Easter Thursday: Matthew 6.25-34

6.32    Have people changed in two millennia?

“I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist.”  Optimism and Pessimism are both distortions of reality, to appear either better or worse than it truly is.  “Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!”  That is the true reality, which puts everything else in proper perspective.

Easter Wednesday: Matthew 2.1-12

2.1   Scholars think that “After” may mean a considerable time afterwards; that the star in v7 is announcing the birth; v11 mentions a house not a stable, and a child not a baby; and v16 means that it was up to two years later.  That’s why Epiphany is separate, after Christmas.

2.7   “Secretly”?  But all Jerusalem was disturbed!  Surprising that Herod didn’t send soldiers with them.

“Three wise men,” Tom?  I’m surprised at you, making that assumption!  I like the idea of carrying on this week, to link the story to our story today.  But I’m not sure it isn’t reading too much into Matthew to see him as a subtle theologian making points of principle: is Tom Wright seeing Matthew in Tom’s own image?

Easter Tuesday: Matthew 28.16-20

28.16  This has the feeling of a wrap-up, the conclusion; but it remains an open-ended conclusion, and with none of the textual doubt surrounding Mark’s ending.

28.17  This “some doubted” is amazing, I think: a tribute to the resilience of non-belief!  Was it because He looked different after the Resurrection; or purely because they did not wish to believe?

28.20  God with us: see 1.23

“All authority…on earth has been given to me.”  Jesus is King over all!
“Therefore, go and make disciples, baptising them…”  A different kind of kingdom, and a different way of living.  I think the best example might have been those Christians in the Roman Empire who suffered and died like Christ, but whose courageous lives eventually persuaded even the Emperor towards Christ.  “If Jesus himself is with you, what should you be doing?”

Easter Monday: Matthew 28.11-15

28.11  A guard who let the prisoner escape would normally be executed, but this prisoner was a corpse: the threat was meant to come from the disciples (27.64), not from an angel (v2-4).

28.13  Not very interested in the truth, then?

28.15  Matthew alleges that the official account is a deliberate conspiracy to lie and conceal the truth.

I love Tom turning the tables on the sceptics: that it is they who are adjusting the facts to align with their beliefs.  He also neatly points out how the disciples were not expecting the Resurrection anyway.  Sceptics so often caricature the beliefs of Christians; and if we’re not careful, we meekly accept the caricature.  For example, Dawkins saying that all Christians believe in a nasty vindictive deity, instead of a God of love.  We should be quick to explain what we really believe.

Easter Day: Matthew 28.1-10

28.6    The women arrive at the tomb; then the angel comes down and rolls back the stone; the angel tells them that Jesus has already risen, presumably before they arrived and while the stone still sealed the tomb.  The stone is rolled back so that they can inspect the tomb (6).

28.7    I love the angel’s artless phrase “Now I have told you”, as if he has discharged his commission and feels relieved and satisfied at a task completed.

28.8    “Afraid yet filled with joy” describes perfectly the mix of powerful emotions after an encounter with God.  How often, in these encounters, are people told “Do not be afraid” (v10)?

28.9    They did hold onto him: John 20.17 sounds like a warning not to start, but may instead be a request to desist.  Or perhaps different words to each of the Marys?

Christus Aneste!  Christ is Risen – He is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

Holy Week: Holy Saturday: Matthew 27.57-66

I hadn’t thought of that analogy: we live in a “Holy Saturday” era, when we need to keep faith and do what has to be done, and wait for God to act.  Not an excuse for disobedience and inattentiveness, but at least a reason not to get intense or frantic.

Holy Week: Good Friday: Matthew 27.33-56

27.35  I wonder if the marginal reading is a bit like these notes: some copyist’s meditation in the margin.  There would be little reason to delete an OT cross-reference from Matthew’s own pen.

27.43  Even if Jesus didn’t say this, he implied it so strongly that they heard it.

27.44  Even today many people mock God, and with patience He suffers it.

27.51  From top to bottom: heaven’s initiative.  The tombs breaking open is a weird touch: together, all these phenomena seem to be saying that a cataclysmic event has occurred, and the Creation goes into spasm in reaction.

“The hopes and fears of all the years are met in him, here on the cross.”  The phrase resonates from Christmas, when prophecies were fulfilled in the birth.  And yet here are prophecies focused on the cross, and the saving death of Christ.  “A God unlike any other.”