Lmst

Explore the dangers of testing God, as Jesus warns against it! Witness religious leaders resisting Jesus, clinging to their own ways. Discover the disciples' journey to understanding and the impact of time on belief. #FaithJourney #ReligiousResistance #TestingGod #FaithJourney #ReligiousResistance #TestingGod #Discipleship #BiblicalTeachings #ChristianLiving #SpiritualGrowth #JesusChrist #Theology #FaithOverFear

For the Love and Glory of God

https://youtu.be/yiQs9sfGicY

Psalm 148:1-2 1 Hallelujah! Praise Abba God from the heavens; praise God in the heights. Praise Abba God, all you angels; praise God, all his host. [May these words praise God!]

Introduction

In 1984, Tina Turner asked, “What’s love got to do with it?” And looking around our local and national environment, I think that’s probably the question we should be asking. But just hollering into that caustic and vitriolic sinkhole, “Just love one another!”, is adding more fuel to the fire because we often don’t know what we mean when we say it. The reason for that? Most people, on either side of the divide, truly think they are acting in loving ways. So, hollering, “We just need to love one another!” is met with blank stares in response because, well “I AM!”

We truly believe that love will solve our problems, sooth our tensions, eliminate our divisions; and I agree with this. But the thing is, we must get real about what it means to love…We must start at the beginning and notice how God loves the cosmos and how God in Jesus Christ loved the neighbor. We must embrace that to love doesn’t always make one comfortable and cozy—either the beloved or the lover. We must be willing to take our love beyond good feeling and allow Love (capital “L”) be the force that guides our actions in the world causing us to prioritize the well-being of the neighbor o according to what they need and not what I think they need. So, I’m glad John is here to walk us (back) through what it means to love…

John 13:31-35

Our passage falls near the end of Jesus teaching his disciples about love in the upper room before his crucifixion. Essentially, we are—for all intents and purposes—back at Maundy Thursday. The chapter opens with Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. At the conclusion of this event, Jesus gives a teaching on what it means to be a disciple of Christ: to serve each other and not to be served. Then Jesus tells of his betrayal. Here Judas is just flat called out and dismissed from the table to do what he is going to do. Then we come to our passage for today where Jesus explains what is happening and then gives his disciples a new commandment (to love). Chapter 13 closes with Jesus promising Peter that he will not be able to go where Jesus is going, but that Peter will deny Jesus three times. In this chapter, love has a lot of work to do.

John writes, Therefore when [Judas] went out, Jesus said, “Now the son of humanity was glorified, and God was glorified in him. If God was glorified in him, then God will glorify him in God, and God will glorify him immediately” (vv. 31-32). Jesus isn’t speaking abstractly here; he’s speaking very literally. His death comes as Judas goes out; the present moment is binding together what was with what will be.[1] The “now” there is doing a lot of work and emphasis should be placed on it. In this moment, among the disciples, there is a collision of time: what was is becoming what will be right then (now!). Jesus has glorified God in his active love in the world and this glorifying of God will become Jesus’s future glorification in the resurrection from the death that is coming now (because Judas left and all that is coming by his betrayal is as good as done). In other words, the Cross and the Resurrection are going to be the full culmination of what was colliding with what will be and creates an entirely new now for the disciples of Christ.[2] It is this new now that the disciples are ushered into by faith (and which is only accessible through faith).[3]

Jesus then addresses the disciples personally, Dear little children, I am still with you a little bit [longer]. You will search for me, and just as I said to the Children of Israel, “Where I, I go my way you, you are not able to come,” and to you I say [this] just now. After a pronouncement of God being glorified (both past and future) in and through himself, Jesus informs the disciples that the way he is going is his way alone and they are not able to come. Jesus’ presence with them is coming to an end; the disciples will no longer be able to walk (literally) with him and they will learn that it is necessary for them to be abandoned by Jesus (in his death and also in his future ascension). What he did with them will have to be enough…for now; the disciples will be stripped of their teacher, left to their own devising.[4] Or so they think…

