more picture-oriented in their layouts. It's not so much any longer that "enquiring minds want to know," as "enquiring minds want to see."
The first disciples were privileged to see the risen Jesus and they believed in him. Today, we are privileged to see the risen Jesus also in words that paint a picture of death unbound. The words do not express a concept, like abstract art does on canvass. They portray an historical event in vivid detail, like Flemish realism in precise brush strokes. Faith is evoked when the believer sees the crucified Jesus alive, calling by name those whom he loves.
Amid so many contemporary, competing images that distract our attention for any length of time, the vision of the risen Christ must be lifted up boldly, repeatedly, faithfully for a world in crisis to view and believe and follow. Let us enter into the picture of God's mightiest work and experience the life-empowering love that overcomes our greatest adversary, death itself.
Acts 10:34-43
Peter, being a pious Jew, had some particular notions about what was clean and unclean, kosher and forbidden. This applied not only to food, but also to human relationships. Peter himself admitted that he had some prejudices about any goyim (Acts 10:28). In a housetop vision, God showed Peter the short-sightedness of this perspective. Whereas God's vision for Cornelius pertained to the geography of where to find Peter, God's vision for Peter had to deal with the landscape of his mind, altering the terrain to give Peter a more godly horizon.
Cornelius acted upon his vision, sending men to fetch Peter; Peter understood his vision, responding positively to the request of the men to visit Cornelius. At the invitation of Cornelius, Peter shared his faith in Jesus, who is Lord of all (10:36). He started his message with the insight he gained from his God-given vision. Then, he launched into a brief synopsis of the life of Jesus, starting with his baptism, which initiated him into his public ministry. That ministry was simply characterized as "doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil" (10:38). This description in not based on hearsay evidence. Peter was a first-hand witness. Not only this, but there is much more to the story. This one who had been anointed by God "with the Holy Spirit and with power" (10:38) was summarily executed as a common criminal. But, God raised him from the dead and made him visible to the community of faith.
This was not a ghostly apparition that appeared on the third day. The risen Jesus ate and drank with his disciples after that Sunday morning. The experience was tangible, so as to make extremely clear the reality of the mission to which the disciples were being called. They were to preach and to testify about Jesus being "the one ordained by God to be judge of the living and the dead" (10:42). The prophets themselves give witness to this. The forgiveness of sins achieved by Jesus' atoning death was foreshadowed by Jeremiah himself, when he speaks about the coming days when a new covenant will be established with Israel, defined by the forgiveness of sins. Jeremiah 31:31f is an example of Acts 19:43.
This pericope may be another case of slicing the text too thin. Verses 44 through 48 could very easily be added to Peter's sermon synopsis. The reason is simple. The fruit of Peter's sermon is unfolded in these verses. Preaching the Word creates fertile field upon which the Holy Spirit can fall. Fall indeed! Cornelius the God-fearer became Cornelius the Jesus-believer, who was then baptized into the new family of God. "They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," says the Lord (Jeremiah 31:34).
Jesus demonstrates his Lordship over all by seizing the open hearts of Cornelius and his household and leading them to baptism in his name. His name stands at the center of Peter's impromptu sermon and it stands at the heart of the Christian message. What Christ came to proclaim was not a system of philosophy, nor was it a blueprint for moral choices. Rather, it was himself he came to extol. The gospel is not about our living the good life, being a blessing for all. It is about the life Jesus led for us and gave up for us. His death on the cross satisfies God's wrath against sin and sets the believer free. If Jesus can do this for me, he can do it for everyone. He can do it for everyone because he is Lord of all, restoring access to God the Father for the whole of creation.
Followers of Jesus are given the commission to witness to these things, to preach about what Jesus has done. This will till the soil of the soul, so that faith can be planted and grow in the believer's heart. Faith leads to baptism and baptism to a life of witness. The Holy Spirit will follow, harvesting more and more people into the kingdom.
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
There are certain stand-out chapters in the Bible. For example, Genesis 3 is the "Fall Chapter"; Psalm 23 is the "Shepherd Chapter"; Luke 15, with its parables of a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son, is the "Lost Chapter" in the Bible; John 6 is the "Bread Chapter." Among these, 1 Corinthians 15 stands out as the "Resurrection Chapter." In these 58 verses, Paul explicates what the Gospels narrate (in Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20).
In the initial verses, Paul verifies the resurrection as an historical reality, attested to by Peter and the other apostles, 500 faithful at one time, then James and the apostles again, and finally to Paul himself. The reader can check this out personally, if so desired, because many of the eye-witnesses are still alive and can be interviewed.
Then, Paul does some fancy footwork in describing how necessary the resurrection is to the Christian message; without the resurrection, the Christian faith is empty. It has nothing better to offer than any other religion. In fact, it is possibly worse than the others, because it is misrepresenting God, arguing for a resurrection, if in fact there is no resurrection.
