EASTER DAY
Worship
Scripture Notes
For use with Common, Lutheran and Roman Catholic Lectionaries
More than on any other day during the Church Year, our Easter Day message must be subjective and it must be personal. It is not an objective, impersonal report of a historical incident; instead, it is an all-important statement of faith. The heart of our message must be, "I believe." More specifically, it must be, "I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and that God will also raise me and will raise you from the dead!" No Easter message is adequate without this statement of faith. It is not sufficient to say that others believe, or even that we believe. We must say "I believe." This is the Easter message that the people come to hear. It is the message that attracts them on Easter Day and attracts them also on every other day that it is proclaimed.
Our statement of faith, "I believe!" should be followed by the invitation, "I invite you also to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and that God will also raise you and me from the dead." The invitation must be explicit. It must be direct. It is this invitation and the response to it that produced the church and has maintained it over the centuries. Without this invitation and the response to it the church will die.
Our statement of faith and our invitation to believe must be followed by an element of parenesis. Those who believe will want to live in ways that are appropriate to their belief. The texts selected for our use on Easter Day provide the resources that we need for our expression of faith, for our invitation to faith, and for the parenesis.
Common, Lutheran: John 20:1-18
(or Matthew 28:1-10)
Roman Catholic: John 20:1-9
It would be entirely appropriate to emphasize within the Easter proclamation that the first witnesses to the empty tomb and the first proclaimers of the Easter message according to all Four Gospels were women, and that Mary Magdalene is prominent in all four accounts. That it is said in Luke 8:2 and Mark 16:9 that Jesus had cast out seven demons from Mary Magdalene may be an indication in cryptogram form that she had at one time been one of the "demon-possessed" among Jesus' own people who cooperated with the oppressive Roman military forces in Palestine, but that Jesus had called her away from that to return to the worship of Yahweh and the Israelite perception of God. At any rate, it is ironic and sad that even though our Gospel accounts clearly indicate that it was Mary Magdalene and other women who were the first to proclaim the Easter message, large and powerful Christian denominations choose to make a literalistic, uncritical interpretation of other texts such as 1 Timothy 2:11-15 their standard in denying women equal leadership rights within the church, or accept the leadership of women pastors only reluctantly, while ignoring the implications of these proclamations of the Easter message in the Four Gospels.
In John 20:14-18 it is written that Mary Magdalene saw the resurrected Jesus and clung to him. The writer of John 20:17 did not say that Mary Magdalene did not touch the resurrected Jesus. The use of the grammatical construction of the negative particle with the present imperative of the Greek word "touch" in 20:17 is an indication that the action of touching could not continue, not that it should not begin. Therefore, the expression in 20:17 should be carefully translated into English as "Do not continue to hold me," not as "Do not touch me!" The latter would have been indicated by using the negative particle with the Greek aorist subjunctive. When Mary Magdalene could no longer cling to Jesus, the writer of John 20:14-18 said that she went to a group of male disciples of Jesus to make her glorious Easter confession of faith, "I have seen the Lord!" Her confession of faith is the prime model for our confession of faith on this day.
Colossians 3:1-4
With its words, "If, therefore, you have been raised from the dead together with Christ," in 3:1 this text comes rather close to the Gnostic Christian teaching that for the person who believes in Jesus the resurrection has already occurred. What the inspired writer of Colossians 3:1-4 intended, apparently, was that those who are "in Christ" have been delivered from the authority of those who are in power on this earth (the Roman State, its Emperor, and Roman Civil Religion that makes ultimate claims) and have been established in God's kingdom through baptism in Jesus' name and through faith in the resurrected Christ, who is "the image of the invisible God." Along with this text, we should consider Colossians 1:13, where we read that God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness (the Roman State at the time of the writing of Colossians) and transferred us to the kingdom of Jesus, God's beloved Son.
Common, Lutheran: Acts 10:34-43
Roman Catholic: Acts 10:34, 37-43
As we become more aware of the religious and political situation in the Roman Empire late during the first century of the common era, we continue to increase our appreciation to God for the skill of the inspired Lukan writer. Acts 10 not only is an indication of the spread of the early church beyond Jews to Gentiles; it depicts a Roman military officer embracing the faith of the oppressed early Christians. The Lukan writer has given to us a story of a ranking officer among the Roman oppressors being baptized in the name of the crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus Christ! In addition, the Lukan writer may have included in the story a daring, subtle cryptogram against the Roman Emperor in Acts 10:38-39 in Peter's speech in the home of Cornelius. The Lukan writer has Peter describe the Jesus of history as having gone from place to place doing good among his people and healing all who were being oppressed by the "devil." The "devil" here may have been intended by the Lukan writer to have been a coded reference to the Roman Emperor and the Roman State, a code readily understandable to followers of Jesus during the latter decades of the first century (especially during the last years of the oppressive Emperor Domitian, 80-96 C.E.), but so subtle that Roman officials would think that the "devil" was merely theological jargon.
