Gospel Readings:
Matthew 28:1-10
Matthew 28:11-15
Matthew 27:16-20
Devotion 1
Wait: Take time to sit in silence together, allowing space for God’s voice to be heard.
Read: Matthew 28:1-10
Jesus is in the tomb, dead and contained by the powers. Two women, Mary Magdalene and another also called Mary, come to visit. What they find when they arrive at the tomb is surprising. Matthew describes the scene as a “great earthquake”, the stone which was rolled over the tomb’s entrance is now rolled back, and sitting atop it is an “angel of the Lord”. Moreover, the guards, seeing this, “shook and became like dead men.” “The irony”, says Hagner, “is not to be missed: the ones assigned to guard the dead themselves appear dead while the dead one has been made alive.”1
Mary and Mary had followed Jesus, and remained with him during his crucifixion when all others had fled. The had watched as his body was buried, a loving, dignifying presence. Now, they are the first ones to see that something new, something amazing is happening. The story hasn’t come to a crushing end, as those who oversaw Jesus’ state-sponsored murder maintained. These marginal women, who had followed Jesus from marginal Galilee, now saw that the story would continue.
Matthew doesn’t tell us exactly what happened inside the tomb. But he does tell us what it means. The events at the tomb on that morning spark fear—both for the guards and for the women. But to the women, Mary and Mary—the marginal, those on the underside of power—twice comes the exhortation, “Do not be afraid.” The powers have seemed all-encompassing, unmovable, all-conquering. Those who dreamed of a new world—the one Matthew calls “the kingdom of heaven”—have had that dream shattered by the murderous exploitation and oppressive policies of an empire proclaiming fake “peace”. But now, still, the word comes: “Do not be afraid.” Marcus Borg describes the significance of Jesus’ resurrection like this:
The execution of Jesus was the rejection of Jesus by the religious and political authorities of the day. The domination system killed him. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s vindication of Jesus. It is a simple no-yes pattern: Jesus’ death was the domination system’s no to what he was doing; Jesus’ resurrection was God’s yes to Jesus. It is therefore also God’s no to the rulers of this world.2
Jesus is vindicated by God. All that he lived and taught, now, after having been derided and delegitimated by the authorities has been shown to be of God. Jesus’ vision of the “kingdom of heaven” is still alive. It cannot be crushed by violence or state powers. It is a dream which will always live on the underside of power, and which will rise up to change the world.
Reflect
- How would you describe the significance of Jesus’ resurrection?
- In what ways do you see the hope of the resurrection in the world around you?
- In what ways in God’s Spirit inviting you to live into the words, “Do not be afraid”?
Pray
Share Communion
Close with the Lord’s Prayer
1 (Hagner, D., cited in Ben Witherington III. Matthew, (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2006), 528.
2 Marcus Borg, in Marcus J. Borg & N. T. Wright. The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions. Harper Collins e-Books, 1999. 137-138.
Devotion 2
Wait: Take time to sit in silence together, aware of God’s presence in a broken world.
Read: Matthew 28:11-15
What can the ruling powers do when their actions and authority have been exposed? Fake news. It’s not a new phenomenon. And so it was in Jesus’ day. “The irony of the story is meant to be heavy, because those who are so busy worrying about Jesus’ followers perpetrating a fraud about Jesus are about to perpetrate one themselves.”3 When the guards see what has happened, they go not to Pilate, but to the chief priests, who instruct them to put out a false story to explain the empty tomb. It is an awkward situation for the guards. Sleeping on duty for a soldier was punishable by death. It seems that they saw going to the chief priests, who had no jurisdiction over them but might be able to put in a good word (or a bribe), as better than going directly to the ruthless Pilate.
The chief priests, for their part, throw the soldiers under the bus. Their alternative is to tell the truth, which will, of course, cost them, but which would much more likely clear the soldiers before Pilate. The chief priests, however, are not interested in truth. Their interests are in maintaining current power arrangements in which they are on top. They will do everything in their power to maintain the status quo, at all costs. But it won’t be enough.
Reflect
- Where have you seen truth compromised in the interests of power tis week?
