Easter Sunday 2004

Translation

Notes

(17) Look!  I am creating new heavens and a new earth,

And the former things will not be remembered, nor will they come into mind.

(18) So be glad and rejoice forever about that which I am creating

For behold I am creating Jerusalem as rejoicing and its people as a delight.

(19) And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and I will be delighted in my people

No longer will the voice of weeping and of crying out be heard in it.

(20) There will no longer be there a child who dies in infancy,

or an elderly person who hasn’t fulfilled his days,

Because when someone dies at a hundred years old he?ll be considered young,

And anyone who dies at less than a hundred years will be considered cursed.

(21) They will build houses and live in them,

They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

(22) They will not build and another live there,

They will not plant and another eat,

For as the days of a tree will be the days of my people

and my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands.

(23) They will not labor in vain or bear children for terror,

because they will be seed of those blessed by YHWH,

and their offspring with them.

(24) And it will happen that before they call I will answer,

While they are still speaking I will hear.

(25) The wolf and the lamb will graze together as one,

and the lion and ox will eat straw,

and as for the snake, dust will be his food.

They will not hurt nor will they destroy in all my holy mountain.

YHWH has spoken.

I am creating ? Hebrew bara? which refers only to activity of God and to the production of something new or unique.  It does not exclude, as is sometimes taught, creation from preexisting material.  Such an interpretation here would be more radical than is intended.  The same word occurs three times in quick succession in verses 17 and 18.

Note that this is not the eschatological age or spiritual ?life after death? in which everyone is immortal, but is rather an age in which there is still ordinary death, but in which life is both freed from tragedy and extended.

Instead of the Biblical 70 years as a good lifetime we have 100 years considered young.

The ordinary labors go on, but are fruitful.

Again, not immortality, but long life.

This is the promise that prayer and worship will be successful.

We are presented with God?s holy mountain as a garden, and with allusions such as the serpent eating dust, our attention is drawn to the garden of Eden.  In one sense we have a new thing; in another, the renewal of an old one.

We should be extremely careful in applying this material to the earth after the second coming of Christ.  That application is drawn from Revelation which makes significant verbal allusions to this passage, but this passage is clearly not speaking of immortality or of ?heaven? as we conceive of it as Christians.

Translation

Notes

(1) Praise YHWH for he is good,

for his graciousness is eternal.

(2) Let Israel now say, “His graciousness is eternal.”

(14) My strength and ability was YH(WH),

So he was my salvation.

(15) The sound of singing and salvation is in the tents of the victors.

The right hand of YHWH achieved victory.

(16) The right hand of YHWH was exalted,

The right hand of YHWH achieved victory.

(17) I shall not die, but live,

so I can recount the deeds of YH(WH)

(18) YH(WH) has severely disciplined me,

he did not hand me over to death.

(19) Open to me, gates of victory,

I will enter them and I will praise YH(WH).

(20) This is the gate for YHWH,

Let those who are victorious enter it.

(21) I will praise you because you answered me,

And you became my savior.

(22) The stone that the builders rejected

Has become the key cornerstone.

(23) This is something that comes from YHWH,

It is marvelous in our eyes.

(24) This is the day that YHWH has made,

Let’s rejoice and be glad in him.

YHWH was the one who gave strength

Victors ? perhaps overcomers.  I took this Translation from Dahood (AB: Psalms III), but having read the text I think there is a clear case for including victorious and perhaps efficacious deeds as well as correct deeds in the semantic range of Hebrew tsedek.

There is always a purpose beyond the obvious in the deeds of YHWH.  In this case, while the purpose of the psalmist is clearly his own victory, God has in mind the testimony he will give to God?s acts.

Often God uses things that we humans reject.  In our weakness he is strong.  In the case of Easter?in death Jesus was rejected, his mission finished and a failure.  In the resurrection he proves triumphant.  The rejected stone becomes the head.

Translation

Notes

(19) If it is for this life only that we have placed our hope in Christ, we are more to be pitied than all humanity.

(20) But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruit of those who have died.  (21) For since through a human being death came, resurrection of the dead also came through a human being.  (22) For in the same way that in Adam all die in Christ all will be made alive.  (23) But each in his own sequence, first Christ, then those who belong to Christ at his appearance, (24) then the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he tears down every power and every authority and source of strength.  (25) For it is necessary for him to reign until he puts every enemy under his feet.  (26) The last enemy to be rendered powerless is death.

An interesting note on the human side of Jesus mission.  A human being had to accomplish certain things for our salvation and reconciliation to God.

According to Paul, the defeat of death is not complete until the victory of Easter is applied to all at the end of time

Translation

Notes

(34)  Then Peter began to speak, “I now really understand that God does not show partiality,

(35) but in all nations those who fear him and do righteous deeds are acceptable to him.  (36) The message he sent to the children of Israel, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ is that Jesus is Lord of everyone.  (37) You yourselves know the word that went through all Judea, starting from Galilee after the Baptism that John proclaimed. (38) Jesus from Nazareth, as God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power went all around doing good deeds and healing everyone who was being oppressed by the devil, because God was with him.  (39) And we are witnesses of everything that he did in the country of Judea and in Jerusalem.

This was the one whom they also destroyed, hanging him on a tree (40) and God raised on the third day and made him visible,

(41) not to all the people but to witnesses appointed beforehand by God,

to us who ate with him and drank with him after he was raised from the dead.

  (42) And he instructed us to proclaim to the people and to bear witness that he is the one who was foreordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.  (43) All the prophets bore witness to this one that everyone who believes in him might receive forgiveness of sins through his name.