Then Jesus speaks into their burgeoning doubt and threatening despair and promises that even as he leaves, he is with them. How so? Through a new commandment that has to do with the disciples loving each other as Christ loved them. Jesus exhorts, A new command I give to you: you love one another. Just as I loved you, you, you also love one another. In this way, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among you. As Jesus’s time with the disciples wanes, he gives them a commandment that will transcend any epoch and era and any country and continent. In a swift motion, Jesus redirects their attention away from themselves and toward something in the future; to this command they can cling because it is not clinging to a stone tablet but a real person by faith; in it resides the entirety of Jesus with them, and if Jesus then God, too.[5] In loving one another like Christ loved them, they are never abandoned and are always with Christ and also with God. This is not a cold command to love as if it was of one’s own power; this is a command that is founded on and in and by the love of Christ for them, which is the love of God for them. [6] If the disciples love in the way of and like Christ loved them, then their discipleship status will be noticed by all people because in this love Christ will be proclaimed.[7]

The new command doesn’t replace Jesus, this would then make Jesus and faith in Jesus superfluous. Rather, the new command becomes the “essential nature” [8] of the burgeoning new community that follows this new way of Christ in a world that will find this all very strange.[9] (And, according to John, this love does start first among the new community. [10]) This new command of love is not feeling loving emotions toward someone; that is not how Jesus loved the disciples. Jesus loved the disciples (and others!) through acts and deeds of service that brought love, life, and liberation to them in both material and spiritual ways.[11] Thus, the disciples’ activity in accordance with this new command reinforces that the disciples are never far from Christ because this liberative love is the very love of Christ. And it is distinct and new because it is not the love of the kingdom of humanity but of the reign of God bringing life where there is death, Easter where Good Friday refuses to leave.[12]And if the disciples are never far from Christ in this liberative love, then it will be easy for all people to know they are HIS disciples.

In this way God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation continues in the world as Jesus goes his way and the disciples remain behind. The mission doesn’t end with Jesus; it is just the beginning of the advent and incarnation of the reign of God overhauling the kingdom of humanity, bit by bit, moment by moment, in this era and that era. [13] And, as this new community of disciples loving each other as Christ loved them goes into and through the history of the world, God is glorified in them because Christ is the glory of God and where this community is and loves as Jesus loved them, Christ is there and brings God glory.[14]

Conclusion

So, “What’s love got to do with it?” Well, according to John, everything. This command was not just for the disciples there with Jesus at the table but is timeless and knows not a static captivity to the past. The new commandment transcends time and space, it goes and is wherever there are those who gather in the name of Christ and love as Christ loved. This new command is for us today: it guides us, teaches us, corrects us, forms and reforms us, and it is still the way all people will know we are the disciples of Christ. They will know us by our love because our love will be liberative and life giving, it will be more than “thoughts and prayers,” more than some sort of comfortable message, even more than abstract Christian colloquialism that never hit the rock bottom we hit. This love will not bring death, indifference, and captivity; it will not hold up legalism, traditionalism, and dogmatism over the well-being of anyone (those here and out there) [15]. It will cause us to relinquish our excess to meet the needs of others and to abandon our self-imposed isolation to find deep community with others. It will be the source of our unrestrainable hope that will radiate out from here infecting others as it streams through the world to its farthest recesses. It will bind us to God, thus bind us to that and to those whom God loves: creation and our neighbor. Dorothee Sölle writes in her book, To Work and To Love, “The God who created the universe, including our planet, and who delivered us from slavery is the same God who raises the dead to new life, so that we who were dead and without hope might become resisters and lovers of life. ‘Lover of the living’ is an old name for God (Wis. of Sol. 11:26). So shall it be our name for evermore.”[16]

[1] Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed, RWN Hoare and JK Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 523. Originally published as, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966). “It is that νῦν, in which past and future are bound together, stressed particularly at this point by the paradoxical juxtaposition of ἐδοξάσθη (v. 31) and δοξάσει (v. 32).”

[2] Bultmann, John, 523-524. “The subject is that δόξα which is at the same time the Son’s and the Father’s: καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἐδοξάσθη ἐν αὐτῷ. What has already happened sub specie aeterni unfolds itself in the temporal future; and because this is so, the word δοξάσει (as if this future were at a distance from the νῦν) can be picked up again in καὶ εὐθὺς δοξάσει αὐτόν, which is a reference to the immediately imminent passion. It draws our attention again to that paradox inherent in the concept of δόξα, viz. that the δόξα becomes apparent precisely in the cross; and it also indicates a rejection of the naive primitive Christian eschatology, for there the revelation of Jesus’ δόξα was expected only at his coming Parousia (mk. 8.38).”

[3] Bultmann, John, 524. “The period of his personal presence has come to an end…His own will miss him; they will not realise the full significance of that νῦν immediately. Their faith has to stand the test.”