- In what ways have you seen “fake news” exposed?
- In ways is God’s Spirit inviting you to live out today’s reading?
Pray for one another.
Share Communion
Close with the Lord’s Prayer
3 Witherington, Matthew , 530.
Devotion 3
Wait: Take time to sit in the silence of repentance together, aware of our inadequacy and God’s grace.
Read: Matthew 28:16-20
Today’s reading brings the Gospel of Matthew to a close, and in doing so, brings some of its key themes to a culmination. Throughout the Gospel, the question of authority has been struggled over, as Jesus and the Jerusalem elite have debated the nature of true authority. Jesus has demonstrated in his teaching (Mt 7:29), and in acts of healing those thought by the elite to be sinners (Mt 9:6, 8), and in doing so has enacted God’s reign, in itself a challenge to the authority of Rome and its puppet rulers in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem elite, on the other hand, have continually tried to discredit Jesus, seeing him as a threat to the authority which they wield through threat of violence. And finally, their attempts to delegitimate Jesus’ authority have led to state-sponsored murder. But their attempts have fallen short, as only attempts to silence true authority can. Now, Jesus’ authority is revealed as he is raised by God.4
A second theme which culminates here at the end of the Gospel is that of God’s presence. At the beginning of the Gospel, Matthew recalls the prophet Isaiah’s words to Ahaz, the king of Judah under military threat from a northern alliance (Mt 1:23; Isa 7:14). A child will be born and be called Immanuel, which means “God with us”. Facing the threat of invasion and foreign domination, the people of Judah were to trust God rather than rely on foreign superpowers and their military might. Now, under the foreign domination of an imperial superpower, Matthew’s Gospel proclaims the word anew. God is with you. On the underside of power, as you endure the oppression of emperors and kings, God is with you.
Those who follow Jesus are to “[g]o therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” As we hear this we should be careful not to import our own meaning into what it is to make disciples and to teach Jesus’ commands. Missiologist David Bosch notes:
It is inadmissible to lift these words out of Matthew’s gospel, as it were all them a life of their own, and understand them without any reference to the context in which they first appeared. Where this happens, the “Great Commission” is easily degraded to a mere slogan, or used as a pretext for what we have in advance decided, perhaps unconsciously, it should mean.5
In Jesus’ command to make disciples we must hear all of the message of the Gospel of Matthew—that Jesus is with those on the underside, that he teaches his disciples practices of radical inclusion, of just economic practices and of love for neighbours, even enemies. That those who will be vindicated by God are those who have cared for the hungry and the unjustly treated.
The command is to make disciples—to make communities which embody the kingdom of heaven as Matthew’s Jesus has embodied it. “Go” is an assumption: the Greek word poreuthentes word assumes going—“having gone” is perhaps a better rendering. And Matthew’s community will go. They will be forced off their land by rich elites expanding their landholdings. They will be driven out of their Galilean villages into urban centres by the desperate need to find work. They will flee from war. They are a people who know displacement; torn from land and separated from families. They are a people who know what it is to be on the underside. And there, if they have eyes to see and courage to live it out, they will see God’s reign come on earth as it is in heaven.
Reflect
- What strikes you as significant in today’s reading?
- “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” In what ways do you think this claim would have been significant to Matthew’s community? In what ways can it be significant to you?
- In what ways do you sense God’s Spirit inviting you to live out Matthew’s Gospel?
Pray
Share Communion
Close with the Lord’s Prayer
4 Matthew’s language here echoes Daniel 7, in which the Human One is given “authority [which] is an everlasting authority” over the beastly empires (Dan 7:14). See Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2000), 551.
5 David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Third printing, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991), 57.
Devotion 4
Wait: Take time to sit in the silence of gratitude together, giving thanks for the ways you’ve experienced God’s loving kindness.
This week’s Common Value: Redistribution
Read: Deut 15:12-18; Acts 4:32-37; 2 Cor 8:1-15
Ask
- How might we help foster just economic and political relations in our neighbourhood and world this week?
Pray
Share Communion
Close with the Lord’s Prayer