In the specific verses from this chapter that will be read on Easter Sunday (15:19-26), Paul interprets the meaning of the resurrection. Jesus is Lord over life and death and every rule, authority and power (15:24). Using the image of "first fruits," he describes the delectable benefit of Christ having been raised from the dead: the resurrection of the dead for all. There is a universal scope in what God has effected through Christ. "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive" (15:22). The purpose of this is expressed in 15:28, "that God may be everything to every one." The Lord of life and the Lord over death will deliver the kingdom to God the Father, subjugating all -- even himself (as he did in the Garden before the Crucifixion) -- to the will of God.
In many circumstances of dying, it is often said by the bereaved, "It was a blessing to die." Not wanting a loved one to suffer, death is even prayed for as a friend, coming to pick up another for a journey. While from a human point of view we may be able to understand this and appreciate the psychological comfort of this perspective, Paul approaches death from a theological point of view, in which there is no room to coddle "the last enemy" (escatov ecqrov). This is consistent with the Old Testament understanding of death as that which will cut one off from God. At a time when hope for resurrection life was not part of the theological landscape, the psalmist pleads with God not to let him die, "For in death there is no remembrance of thee; in Sheol who can give thee praise?" (Psalm 6:5).
Paul writes in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death." Death is the judgment of the Creator against the rebellion of the creature. Death is a consequence of sin and, as such, can only be considered inimical to human well-being. For humanity to experience true wholeness, death must be overcome. The resurrection of Jesus Christ opens up the possibility that death no longer has the last word. In this sense, death is no longer the ultimate experience on the human timetable. It becomes penultimate now that Christ has been raised from the dead. Faith in the work of Christ creates hope in the heart of the believer, who can now imagine life beyond the grave and can even embrace death, enemy though it wants to be, yet which releases one into eternal life. The martyrdom of Polycarp is a vivid portrayal of this. "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied" (15:19).
John 20:1-18 or Luke 24:1-12
Mary Magdalene, among all the women mentioned in the New Testament, has a position among them that is only surpassed by Mary, the mother of our Lord. Mary of Magdala is listed first in the synoptic accounts of Jesus' female followers (Matthew 27:55-56, 61, 28:1; Mark 15:40-41, 47, 16:1; Luke 8:2-3, 24:10). Luke describes her as having been healed of demon possession (seven demons, no less!). Perhaps this explains her devotion of being at the tomb on Sunday morning. Although Luke says she was in the company of other women to anoint the body of Jesus, John simply states that she was there -- with no one else and with no particular purpose in mind.
According to John, Mary, converted from demon possession to being seized by the spirit of Jesus, is the first witness of the resurrection, both of the rolled-away stone and of the risen Jesus himself! At first, she thought that it was a case of someone stealing the body. This is how she reported her experience to Peter. After Peter and John checked the tomb out and found it empty, they went home. (Typical of men, they did not even notice or comment on the neat arrangement of the burial cloths. Perhaps they assumed Mary had tidied things up when she was first there.) Mary, however, hung around the tomb, weeping, sensitive to her grief. Even after seeing the angels, she could only say something about the body having been taken away. Even after speaking with Jesus (whom she did not recognize at first), she could only ask about the dead body.
It is when Jesus addressed her by name -- Mary! -- that she recognized him and apparently reached to hug him. She had seen the stone rolled away; she had seen the empty tomb and even the angels; she had seen the risen Jesus. Yet, seeing was not yet believing. Only after Jesus spoke to her and called her by name did she truly see her risen Lord. The word from Jesus opened her eyes to perceive the fulness of the reality into which she was being drawn -- the new age of anno domini, when time itself is measured according to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
Luke's account does not have the singular encounter between Mary and the Lord. Rather, the group of women, among them Mary Magdalene, who came to the tomb early on Sunday to anoint the body according to custom, encountered two men in dazzling apparel (angels?), who speak to them about Jesus' own passion prediction. In this situation, it is the word again that accompanies the sight of the empty tomb, which evokes a response of faith that Jesus has indeed risen from the dead -- even though they did not see him. How interesting that the disciples upon hearing their report considered it "an idle tale." They did not believe, perhaps in part because they did not see. Jesus would address this situation that millions throughout the centuries to follow would have to deal with, when he said to Thomas after his resurrection, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe" (John 20:29).
It is interesting to note that a very few early papyri and some much later manuscripts include in Luke's account a sentence about Peter, seeing the empty tomb and wondering at what had happened (qaumazwn to gegonov; used frequently in Luke, the sense of astonishment was a frequent response in those who saw and heard Jesus; e.g., see Luke 2:18, 4:22, 8:25, 9:43). It would be premature to equate this with mature faith, however. As Luke will go on to illustrate, faith in the resurrection develops only after Jesus' words and actions accompany his appearance to his disciples after Sunday morning.
Application
When we open our mouths, what comes out? A Michigan canoeist let loose with some loud profanity one day on a lazy Michigan river, where others were enjoying the summer with family. He was brought into court and fined for what he thought was his "freedom of speech." We live in a brassy culture, where it is fashionable to be vulgar and "in your face." Tabloids thrive on falsehoods that get headlines and attention, selling copy. A new series opened on television last fall with a vulgar word written more than five times into the one-hour script.