[4] Bultmann, John, 524. “…to some extent the believers are in the same position as the men of the κόσμος. Of course the situation does not contain for them, as it does for the latter, that element of the ‘too late’; but both look back in the same way on a ‘no longer’, and the beginnings of despair are there for the disciples too. They have to learn that the Revealer has not come to be at their disposal through their faith. What now lies in the past does not guarantee the future, but is called into question by it. Jesus, in whom they believed, disappears from them, and they are left with no security.”

[5] Bultmann, John, 525. “Then how can their relationship with him be retained in the face of this isolation?…The future is subjected to an imperative! Their anxiety was centred on their own actual existence, but now they are directed towards an existence that has the character of an ‘ought.’ The illusion that they possess him in such a way that he is at their disposal is confronted by another kind of possession: one which consists in fulfilling a command. Their despairing gaze into the past that is no more is redirected to the future, which comes and lay sits obligation upon them. An unreal future, which would only be a persistence in the past, is made into the real future which demands faith. And in so far as the content of the ἐντολή is ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους, the care for oneself is changed into a care for one’s neighbour.”

[6] Bultmann, John, 525. “But since it is precisely this becoming free from the past and from oneself that is subjected to the imperative, the future that is grasped as command coincides with the future that is promised for loyalty of faith; for it was freedom from the past and form oneself that was promised to the believer. Thus the imperative is itself a gift, and this it can be because it receives its significance and its possibility of realization from the past, experienced as the love of the Revealer.”

[7] Bultmann, John, 528. “…all loving becomes the proclamation of Jesus—which means that it can always become an offence too, not just in the individual case, but especially because the association formed by this kind of love cuts across the associations of the world in a special way.”

[8] Bultmann, John, 527. “But Jesus’ command of love is ‘new,’ even when it has been long-known, because it is the law of the eschatological community, for which the attribute ‘new’ denotes not an historical characteristic but its essential nature. The command of love, which is grounded in the love of the Revealer received by the disciples, is ‘new’ in so far as it is a phenomenon of the new world which Jesus has brought into being; and indeed 1 John 2.8 describes this newness as that of the eschatological event.”

[9] Bultmann, John, 527. “V. 35 states that the new world becomes reality in the community: reciprocal love within the community is the criterion of the discipleship of Jesus for those outside. The fact that the command of love is fulfilled there demonstrates the strangeness of the community within the world, and results in the world calling those who love the disciples of Jesus. Not just because there is a community in which love is both an injunction and an actual practice. Much rather because love itself there takes on a form that is strange to the world.”

[10] Bultmann, John, 528. “It is no general love of mankind, or love of one’s neighbour or enemy that is demanded, but love within the circle of disciples. Naturally this does not mean that the all-embracing love of one’s neighbour is to be invalidated; but here it is a question of the very existence of the circle of disciples. How does the departing Revealer remain present for his own? By the vitality of the gift of his love in their love of each other, and by their representation within the world of the new world, which became reality through him.”

[11] Bultmann, John, 526. “Jesus’ love is not a personal emotion, but is the service that liberates; and the response to it is not a mystical or pietistic intimacy with Christ, but the ἀλλήλους ἀγαπᾶν.”

[12] Bultmann, John, 526. “The significance of the past lies in the fact that the encounter with Jesus was experienced as his service which made the believer free; thus the significance of the future can only be that in it this freedom is brought to fruition. And this take s place int eh fulfillment of the command of love. Because this command and its fulfillment are grounded in the Revealer’s love which has actually been experienced, the believer always remains bound to the Revealer’s service and is never centered on himself. And to put it the other way round, the faith which has accepted that service can only continue to come to fruition in the attitude of service, i.e. of love.”

[13] Bultmann, John, 529. “But the community itself fulfills its commission to the world…only if the ἀγαπᾶν remains the response to the love of Jesus, and so long as it does note exchange it for an ἔργον of the world, or for efficacy within world-history. It is not the effect it has on world history that legitimates the Christian faith, but its strangeness within the world; and the strangeness is the bearing of those whose love for each other is grounded in the divine love.”

[14] Bultmann, John, 526. “Only if they are themselves loving do they who belong to him remain in the experience of his love; in the same way they can, and do love, only on the basis of this experience. Thus the believers’ past and future are bound to each other like the former and the future δόξα of the Revealer himself: the future receives its meaning form the past, and the past becomes significant in the future. But that means that in the future, despite their separation from him, they remain united to him. In their action, his act is present.”