Partiality was a common understanding of what it meant that God had chosen the Jewish people as ?his? people.  In fact, starting with the original call to Abraham, there is a key element of enlightening the nations.  This element starts in Genesis 12:3 ?all nations being blessed in/through Abraham? and is carried through the prophetic tradition (Isaiah 42 and 51, for example).  The Jewish people were chosen to serve God in a special way and to show God?s righteousness to the world.

Here Peter is getting the idea that God finds people other than Jews acceptable to him, something that was really implicit in Judaism.

This was the life mission of Jesus.

Peter is focusing on the witness.  He was a witness to what Jesus had done.  Often we as Christians try to be witnesses without having anything to witness.  God has to take action in our lives before we can bear witness to such action.  Simply repeated someone else?s story isn?t adequate.  We need to add to the story.

The witness of Jesus is not complete without his life, his death and his resurrection together.  A focus on the passion on its own is not balanced.  Jesus lived and taught as a man, he was killed as a man, and then he was raised from the dead.

Again the focus on witness.  While we do not have available any eyewitness to the story, we can each experience the spiritual reality of the risen Jesus.  If we do not, we cannot really call ourselves ?witnesses? in the sense that term is used in scripture.  Paul, for example, was a spiritual witness who encountered Jesus after the fact and in a vision.  He could testify to the impact of the risen Christ.

I believe there are two unbalanced views of the resurrection.  One holds that the resurrection is not a historical experience, but only a spiritual experience?history doesn?t matter.  The other holds that the real key is solely the historical events are the sole interest, and that what we have now is just a technical result of believing in a set of facts.  I would suggest that the balance is a combination of both.

Another focus as in 1 Corinthians 15 on the bodily nature.  Note here that Jesus can still relate to those who live in the finite universe; he is still like us, even though he is portrayed as having new and different powers.

This is the proclamation.  To complete the atonement or reconciliation, the acts of Jesus must be proclaimed.  When we understand that God can cross any barrier, including that from infinity to something finite, we understand that other differences can be reconciled as well, that God is, indeed, impartial (2 Corinthians 5:18-21).

Translation

Notes

(1) Now on the first day of the week early in the morning while it was still dark Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and she saw the stone removed from the tomb.  (2) Then she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and she said to them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him.?  (3) Then Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.  (4) Now the two of them ran together, but the other disciple ran more quickly than Peter and he came first to the tomb, (5) and he stooped down and saw the grave clothes lying there, but he didn’t go in. (6) Then Simon Peter came as well following him and he went into the tomb and he saw the grave clothes lying, (7) and the face cloth, which was upon his head was not lying with the grave clothes but separately would up in one place.  (8) So then he went out and the other disciple who came first into the tomb also saw and he believed.  (9) for they did not yet know the scripture that he must rise from the dead.

(10) Then the disciples went home again.

(11) But Mary stood by the tomb outside weeping.  Then as she was crying, she bent down into the tomb (12) and she saw two angels in white clothing sitting one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain. (13) And they said to her, “Woman, why are you crying?”  She says to them, “They have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they have placed him.”  (14) When she had said these things she turned around and saw Jesus standing but she didn’t know it was Jesus.  (15) Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you crying?  Who are you looking for?”  Now she, thinking he was the gardener, said to him, “Sir, if you have taken him, tell me whether you have put him, and I will take him away.”  (16) Jesus said to her, “Mary!”  Then she turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabbouni” (which means “teacher”).  (17) Jesus said to her, “Don’t keep grabbing me, for I have not yet gone to my father.  Now go to my brothers and tell them, “I am going to my father and your father and my God and your God.?

(18) Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had said these things to her.

Mary is surprised and doesn?t know what to do.  Her reaction is to get others so they can figure it out.  The concern is not to find Jesus.  Nobody at this point in the story thinks he is alive.  Rather, the concern is what is happening to the body.

The key to the story in John, both here and elsewhere is the process of coming to belief.  The indication here is that the resurrection was unexpected, that the disciples and the various women coming to the tomb had not any prior idea that such a thing was predicted in scripture.  Thus the belief in the resurrection comes first (Leon Morris, The Gospel of John), and the prophetic data that fill out that belief come later.

The disciples don?t know anything else to do so they go home, but Mary isn?t satisfied.  As far as we can tell, only the ?beloved disciple? has come to faith at this point.

Mary can?t let go and so she hangs around looking for answers.  There is something wonderful about the beloved disciple just believing, but there is also something good about Mary unwilling to let go and looking for answers.

One of the key elements of meetings with the risen Jesus is that he is not generally recognized when he first appears.  There are reactions of fear and confusion.

Jesus has his own necessary agenda and will not hang around.  While he can still interact, the relationship will never be the same.  He let?s Mary know here that he is going to be leaving again.

Something that will be a feature of Christianity ever afterward comes into play here?belief on the basis of the witness of others.  Mary tells the disciples what had happened, but they will take some time to understand the experience for themselves.

Translation

Notes

(1) Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning they came to the tomb carrying the spices that had been prepared.  (2) And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, (3) and when they had gone in they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus.  (4) And it happened as they were in doubt concerning this two men appeared in shining garments.  (5) And they became very afraid and bowed till their faces touched the ground, and they said to them, “Why do you seek the living with the dead. (6) He is not here, but he has risen.  Remember how he spoke to you while you were still in Galilee (7) saying that the son of man must be handed over into the hands of sinful humans and be crucified and on the third day he will rise again.  (8) And they remembered his words.  (9) And they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all those who remained.  (10) There were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the rest with them.  They told these things to the apostles (11) and these words appeared before them as idle talk, and they didn’t believe them.  (12) But Peter rose up and ran to the tomb and he bent down and saw the grave clothes alone, and he went marveling to himself at what had happened.

Note that Luke refers back to the words of Jesus, while John looks back to the prophecies of the Old Testament.

Peter?s interest is aroused first here, as well as in John.  Perhaps this is another commonality, not noticed by Morris.