Peter opened his mouth. What came out? The gospel! At first glance, it may seem like Peter is espousing a kind of "good works" theology. Anyone who fears the Lord and does what is right is acceptable. This could be perceived to be an appeal to the conscience inscribed in every person and the natural law that is part of our human creatureliness. But, when taken as a whole, these words of Peter draw us into a deeper understanding of "fear" and "right." The Old Testament sense of "the fear of the Lord" carried with it the dynamics of awe before the majesty of God, obedience before the holiness of God, thankfulness before the goodness of God, and worship before the glory of God. There certainly are times when, in our sinfulness, we cower in fearfulness before the wrath of God; but the "fear of the Lord" in its fullest and best fills an individual with awe, obedience, thankfulness, and worship.
The New Testament deepens the understanding of what is right. Peter, in his oration to Cornelius, makes the connection between what is right and believing in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. It is the function of a judge to determine what is right. Jesus, as judge of the living and the dead, will determine what is right and who can stand with integrity before his bar. "Every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name" (Acts 10:43). Guilt is covered by faith in Jesus, who offers forgiveness through his death and resurrection. His death, as the atoning sacrifice, provides the means of forgiveness. His resurrection gives him the authority and power to dispense the judgment/justice of the new covenant. Later, Paul will write of the "righteousness through faith" (Romans 9:30; see also Romans 4:3 and Galatians 3:6) and John will write about "the work of God" (John 6:29) -- both expressions defining in a similar way what is right in the sight of God.
There is an angry despondency prevalent in so many subcultures today. One can hear it in the lyrics of rap, in the lines of plays and musicals, even in the zealous political action of special interest groups that are desperate to weave at least their partial patterns into the fabric of our social order. The flip remark, "Whatever!" gets many through situations that are at the same time empty, confusing, and threatening. It is like the white cap on the boil of our society, ready to burst if provoked in the wrong way and the wrong time. Peggy Lee's brooding question, "Is that all there is?" haunts so many experiences today.
Today, Christians stand at the opening of the empty tomb to announce loudly and clearly, proudly and boldly, that there is so much more to life. The resurrection affirms the goodness of life now (consider Lazarus!), and the best of life yet to come. God will have his way, even though every now and then the devil may seem to seize a day. Christian hope will see beyond the trials and tribulations of any day to that eternal day when Christ will rule over all and believers will be made alive in a manner the likes of which we can only begin to perceive with the imagination of our minds, fueled with visions from Revelations, Paul's exposition, and Jesus' parables.
Every year at Halloween there are "freakfests" on television as scary pictures are run one after another. All year long, horror movies of one sort or another are made. The make-up and special effects of all these movies have become quite renowned. For many, especially teens, this has become a fascinating form of entertainment that is as much amusing, as it is frightening. The special effects are more respected than the specific evil portrayed.
Easter reminds us today that Jesus reigns as Lord over the spiritual powers that need no make-up or special effects to scare the living daylights out of us. For many, watching the likes of The Exorcist, Damion, Friday the 13th, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or End of Days is disconcerting because they portray visually what the eyes of faith perceive invisibly. Yet, Easter is the affirmation and acclamation that, when we see Jesus through the Word and Sacrament with us today as the risen Lord and Savior of the world, we "fear no evil, for you are with us" (Psalm 23:4). Faith is called forth against the powers of darkness through the verbal proclamation of the Easter story, in which we see/perceive the fullness of God claiming the victory over sin and death and all their minions.
Mary the Mother of our Lord pondered these things in her heart and rejoiced as she birthed in the new age with the coming of Jesus. Mary Magdalene tarried at the empty tomb long enough to discover her Teacher of all essential truth, the Lord of her life. So it can be for all who on this day see Jesus, the crucified and risen One, calling them by name to believe in him!
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 10:34-43
When we preach or read or hear the stories in the Scriptures and then try to interpret them as the word for our lives, it makes a great deal of difference as to whom we judge to be the central character in the stories. Most often we take the human beings in some story to be central, because their actions often mirror our own, and we empathize with them or identify with them. Thus, when we look at this story in our First Lesson from Acts 10, we naturally assume that the Apostle Peter is its leading character. Concentrating on him, we applaud Peter's openness and largeness of heart toward the Gentile audience that has gathered in the house of the Roman centurion Cornelius in order to hear Peter preach. How inclusive, we think, is Jewish Peter of persons from other backgrounds with other practices of faith. Surely he can be a role model for us!
The result is that we turn the Scriptures' stories into moral lessons that should guide our human practices. Indeed, we even imagine that Peter's attitude should prompt our own acceptance and approval of other religions as equally valid as our own. After all, earlier in Acts 10, the Gentile Cornelius is described as devout, God-fearing, and generous, always at prayer (v. 2). And verse 35 states that such persons are acceptable to God. So we have a moral example of how inclusive and accepting we should be of other people who are different from us in background and faith.