[15] Bultmann, John, 528. v. 35 disciples “…a definition of their essential nature. The association with Jesus, therefore, is not realized by possessing articles of knowledge or dogmas, nor in institutions or experiences of individual piety, but in pupil-hood,’ in obedience to the command of love.”

[16] Sölle, To Work and Love, 165.

#Community #Discipleship #DivineLove #DorotheeSölle #GodSGlory #Jesus #JesusTheChrist #John13 #Liberation #Life #Love #PresenceOfChrist #RudolfBultmann #TheDivineMission #TheGospelOfJohn #TheLoveOfChrist #TheNewCommand #TheRevolutionOfLiberation #TheRevolutionOfLife #TheRevolutionOfLove #ToWorkAndToLove

Marie du jour, 9 May: Père Jacques

Consider those closest to Christ. Saint John the Apostle grasped what was indispensable for a clear understanding of his master.

John never tired of probing and querying Christ. We can see how John thus gained richer insights and fuller explanations, precisely because he went to the bother of approaching and asking Christ to clarify each day’s lesson.

I picture John walking close behind Christ as he made his way about the Holy Land.

Thus, John came to gain a wealth of intimate knowledge, which the other apostles did not acquire. Herein lies the explanation for the special character of the fourth Gospel.

While the other apostles traveled across the then-known world on their missionary journeys, John’s unique apostolate was to remain close to the Virgin Mary, whom Christ had entrusted to him. Thus were these two great souls conjoined in love and prayer.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Conference 2, Christ, the Object of our Prayer
Monday 6 September 1943

St. John Leading Home His Adopted Mother
William Dyce (Scottish, 1806-1864)
Oil paint on paper, 1842-60
Tate (not on display)
Presented anonymously 1894
Learn more about this artwork

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
How might I deepen my intimacy with Christ by remaining close to the Virgin Mary?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#BlessedVirginMary #Christ #discipleship #love #PèreJacquesDeJésus #prayer #ServantOfGod #StJohnTheApostle

St John Leading Home his Adopted Mother 1842-60 by William Dyce 1806-1864

“Therefore, #confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (James 5:16; ESV)

It seems that in spite of our high view of #scripture many #protestants simply ignore this verse. “I can just go to Jesus and be forgiven” is the common retort. And yet Scripture tells us to confess to one another and pray for the other’s healing from sin.

The #Anglican, #Catholic, and #Orthodox traditions are being more wholly faithful to Scripture when they encourage the faithful to go to #confession .

#theology #bible #discipleship

Your salvation is secure in Jesus, but your impact grows with your understanding. 🌱
Time to dive deeper into God's Word and grow in your ability to share His truth! 🙏

#ChristianGrowth #Faith #Discipleship #ChurchLife #equippedchurchco #Jesus #Gospel

https://www.crossway.org/articles/were-living-in-the-dystopian-future-that-neil-postman-predicted-forty-years-ago/

#technology #discipleship

Explore the true meaning of humility with us as we delve into Jesus' teachings in the Upper Room. Discover how love and understanding are at the heart of his actions, transcending mere rituals. Join our journey of faith and connection! #HumilityLessons #FaithJourney #LoveAndUnderstanding #SpiritualGrowth #JesusTeachings #UpperRoom #BiblicalInsights #ChristianLiving #Discipleship #FaithCommunity

Explore the profound meaning of humility and service through Jesus' teachings in the Upper Room. Witness how we can learn to love and understand one another by following his example of washing the disciples' feet. Discover the true essence of selfless service! #HumilityLesson #JesusTeachings #ServantLeadership #BiblicalInsights #LoveAndUnderstanding #FaithJourney #SpiritualGrowth #Discipleship #UpperRoom #ChristianLiving

“Rescued from Danger…Sealed for Thy Courts”: The Path of Easter!

https://youtu.be/x2zGfRLQj6Q

Psalm 118: 14-16a Abba God is my strength and my song and has become my salvation. There is a sound of exultation and victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of Abba God has triumphed!

Introduction

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!!

This morning, our calcified hearts prone to wander from God find rest in divine sealing made known in the unsealed, empty tomb. We who are enticed and attracted to the shiny bobbles and fluffy lures of the kingdom of humanity are now ushered into something truly new, truly beaming, truly spectacular, truly built of the divine, eternal, never tarnishing substance that is the love of God for you, the Beloved. This morning, despite our wandering, we come face to face with God in Christ, the one who lives and doesn’t die.