Common:
Psalm 118:14-24
Lutheran: Psalm 118:1-2, 15-24
Roman Catholic: Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
This Psalm 118 exhortation to give thanks to the Lord, this proclamation of God's mercy, this celebration of the gracious act of God in restoring life to the psalmist is appropriate for use in a Christian Easter Day service. The psalm can be sung with gladness, for it ties us to other people of God in antiquity and to other people of God now, even in a Christian Easter Day celebration in which we confess our faith in God and rejoice in God's redeeming power and love.
Our statement of faith, "I believe!" should be followed by the invitation, "I invite you also to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and that God will also raise you and me from the dead." The invitation must be explicit. It must be direct. It is this invitation and the response to it that produced the church and has maintained it over the centuries. Without this invitation and the response to it the church will die.
Our statement of faith and our invitation to believe must be followed by an element of parenesis. Those who believe will want to live in ways that are appropriate to their belief. The texts selected for our use on Easter Day provide the resources that we need for our expression of faith, for our invitation to faith, and for the parenesis.
Common, Lutheran: John 20:1-18
(or Matthew 28:1-10)
Roman Catholic: John 20:1-9
It would be entirely appropriate to emphasize within the Easter proclamation that the first witnesses to the empty tomb and the first proclaimers of the Easter message according to all Four Gospels were women, and that Mary Magdalene is prominent in all four accounts. That it is said in Luke 8:2 and Mark 16:9 that Jesus had cast out seven demons from Mary Magdalene may be an indication in cryptogram form that she had at one time been one of the "demon-possessed" among Jesus' own people who cooperated with the oppressive Roman military forces in Palestine, but that Jesus had called her away from that to return to the worship of Yahweh and the Israelite perception of God. At any rate, it is ironic and sad that even though our Gospel accounts clearly indicate that it was Mary Magdalene and other women who were the first to proclaim the Easter message, large and powerful Christian denominations choose to make a literalistic, uncritical interpretation of other texts such as 1 Timothy 2:11-15 their standard in denying women equal leadership rights within the church, or accept the leadership of women pastors only reluctantly, while ignoring the implications of these proclamations of the Easter message in the Four Gospels.
In John 20:14-18 it is written that Mary Magdalene saw the resurrected Jesus and clung to him. The writer of John 20:17 did not say that Mary Magdalene did not touch the resurrected Jesus. The use of the grammatical construction of the negative particle with the present imperative of the Greek word "touch" in 20:17 is an indication that the action of touching could not continue, not that it should not begin. Therefore, the expression in 20:17 should be carefully translated into English as "Do not continue to hold me," not as "Do not touch me!" The latter would have been indicated by using the negative particle with the Greek aorist subjunctive. When Mary Magdalene could no longer cling to Jesus, the writer of John 20:14-18 said that she went to a group of male disciples of Jesus to make her glorious Easter confession of faith, "I have seen the Lord!" Her confession of faith is the prime model for our confession of faith on this day.
Colossians 3:1-4
With its words, "If, therefore, you have been raised from the dead together with Christ," in 3:1 this text comes rather close to the Gnostic Christian teaching that for the person who believes in Jesus the resurrection has already occurred. What the inspired writer of Colossians 3:1-4 intended, apparently, was that those who are "in Christ" have been delivered from the authority of those who are in power on this earth (the Roman State, its Emperor, and Roman Civil Religion that makes ultimate claims) and have been established in God's kingdom through baptism in Jesus' name and through faith in the resurrected Christ, who is "the image of the invisible God." Along with this text, we should consider Colossians 1:13, where we read that God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness (the Roman State at the time of the writing of Colossians) and transferred us to the kingdom of Jesus, God's beloved Son.
Common, Lutheran: Acts 10:34-43
Roman Catholic: Acts 10:34, 37-43
As we become more aware of the religious and political situation in the Roman Empire late during the first century of the common era, we continue to increase our appreciation to God for the skill of the inspired Lukan writer. Acts 10 not only is an indication of the spread of the early church beyond Jews to Gentiles; it depicts a Roman military officer embracing the faith of the oppressed early Christians. The Lukan writer has given to us a story of a ranking officer among the Roman oppressors being baptized in the name of the crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus Christ! In addition, the Lukan writer may have included in the story a daring, subtle cryptogram against the Roman Emperor in Acts 10:38-39 in Peter's speech in the home of Cornelius. The Lukan writer has Peter describe the Jesus of history as having gone from place to place doing good among his people and healing all who were being oppressed by the "devil." The "devil" here may have been intended by the Lukan writer to have been a coded reference to the Roman Emperor and the Roman State, a code readily understandable to followers of Jesus during the latter decades of the first century (especially during the last years of the oppressive Emperor Domitian, 80-96 C.E.), but so subtle that Roman officials would think that the "devil" was merely theological jargon.
Common:
Psalm 118:14-24
Lutheran: Psalm 118:1-2, 15-24
Roman Catholic: Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
This Psalm 118 exhortation to give thanks to the Lord, this proclamation of God's mercy, this celebration of the gracious act of God in restoring life to the psalmist is appropriate for use in a Christian Easter Day service. The psalm can be sung with gladness, for it ties us to other people of God in antiquity and to other people of God now, even in a Christian Easter Day celebration in which we confess our faith in God and rejoice in God's redeeming power and love.