If we concentrate only on the human level of the Bible, however, and try to turn it into a set of moral examples or principles, we miss the most important message of its stories, for the central character and actor in the Scriptures is not human beings but God. And all of these very human portrayals in the Bible are first and foremost testimonies to the character and action of the Lord God.
That is true of the story that we have here in our First Lesson. Peter does not arrive at his largeness of view by way of his own conscience or faith. In fact, later on in Acts, according to both its testimony and that of Paul, Peter objects strenuously to accepting Gentiles into the church without laying on them the necessity of obeying some of the Jewish laws (cf. Acts 15 and Galatians 2:11-21), and Paul castigates Peter soundly for it. No, the central character in our text from Acts 10 is God, and it is God who instigates and moves the whole story forward.
Peter agrees to go to Cornelius' house there on the seacoast at Caesarea and to speak to the gathered Gentile audience, because God gives him a vision (vv. 9-16) and sends messengers from Cornelius to him (vv. 1-8, 17-33). Then in the sermon that he preaches to those Gentiles, Peter tells the story of what God has done. God sent the followers of Jesus to proclaim the story of their Lord to Jerusalem and through all Judea and Galilee ("he sent," i.e. God, v. 36). God did everything of which that story tells. He anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power (v. 38). He was with Jesus, so that our Lord could do good and heal all who were oppressed by the devil (v. 38). Human beings hung Jesus on a tree (a scandal to the Gentile audience which knew that Roman crucifixion was the most shameful death, reserved for criminals and subversives). But God raised Jesus on the third day (v. 40). God manifested the risen Christ to those who were chosen by God to be his witnesses and who ate and drank with him (v. 41). God in Christ commanded the disciples to preach (v. 42). God ordained Christ to be the supreme Judge of the living and the dead in the final resurrection of all flesh (v. 42). God promises the forgiveness of sins in Christ's name to all who believe in him (v. 43). And finally, God sends the Holy Spirit upon the gathered Gentile listeners who are then baptized into the church. The whole story is of God's work, as is the entire story of the Bible. God has spoken and acted in human history, and the authors of the Bible have preserved that record for us.
But let us note well on this Easter Sunday morning, when so many visitors whom perhaps we have not seen before have come to worship with us. All of you here have some sort of faith or you would not have come to this service this morning. I do not believe that anyone here came just to show off her or his new clothes or to join in the Easter parade afterwards. The beliefs and hungers of your soul are deeper than that, and they are not to be trivialized. After all, the pollsters tell us that 95 percent of the American populace believes in some sort of God. Most of us here could match the description in our text -- you pray, you honor some deity, and you try to do what is right. And, says our text in the words of Peter, you are therefore acceptable to God. That's a heart-warming statement, isn't it? You and I, with all of our varieties of belief and religious practices, are acceptable to the Lord God.
But did you note in our Scripture lesson that God doesn't leave it at that? He doesn't let Peter just tell the Gentile audience -- Gentiles like us -- that they're fine the way they are. I'm O.K., you're O.K., and we can all go home to dinner. No. God prompts Peter to tell the story of Jesus Christ -- of how Jesus was gifted with the Spirit of God and so how he could go about doing good and healing all sorts and conditions of people, because he was acting for God. Peter is led to tell the story of how Christ was crucified, but then how God raised Christ from the dead and manifested him alive to the women at the tomb, to the apostles who saw him eat and drink with them, to a man and wife on the road to Emmaus, and, says Paul, to 500 other people at one time. Further, Peter recounts that he and the other disciples were commanded by the risen Lord to tell that sacred story and to proclaim that Christ will be the Judge of all at the end of our history.
Why should Peter tell it all? Because if we believe in Jesus Christ, and trust him with our lives, we are forgiven all our sins -- all those times when we have not honored God and prayed, all those days and nights when we are not devout and have not done what is right and are not leading acceptable lives and therefore face a final judgment in which we will be condemned.
Let's face it, friends. On this Easter Sunday, with all of our pseudo-religiosity and wavering beliefs, and deities that we have constructed for ourselves, with all of our pretensions to goodness and commitment to righteousness, you and I know in the depths of our hearts that we need a terrible mercy that will pardon our erring choices and multiple failures to be the persons we were created by God to be. And that which Peter announces to those Gentiles in Cornelius' house, as he announces to us, is that God has extended that merciful forgiveness to us in one figure -- in that figure on a cross, taking upon himself all the condemnation from God that we deserve, but then raised from the dead. And that resurrection is the ultimate testimony to the fact that Jesus Christ comes from God to pardon us all in the final judgment of our lives and to give us eternal life in the company of God our Father.
That story, that history that God has worked in Jesus Christ, goes beyond all other religious views to give us what is so desperately necessary for our sinful lives in this crazy, sin-pocked world -- forgiveness from the Lord of the universe and assurance of eternal life through faith in Christ Jesus. In the final judgment of our lives, those two gifts will be rendered by the Ruler of this world to all who trust his Son. Forgiveness. Death's punishment overcome. Eternal life in the Father's house. That is the glad news on this Easter morning.
