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John 20:1-18

 

two stories from the resurrection tradition - This gospel lesson can be read in conversation with 1 Corinthians 15:45: "he was raised . . . and he appeared." What Paul teaches as the paradosis or tradition that early Christian interpreters handed on, is given narrative form in John 20 with two intriguing resurrection stories. These narratives provide us with different angles on what it means to meet the risen Christ.

structure - Notice the sandwiching style that the Fourth Evangelist uses in telling these two stories: he begins the first story (20:1-2), then inserts the second story into the narrative (20:3-10) before returning to carry the first story to it’s conclusion (20:11-18). The glue that holds the two narratives together is the report of the empty tomb-that is the question the reader should be asking: where is Jesus?

race to the tomb - interpreters are fascinated by this detail-foot race to the tomb. Does Peter’s second place suggest that the other disciple was younger than he? Was Peter meant to represent Jewish Christianity while the other disciple represented Gentile Christianity? Are we seeing a competition between Petrine and Johannine Christianity? [1]

 

Name the chain of events that helped to meet the risen Christ?

With which character do you most identify? Peter? The other disciple? Mary Magdalene?

What fresh possibilities has Jesus’ death on the cross, its revelation of God’s love, his resurrection and ascension opened for you?

 

For a homily on this passage, please refer to this week’s homily on DPS, entitled, "Why Are You Weeping?"

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[1] The Interpreter’s Bible IX

 

 

 

Luke 24:1-12

OVERVIEW - While all of the evangelists attest to the resurrection of Jesus, the empty tomb looms large in the writings of the gospels; yet each tells the story of the empty tomb from perspectives unique to their gospels. In the abbreviated version that is Mark’s, the women run out of the empty tomb telling "no one nothing;" in Matthew the women have a personal visit from Jesus enroute from tomb to disciples; John zooms in on one of the women-Mary Magdalene-who goes to the tomb alone who later reports to the disciples what she has witnessed. But in Luke we make a smooth transition from Jesus’ burial in 23 right to the women who carry spices they have prepared for the corpse. Two men "in dazzling clothes" meet them with a rhetorical question and answer that proclaims the resurrection.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PASSION - In the midst of tending to the necessary chores, especially the things that need to be done in the hard times, the women were met by the unexpected experience of God’s grace. Sometimes faith means going on and tending to the necessary chores. Prepare the spices, go to the tomb, tell the others, even when they think it an idle tale. Be faithful in the tasks that are ours and do the necessary tasks, for in them we, too, may be bearers of the good news of the day: "he is not here, but has risen!" [1]

CS LEWIS - Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live forever . . . If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilization, which may last for a thousand ears, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilsation, compared with his, is only a moment. [1]

 

"Why do you look for the living among the dead?" the angel asks the women. In what ways do we continue to look for the living Lord among the dead? Where would the living Lord be found if not in the tomb? (Among the first witnesses, Jesus showed up among the grieving, fear-filled disciples, in a Samaritan village, and inside the household of a Gentile Samaritan.)

 

You might consider wrapping a sermon around the phrase, "Remember how he told you . . ." Death has a way in our own thinking when we lay a loved one in the grave of severing the connections between us and the past. However, choosing to remember God’s faithful presence in the past gives us resources for dealing with the present. The iridescent messengers in this lesson appeal to the women to remember "Galilee." "God vindicated Jesus-remember Galilee. Remember what Jesus had done and what he had taught. Remember the meals in Jesus’ fellowship, his healings and his parables, the bent woman and the ten lepers. Would you understand the meaning of the empty tomb? Remember Galilee.

Another possibility would be to explore the implications of the connections paragraph-looking for Jesus in the wrong places. Take the religious leaders who now felt that they had brushed Jesus aside as a gadfly; they could now return to religion as usual-services, debates, alms-giving, synagogue worship. No longer would they have to mess with the stinky outsiders that this prophet championed. Yet the resurrection suggests that Jesus just won’t stay put. And take the women who had prepared spices to anoint his corpse and had gone to the tomb early to finish the burial. "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" That is, "why are you looking in a cemetery for Jesus?" In what ways do we continue to look in the wrong places? How can we find him among the living? Suggest several concrete or congregational ways as your closing.

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[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible IX (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995),
[2] Patricia Klein, ed., A Year With C.S. Lewis (San Francisco: Harper Row, 2003), page 207.