Even when we decided to wander from God, to turn our backs, to forget the ancient and good story, to tread and tromp on everyone and everything, to estrange ourselves, to misjudge and prejudge others unto their condemnation, and even when we preferred acts of violence and death, God sought us and found us as we were wandering “from the fold of God”[1] and set us right. This morning, the exposure we felt on Friday becomes the warm light of the risen Son, bringing us into himself, into the lap of Abba God, and wrapping us up like newborn babes in the warm blanket of the Holy Spirit. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING stands between God and God’s beloved, not even death.

Today we’re a people set back on course, eyes lifted, faces turned, fleshy hearts thumping with divine love, hands and feet eager to spread the liberation we have received, and voices ready to call forth life even when all that surrounds us in the world is death. Today we become a people who dares to believe this crazy, far-out story because today become a people brought to life by this good and ancient word of God.

Luke 24:1-12

Now after the women were made full of fear they bowed their faces to the earth; [the two men in clothing shining like lightening] said to the women, “Why are you seeking the one who lives among the dead?” (Luke 24:5)

At the end of chapter 23, Luke mentions that the women—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary mother of James, and some other women (24:10a)—saw, from a distance, where Joseph of Arimathea placed Jesus’s body (v.55).[2] It’s these women who now take center stage in the reception of the good news that Jesus is raised. As the men fled, the women held their ground initially in the distance and now the first ones on the scene in Luke’s resurrection story.[3]

Having seen where Joseph placed Jesus’s body (23:55), and it being the first day of the week and still in the depths of early morning, these women went to the tomb bearing the spices they prepared on Friday night (v.1 and 23:56). Keeping in mind that they prepared spices on Friday night, these women are not examples of blind faith despite the facts; for them, as well as for the men, Jesus was dead—very dead. They planned to anoint his body,[4] which wasn’t done in the rush getting his body down from the cross and into a tomb before the sunset and curses arrived (cf. Dt 21:23).

Now, when they arrived at the tomb, they found the stone having been [mysteriously[5]] rolled away from the tomb (v.2). Curious to see what happened, the women entered the tomb. And after entering the tomb they did not find the body of Jesus (v. 3). Luke then writes, while the women were perplexed/in doubt about what had happened, behold! two men approached the women [dressed] in clothing shining like lightening (v.4). The women were confused, and now they became full of fear; upon being approached by two men in dazzling clothing, Luke tells us, they bowed their faces to the earth (5a). In other words, they suddenly dropped to the ground because they were full of terror. While this is a natural and biblical response to angelic visitors, it’s also a human reaction. These women came to anoint Jesus’s body, and not only is it missing (stolen, maybe?) but now two men show up and approach them (Are we in trouble? Are they going to harm us?). Luke does a marvelous job wedding together the spiritual and temporal realities of this story growing in dramatic tension.

Luke then writes that the two gleaming men said to the women, “why are you seeking the one who lives with the dead? He is not here but was raised” (v.5b-6a).For one moment, suspend your judgment and how well you know this story. Stay here with the women hearing, for the first time, that Jesus—whom they saw crucified on Friday and sealed up in a tomb—is not dead but alive because he is risen! Instantaneously, your world is turned upside down…again! As they looked at each other (now more in astonishment and less in fear) they begin the journey of faith as it dawns on them (in their hearts and minds) that death itself has a mortal weakness: God…Is it possible? Is Jesus alive? Imagine the grief they carried giving birth to hope…hope daring to rise to life in the depths of a tomb meant for the hopelessness of death…

Then Luke tells us that the two men exhort them, remember what he spoke to you while he was still in galilee, saying it is necessary that the son of humanity be betrayed into the hands of sinful humanity and to be crucified and on the third day to be raised up.” And as the men remind them, these women remembered [Jesus’s] words and after returning from the tomb they announced[6] all these things to the twelve and to the all the remaining people (vv. 8-9). That which they hadn’t fully grasped they did as the celestial men spoke to them;[7] they heard,[8] they believed, and they went.[9] If there were ever three phrases that sum up good discipleship, these are they.[10] The women didn’t linger, tarry, hesitate, debate, and didn’t dismiss because this message didn’t align with their social, political, or religious status-quo. They ran home and immediately told the disciples what they heard. Good news arrives!