The first disciples were privileged to see the risen Jesus and they believed in him. Today, we are privileged to see the risen Jesus also in words that paint a picture of death unbound. The words do not express a concept, like abstract art does on canvass. They portray an historical event in vivid detail, like Flemish realism in precise brush strokes. Faith is evoked when the believer sees the crucified Jesus alive, calling by name those whom he loves.
Amid so many contemporary, competing images that distract our attention for any length of time, the vision of the risen Christ must be lifted up boldly, repeatedly, faithfully for a world in crisis to view and believe and follow. Let us enter into the picture of God's mightiest work and experience the life-empowering love that overcomes our greatest adversary, death itself.
Acts 10:34-43
Peter, being a pious Jew, had some particular notions about what was clean and unclean, kosher and forbidden. This applied not only to food, but also to human relationships. Peter himself admitted that he had some prejudices about any goyim (Acts 10:28). In a housetop vision, God showed Peter the short-sightedness of this perspective. Whereas God's vision for Cornelius pertained to the geography of where to find Peter, God's vision for Peter had to deal with the landscape of his mind, altering the terrain to give Peter a more godly horizon.
Cornelius acted upon his vision, sending men to fetch Peter; Peter understood his vision, responding positively to the request of the men to visit Cornelius. At the invitation of Cornelius, Peter shared his faith in Jesus, who is Lord of all (10:36). He started his message with the insight he gained from his God-given vision. Then, he launched into a brief synopsis of the life of Jesus, starting with his baptism, which initiated him into his public ministry. That ministry was simply characterized as "doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil" (10:38). This description in not based on hearsay evidence. Peter was a first-hand witness. Not only this, but there is much more to the story. This one who had been anointed by God "with the Holy Spirit and with power" (10:38) was summarily executed as a common criminal. But, God raised him from the dead and made him visible to the community of faith.
This was not a ghostly apparition that appeared on the third day. The risen Jesus ate and drank with his disciples after that Sunday morning. The experience was tangible, so as to make extremely clear the reality of the mission to which the disciples were being called. They were to preach and to testify about Jesus being "the one ordained by God to be judge of the living and the dead" (10:42). The prophets themselves give witness to this. The forgiveness of sins achieved by Jesus' atoning death was foreshadowed by Jeremiah himself, when he speaks about the coming days when a new covenant will be established with Israel, defined by the forgiveness of sins. Jeremiah 31:31f is an example of Acts 19:43.
This pericope may be another case of slicing the text too thin. Verses 44 through 48 could very easily be added to Peter's sermon synopsis. The reason is simple. The fruit of Peter's sermon is unfolded in these verses. Preaching the Word creates fertile field upon which the Holy Spirit can fall. Fall indeed! Cornelius the God-fearer became Cornelius the Jesus-believer, who was then baptized into the new family of God. "They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," says the Lord (Jeremiah 31:34).
Jesus demonstrates his Lordship over all by seizing the open hearts of Cornelius and his household and leading them to baptism in his name. His name stands at the center of Peter's impromptu sermon and it stands at the heart of the Christian message. What Christ came to proclaim was not a system of philosophy, nor was it a blueprint for moral choices. Rather, it was himself he came to extol. The gospel is not about our living the good life, being a blessing for all. It is about the life Jesus led for us and gave up for us. His death on the cross satisfies God's wrath against sin and sets the believer free. If Jesus can do this for me, he can do it for everyone. He can do it for everyone because he is Lord of all, restoring access to God the Father for the whole of creation.
Followers of Jesus are given the commission to witness to these things, to preach about what Jesus has done. This will till the soil of the soul, so that faith can be planted and grow in the believer's heart. Faith leads to baptism and baptism to a life of witness. The Holy Spirit will follow, harvesting more and more people into the kingdom.
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
There are certain stand-out chapters in the Bible. For example, Genesis 3 is the "Fall Chapter"; Psalm 23 is the "Shepherd Chapter"; Luke 15, with its parables of a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son, is the "Lost Chapter" in the Bible; John 6 is the "Bread Chapter." Among these, 1 Corinthians 15 stands out as the "Resurrection Chapter." In these 58 verses, Paul explicates what the Gospels narrate (in Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20).
In the initial verses, Paul verifies the resurrection as an historical reality, attested to by Peter and the other apostles, 500 faithful at one time, then James and the apostles again, and finally to Paul himself. The reader can check this out personally, if so desired, because many of the eye-witnesses are still alive and can be interviewed.
Then, Paul does some fancy footwork in describing how necessary the resurrection is to the Christian message; without the resurrection, the Christian faith is empty. It has nothing better to offer than any other religion. In fact, it is possibly worse than the others, because it is misrepresenting God, arguing for a resurrection, if in fact there is no resurrection.
In the specific verses from this chapter that will be read on Easter Sunday (15:19-26), Paul interprets the meaning of the resurrection. Jesus is Lord over life and death and every rule, authority and power (15:24). Using the image of "first fruits," he describes the delectable benefit of Christ having been raised from the dead: the resurrection of the dead for all. There is a universal scope in what God has effected through Christ. "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive" (15:22). The purpose of this is expressed in 15:28, "that God may be everything to every one." The Lord of life and the Lord over death will deliver the kingdom to God the Father, subjugating all -- even himself (as he did in the Garden before the Crucifixion) -- to the will of God.
In many circumstances of dying, it is often said by the bereaved, "It was a blessing to die." Not wanting a loved one to suffer, death is even prayed for as a friend, coming to pick up another for a journey. While from a human point of view we may be able to understand this and appreciate the psychological comfort of this perspective, Paul approaches death from a theological point of view, in which there is no room to coddle "the last enemy" (escatov ecqrov). This is consistent with the Old Testament understanding of death as that which will cut one off from God. At a time when hope for resurrection life was not part of the theological landscape, the psalmist pleads with God not to let him die, "For in death there is no remembrance of thee; in Sheol who can give thee praise?" (Psalm 6:5).
Paul writes in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death." Death is the judgment of the Creator against the rebellion of the creature. Death is a consequence of sin and, as such, can only be considered inimical to human well-being. For humanity to experience true wholeness, death must be overcome. The resurrection of Jesus Christ opens up the possibility that death no longer has the last word. In this sense, death is no longer the ultimate experience on the human timetable. It becomes penultimate now that Christ has been raised from the dead. Faith in the work of Christ creates hope in the heart of the believer, who can now imagine life beyond the grave and can even embrace death, enemy though it wants to be, yet which releases one into eternal life. The martyrdom of Polycarp is a vivid portrayal of this. "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied" (15:19).
John 20:1-18 or Luke 24:1-12
Mary Magdalene, among all the women mentioned in the New Testament, has a position among them that is only surpassed by Mary, the mother of our Lord. Mary of Magdala is listed first in the synoptic accounts of Jesus' female followers (Matthew 27:55-56, 61, 28:1; Mark 15:40-41, 47, 16:1; Luke 8:2-3, 24:10). Luke describes her as having been healed of demon possession (seven demons, no less!). Perhaps this explains her devotion of being at the tomb on Sunday morning. Although Luke says she was in the company of other women to anoint the body of Jesus, John simply states that she was there -- with no one else and with no particular purpose in mind.
According to John, Mary, converted from demon possession to being seized by the spirit of Jesus, is the first witness of the resurrection, both of the rolled-away stone and of the risen Jesus himself! At first, she thought that it was a case of someone stealing the body. This is how she reported her experience to Peter. After Peter and John checked the tomb out and found it empty, they went home. (Typical of men, they did not even notice or comment on the neat arrangement of the burial cloths. Perhaps they assumed Mary had tidied things up when she was first there.) Mary, however, hung around the tomb, weeping, sensitive to her grief. Even after seeing the angels, she could only say something about the body having been taken away. Even after speaking with Jesus (whom she did not recognize at first), she could only ask about the dead body.
It is when Jesus addressed her by name -- Mary! -- that she recognized him and apparently reached to hug him. She had seen the stone rolled away; she had seen the empty tomb and even the angels; she had seen the risen Jesus. Yet, seeing was not yet believing. Only after Jesus spoke to her and called her by name did she truly see her risen Lord. The word from Jesus opened her eyes to perceive the fulness of the reality into which she was being drawn -- the new age of anno domini, when time itself is measured according to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
Luke's account does not have the singular encounter between Mary and the Lord. Rather, the group of women, among them Mary Magdalene, who came to the tomb early on Sunday to anoint the body according to custom, encountered two men in dazzling apparel (angels?), who speak to them about Jesus' own passion prediction. In this situation, it is the word again that accompanies the sight of the empty tomb, which evokes a response of faith that Jesus has indeed risen from the dead -- even though they did not see him. How interesting that the disciples upon hearing their report considered it "an idle tale." They did not believe, perhaps in part because they did not see. Jesus would address this situation that millions throughout the centuries to follow would have to deal with, when he said to Thomas after his resurrection, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe" (John 20:29).
It is interesting to note that a very few early papyri and some much later manuscripts include in Luke's account a sentence about Peter, seeing the empty tomb and wondering at what had happened (qaumazwn to gegonov; used frequently in Luke, the sense of astonishment was a frequent response in those who saw and heard Jesus; e.g., see Luke 2:18, 4:22, 8:25, 9:43). It would be premature to equate this with mature faith, however. As Luke will go on to illustrate, faith in the resurrection develops only after Jesus' words and actions accompany his appearance to his disciples after Sunday morning.
Application
When we open our mouths, what comes out? A Michigan canoeist let loose with some loud profanity one day on a lazy Michigan river, where others were enjoying the summer with family. He was brought into court and fined for what he thought was his "freedom of speech." We live in a brassy culture, where it is fashionable to be vulgar and "in your face." Tabloids thrive on falsehoods that get headlines and attention, selling copy. A new series opened on television last fall with a vulgar word written more than five times into the one-hour script.