And then it’s dismissed. Luke informs us, [the women and their words] appeared before [the men] as if silly, idle nonsense; they were disbelieving the women (v.11). The good news the women brought falls flat at the feet of the men they told; [11] save one. Peter is the only who listened and is intrigued enough to run to the tomb, and after stooping to look he saw only the piece of fine linen and then he departed toward home marveling at what had happened (v.12). According to Luke, Peter not only denied Jesus but then didn’t tell the others that the women were correct; he just remained silent and amazed. [12] Here, Luke draws purposeful attention to the faithfulness of the women who proclaimed the good news even when it sounded ludicrous.[13] They didn’t linger among the dead; inspired by faith,[14] they ran straight into (new) life, spreading the good news of the one who is living, the risen Jesus the Christ. In this moment filled with swelling divine life, the women were resistant to wandering. They ran toward the risen Christ boldly entering a new reality and order where death succumbs to life.[15]

Conclusion

For us who are prone to wander because we forsake and forget the way of the reign of God, this morning we are given Christ himself—all of him—so that we never forget or forsake the way. For us who are addicted to treading on and tromping about the land and on others, we have received a new way to walk in the world demonstrated by the running feet of the women: swift and sensitive, eager to bring good news rather than pain! For us who find ourselves estranged by our own doing and having become strangers to God, to our neighbor, to creation, and to ourselves we are beckoned out of the oppressive col of self-imposed tombs of isolation and are given a community with God, with others, with creation, and with ourselves built on and by the love of Christ. For us who know the pain of being caught in the captivity of misjudging and prejudging others according to our own human standards, we are refused that plumbline and, instead, we are given divine love, life, and liberation as our new metrics of good and right. For us who are drunk with violence and death, we receive what we do not deserve this morning: peace and life eternal.

This morning we’re given something completely new, completely different, completely strange to the kingdom of humanity. We are given life, love, and liberation. And while we benefit from this, we are given these things specifically so we can participate in God’s divine mission of the revolution of love, life and liberation in the world for the God’s beloved. We are refused the option of living as if we’ve not heard, seen, felt, tasted, smelled the good news. We are charged to take up the way of Christ and live as if the Cross isn’t the end of the story but the beginning. The women who were encountered in the empty tomb were charged to stop looking for the living among the dead; their lives were never ever the same.[16] So it is with us: our call to be disciples taking up their cross and follow Jesus isn’t gone, it’s the only way we have because the path we learned from the kingdom of humanity is forever blocked off.[17] This morning, we’re not the same as we were yesterday morning; this morning, we’ve encountered an empty tomb and heard the announcement from the celestial realm: he is not here he is risen! How could we ever live in the old way? Everything is now new.

Today, our willful and chaotic wandering collides with the steady path of Christ that is dangerous and not careful, that is risky and not safe, that is radical and not status quo, that will afflict and not always comfort.[18] Today we live under the weight of the question, Why are you seeking the one who lives among the dead? (v. 5). Go, Beloved, and live radically and wildly in the name of God and for the well-being of your neighbor and do so in a way that brings God glory and might get you in a little bit of good trouble. You’ve been summoned into life not death, into love and not indifference, into liberation and not captivity.

[1] Fom the hymn “Come Thou Fount”

[2] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 272. “In 23:55 Luke directed our attention to the women who were present at the burial, and now he continues telling us about the activities of these women once the Sabbath rest had passed.”

[3] Gonzalez, Luke, 272. “It is interesting to note that here again Luke will tell parallel but different stories about the women disciples and the men…These women have been present, but have remained mostly in the background of the story, even since Luke introduced them in 8:2-3. In the narrative of the passion and burial, even while others deny Jesus or flee, these women stand firm, although at a distance. Now they come to the foreground as the first witnesses to the resurrection.”

[4] Gonzalez, Luke, 272-273. “They, no less than the rest, believe that in the cross all has come to an end. It is time to return home to their more traditional lives. But before they do that, they must perform one least act of love for their dead Master: they must anoint his body.”

[5] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 837. “How was the stone removed? Luke’s account neglects such detail, for he wants to move quickly to the pivotal discovery of an empty tomb.”

[6] Gren, Luke, 838-839. “‘Luke underscores the faithfulness of their testimony by noting that they announced ‘all these things’—that is, what they had observed, what they had been told, and the new significance they attributed to Jesus’ passion and the absence of his corpse.”