Peter opened his mouth. What came out? The gospel! At first glance, it may seem like Peter is espousing a kind of "good works" theology. Anyone who fears the Lord and does what is right is acceptable. This could be perceived to be an appeal to the conscience inscribed in every person and the natural law that is part of our human creatureliness. But, when taken as a whole, these words of Peter draw us into a deeper understanding of "fear" and "right." The Old Testament sense of "the fear of the Lord" carried with it the dynamics of awe before the majesty of God, obedience before the holiness of God, thankfulness before the goodness of God, and worship before the glory of God. There certainly are times when, in our sinfulness, we cower in fearfulness before the wrath of God; but the "fear of the Lord" in its fullest and best fills an individual with awe, obedience, thankfulness, and worship.
The New Testament deepens the understanding of what is right. Peter, in his oration to Cornelius, makes the connection between what is right and believing in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. It is the function of a judge to determine what is right. Jesus, as judge of the living and the dead, will determine what is right and who can stand with integrity before his bar. "Every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name" (Acts 10:43). Guilt is covered by faith in Jesus, who offers forgiveness through his death and resurrection. His death, as the atoning sacrifice, provides the means of forgiveness. His resurrection gives him the authority and power to dispense the judgment/justice of the new covenant. Later, Paul will write of the "righteousness through faith" (Romans 9:30; see also Romans 4:3 and Galatians 3:6) and John will write about "the work of God" (John 6:29) -- both expressions defining in a similar way what is right in the sight of God.
There is an angry despondency prevalent in so many subcultures today. One can hear it in the lyrics of rap, in the lines of plays and musicals, even in the zealous political action of special interest groups that are desperate to weave at least their partial patterns into the fabric of our social order. The flip remark, "Whatever!" gets many through situations that are at the same time empty, confusing, and threatening. It is like the white cap on the boil of our society, ready to burst if provoked in the wrong way and the wrong time. Peggy Lee's brooding question, "Is that all there is?" haunts so many experiences today.
Today, Christians stand at the opening of the empty tomb to announce loudly and clearly, proudly and boldly, that there is so much more to life. The resurrection affirms the goodness of life now (consider Lazarus!), and the best of life yet to come. God will have his way, even though every now and then the devil may seem to seize a day. Christian hope will see beyond the trials and tribulations of any day to that eternal day when Christ will rule over all and believers will be made alive in a manner the likes of which we can only begin to perceive with the imagination of our minds, fueled with visions from Revelations, Paul's exposition, and Jesus' parables.
Every year at Halloween there are "freakfests" on television as scary pictures are run one after another. All year long, horror movies of one sort or another are made. The make-up and special effects of all these movies have become quite renowned. For many, especially teens, this has become a fascinating form of entertainment that is as much amusing, as it is frightening. The special effects are more respected than the specific evil portrayed.
Easter reminds us today that Jesus reigns as Lord over the spiritual powers that need no make-up or special effects to scare the living daylights out of us. For many, watching the likes of The Exorcist, Damion, Friday the 13th, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or End of Days is disconcerting because they portray visually what the eyes of faith perceive invisibly. Yet, Easter is the affirmation and acclamation that, when we see Jesus through the Word and Sacrament with us today as the risen Lord and Savior of the world, we "fear no evil, for you are with us" (Psalm 23:4). Faith is called forth against the powers of darkness through the verbal proclamation of the Easter story, in which we see/perceive the fullness of God claiming the victory over sin and death and all their minions.
Mary the Mother of our Lord pondered these things in her heart and rejoiced as she birthed in the new age with the coming of Jesus. Mary Magdalene tarried at the empty tomb long enough to discover her Teacher of all essential truth, the Lord of her life. So it can be for all who on this day see Jesus, the crucified and risen One, calling them by name to believe in him!
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 10:34-43
When we preach or read or hear the stories in the Scriptures and then try to interpret them as the word for our lives, it makes a great deal of difference as to whom we judge to be the central character in the stories. Most often we take the human beings in some story to be central, because their actions often mirror our own, and we empathize with them or identify with them. Thus, when we look at this story in our First Lesson from Acts 10, we naturally assume that the Apostle Peter is its leading character. Concentrating on him, we applaud Peter's openness and largeness of heart toward the Gentile audience that has gathered in the house of the Roman centurion Cornelius in order to hear Peter preach. How inclusive, we think, is Jewish Peter of persons from other backgrounds with other practices of faith. Surely he can be a role model for us!
The result is that we turn the Scriptures' stories into moral lessons that should guide our human practices. Indeed, we even imagine that Peter's attitude should prompt our own acceptance and approval of other religions as equally valid as our own. After all, earlier in Acts 10, the Gentile Cornelius is described as devout, God-fearing, and generous, always at prayer (v. 2). And verse 35 states that such persons are acceptable to God. So we have a moral example of how inclusive and accepting we should be of other people who are different from us in background and faith.
If we concentrate only on the human level of the Bible, however, and try to turn it into a set of moral examples or principles, we miss the most important message of its stories, for the central character and actor in the Scriptures is not human beings but God. And all of these very human portrayals in the Bible are first and foremost testimonies to the character and action of the Lord God.
That is true of the story that we have here in our First Lesson. Peter does not arrive at his largeness of view by way of his own conscience or faith. In fact, later on in Acts, according to both its testimony and that of Paul, Peter objects strenuously to accepting Gentiles into the church without laying on them the necessity of obeying some of the Jewish laws (cf. Acts 15 and Galatians 2:11-21), and Paul castigates Peter soundly for it. No, the central character in our text from Acts 10 is God, and it is God who instigates and moves the whole story forward.
Peter agrees to go to Cornelius' house there on the seacoast at Caesarea and to speak to the gathered Gentile audience, because God gives him a vision (vv. 9-16) and sends messengers from Cornelius to him (vv. 1-8, 17-33). Then in the sermon that he preaches to those Gentiles, Peter tells the story of what God has done. God sent the followers of Jesus to proclaim the story of their Lord to Jerusalem and through all Judea and Galilee ("he sent," i.e. God, v. 36). God did everything of which that story tells. He anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power (v. 38). He was with Jesus, so that our Lord could do good and heal all who were oppressed by the devil (v. 38). Human beings hung Jesus on a tree (a scandal to the Gentile audience which knew that Roman crucifixion was the most shameful death, reserved for criminals and subversives). But God raised Jesus on the third day (v. 40). God manifested the risen Christ to those who were chosen by God to be his witnesses and who ate and drank with him (v. 41). God in Christ commanded the disciples to preach (v. 42). God ordained Christ to be the supreme Judge of the living and the dead in the final resurrection of all flesh (v. 42). God promises the forgiveness of sins in Christ's name to all who believe in him (v. 43). And finally, God sends the Holy Spirit upon the gathered Gentile listeners who are then baptized into the church. The whole story is of God's work, as is the entire story of the Bible. God has spoken and acted in human history, and the authors of the Bible have preserved that record for us.
But let us note well on this Easter Sunday morning, when so many visitors whom perhaps we have not seen before have come to worship with us. All of you here have some sort of faith or you would not have come to this service this morning. I do not believe that anyone here came just to show off her or his new clothes or to join in the Easter parade afterwards. The beliefs and hungers of your soul are deeper than that, and they are not to be trivialized. After all, the pollsters tell us that 95 percent of the American populace believes in some sort of God. Most of us here could match the description in our text -- you pray, you honor some deity, and you try to do what is right. And, says our text in the words of Peter, you are therefore acceptable to God. That's a heart-warming statement, isn't it? You and I, with all of our varieties of belief and religious practices, are acceptable to the Lord God.
But did you note in our Scripture lesson that God doesn't leave it at that? He doesn't let Peter just tell the Gentile audience -- Gentiles like us -- that they're fine the way they are. I'm O.K., you're O.K., and we can all go home to dinner. No. God prompts Peter to tell the story of Jesus Christ -- of how Jesus was gifted with the Spirit of God and so how he could go about doing good and healing all sorts and conditions of people, because he was acting for God. Peter is led to tell the story of how Christ was crucified, but then how God raised Christ from the dead and manifested him alive to the women at the tomb, to the apostles who saw him eat and drink with them, to a man and wife on the road to Emmaus, and, says Paul, to 500 other people at one time. Further, Peter recounts that he and the other disciples were commanded by the risen Lord to tell that sacred story and to proclaim that Christ will be the Judge of all at the end of our history.
Why should Peter tell it all? Because if we believe in Jesus Christ, and trust him with our lives, we are forgiven all our sins -- all those times when we have not honored God and prayed, all those days and nights when we are not devout and have not done what is right and are not leading acceptable lives and therefore face a final judgment in which we will be condemned.
Let's face it, friends. On this Easter Sunday, with all of our pseudo-religiosity and wavering beliefs, and deities that we have constructed for ourselves, with all of our pretensions to goodness and commitment to righteousness, you and I know in the depths of our hearts that we need a terrible mercy that will pardon our erring choices and multiple failures to be the persons we were created by God to be. And that which Peter announces to those Gentiles in Cornelius' house, as he announces to us, is that God has extended that merciful forgiveness to us in one figure -- in that figure on a cross, taking upon himself all the condemnation from God that we deserve, but then raised from the dead. And that resurrection is the ultimate testimony to the fact that Jesus Christ comes from God to pardon us all in the final judgment of our lives and to give us eternal life in the company of God our Father.
That story, that history that God has worked in Jesus Christ, goes beyond all other religious views to give us what is so desperately necessary for our sinful lives in this crazy, sin-pocked world -- forgiveness from the Lord of the universe and assurance of eternal life through faith in Christ Jesus. In the final judgment of our lives, those two gifts will be rendered by the Ruler of this world to all who trust his Son. Forgiveness. Death's punishment overcome. Eternal life in the Father's house. That is the glad news on this Easter morning.