[7] Green, Luke, 837-838. “These women come looking for Jesus, but they want to minister to him, and as they quickly discover, because they lack understanding, they are looking in the wrong place. The angels first admonish them, employing language that is reminiscent of Jesus’ rejoinder to the Sadducees in 20:38: God is not the God of the dead but of the living! That is, in spite of their devout intentions in coming to anoint Jesus’ body, these women have failed to grasp Jesus’ message about the resurrection and, thus, have not taken with appropriate gravity the power of God.”

[8] Gren, Luke, 838. “The antidote for this miscalculation is remembrance. The women are addressed as person who had themselves received Jesus’ teaching in Galilee, and the angel’s message fuses Jesus’ predictions during the Galilean phase of his ministry…Thus they are reminded that the career of the Son of Man blends the two motifs of suffering and vindication, and that in doing so he fulfills the divine will.”

[9] Gonzalez, Luke, 273. “The women do not see the resurrected Jesus. The two figures at the tomb (presumably angels) simply tell them that he has risen just as he had foretold, and they believe. Luke does not even say, as do Matthew and Mark (Matt. 28:7; Mrk 16:7), that they are instructed to tell the rest of the disciples (an injunction they follow in Matthew, but not in Mark). They simply hear the witness of the two men at the tomb, and apparently on their own initiative go and tell the others.”

[10] Gren, Luke, 838. Seim qtd in. “Their reception of the resurrection message ‘confirms their discipleship and the instruction they have received as disciples.’”

[11] Green, Luke, 839-840. “The gap between male and female disciples widens, as the faithful account of the women falls on the cynical and unbelieving ears of the men. Nothing more than useless chatter—this is how their announcement is evaluated and discarded. This can be explained in at least to aways. First, the earlier situation of the women disciples is being repeated int eh case of their male counterpart; failing to grasp Jesus’ teaching regarding his suffering and resurrection, they cannot make sense of the news share d with them. At the same time, however, Luke’s ‘all this’ (v 8) cannot but include the message they had received form the angels, so that the men were given access to the significance of recent events. The dismissive response of the men is therefore better explained with reference to the fact that those doing the reporting are women in a world biased against the admissibility of women as witnesses.” Peter’s response is all the more positive.

[12] Green, Luke, 840. Amazement is not faith nor does it hint at the eventual genuine faith. “Unlike the women, [Peter] returns home with no new message to share.”

[13] Gonzalez, Luke, 273. “The contrast is such that one cannot avoid the conclusion that it is purposeful, and that Luke is stressing the faith of these women who have traveled with Jesus from Galilee, and who were the only ones who remained true throughout the entire story of the betrayal. Even though the later course of church history, with its expectation of entirely male leadership, would lead us to think otherwise, it is they who bring the message of the resurrection to the eleven, and not vice versa.”

[14] Green, Luke, 836. “The Evangelist has repeatedly noted the incapacity of the disciples to grasp this truth…but now he signals a breakthrough on the part of the women. If the male disciples continue in their obtuseness, and thus lack of faith, at least Peter response to the witness of the women by going to the tomb. His behavior portends at last the possibility of a more full understanding of Jesus’ message on their part.”

[15] Gonzalez, Luke, 274. “The resurrection is not the continuation of the story. Nor is it just its happy ending. It is the beginning of a new story, of a new age in history.”

[16] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “But the truth is that the resurrection of Jesus, and the dawning of the new with him, poses a threat to any who would rather continue living as if the cross were the end of the story. The women on their way to the tomb were planning to perform one last act of love for Jesus, and then would probably just return home to their former lives. Peter and the rest would eventually return to their boats, their nets, and the various occupations. But now the empty tomb opens new possibilities. Now there is no way back to the former life in Galilee. Even though Luke tells us that Peter simply went home after seeing the empty tomb, we will soon learn that this was not the end of it: Peter himself would eventually die on his own cross.”

[17] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “The resurrection is a joyous event; but it also means that Jesus’ call for his disciples to take up their cross and follow him is still valid. The road to the old ways in Galilee is now barred. The resurrection of Jesus impels them forward to their own crosses, and indeed, we know that several of the disciples suffered violent death as the result of their following and proclaiming the Risen One.”

[18] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “The full message of Easter is both of joy and of challenge. It is. The announcement of unequaled and final victory, and the call to radical, dangerous, and even painful discipleship.”

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