PERICOPE STUDY
CENTER FOR THEOLOGY, LRC
Easter Sunday
March 31, 2002

Psalm 118:1-2, 15-24

1.          Luther did significant work on this Psalm while at the Coburg. He dedicated his efforts to Friedrich Pistorius in Nurnberg and sent it to him, saying: "These thoughts of mine I decided to send you as a gift. I have nothing better. Though some may consider this a lot of useless drivel, I know it contains nothing evil or unchristian. This is my own beloved psalm. Although the entire Psalter and all of Holy Scripture are dear to me as my only comfort and source of life, I fell in love with this psalm especially. Therefore I call it my own. When emperors and kings, the wise and the learned, and even the saints could not aid me, this psalm proved a friend and helped me out of many great troubles. As a result, it is dearer to me than all the wealth, honor, and power of the pope, the Turk, and the emperor. I would be most unwilling to trade this psalm for all of it." (from Preface, p. 45, Luther's Works, Vol. 14).

2.          The footnote declares "Psalm 118 remained Luther's favorite throughout his life. The words 'I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord' were his personal motto. Some scholars make the claim that he cites this psalm more frequently than any other, but in the absence of a complete index to his works it is impossible to substantiate such a claim."

3.          "O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His steadfast love endures forever!" (vs. 1) Luther writes that we "must not read the words good and His steadfast love endures forever! with dull indifference. Nor dare you skim over them 'as the nuns read the Psalter,' or as choirmasters and choristers bleat and bellow these fine words in the church. No, you must bear in mind that these are vibrant, significant, and meaningful words; they express and emphasize one theme: God is good, but not as a human being is good; from the very bottom of His heart He is inclined to help and do good continually." (p. 46)

4.          "I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord." (vs. 17) This verse "touches and states the trouble out of which God's hand delivers the righteous, namely, death. The righteous surely feel death when they are in mortal danger. Meeting death eye to eye is not a pleasant draft for the flesh. Death always appears in the company of sin and the Law. One readily understands that the saints are really martyrs, for they must live under the threat of death and wrestle and fight with death. ...”

5.          "It would be fine, I hold, if a man could forget about himself and mock the devil with an empty pocket as a certain poor householder mocked a thief whom he caught in his home one night.   He said, 'You silly thief, do you expect to find something here in the dark when I can't find anything in broad daylight?' What can the devil do when he finds a soul so naked that it can respond neither to sin nor to holiness? He must give up all his skill, both to puff up sin and to decry good works. He is referred to the right hand of God, and he must by all means let it alone. But if you forget this prescription and he seizes you in your sins and good works, and you begin to argue with him, to observe and hear him, then he will shape you to suit himself; and you will forget and forfeit God, His right hand, and everything." (p. 85)

6.          "The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." New Testament allusions to "stone rejected now chief cornerstone" include: Matt. 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17; Acts 4:11; Eph. 3:20; I Pet. 2:4, 7. The rejection of the builders was absolute, if not final. For whatever reasons--"that it is better that one should die than that many should perish," or "blaspheming in claiming that 'before Abraham was, I AM, " or jealousy, or whatever--the rejection of the builders and shapers of Judea of His time, the stone, the Rock of our salvation, was rejected. Indeed, obliterated.

7.          But the LORD's doing brings Him to the cornerstone.   The center of history. The Resurrected Christ.    This is the day which the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Only the psalmist could make so much joy of such an understatement.

************************************

ACTS 10:34-43

1.          St. Peter preached this sermon on the occasion of his encounter with Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Regiment stationed at Caesarea, a man who was said to be, along with his family, “God-fearing and devout.” That is, they were Gentiles who believed in God and who “gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.” An angel sent from God instructed him in a vision to summon Peter, a provocation from God that obliged the apostolic leader to face his ambivalence concerning the relationship of the new Way to the Jewish way; to wit, whether one had to become Jewish to become Christian.

2.          Peter too had seen a vision, this one “something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners …contain(ing) all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air.” Clearly it was a menagerie not altogether kosher. Instructed to eat, Peter declined, on purity grounds. The reply: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” Three times the same instruction came, and, with it, the same purification. Said Peter a little later to Cornelius: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or to visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean.” Whatever his subsequent vacillation, the big fisherman said it straight out on this occasion: in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek.

3.          The sermon asserts his new-found insight at the front (vs. 34-35): “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.” He then rehearses “what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached.” What Peter rehearses is the ministry of Jesus, from the point of view of “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.” From the time it was written, no doubt, this passage has given fuel to those, whether of ancient Jewish persuasion or modern reductionist, who insist on the human nature of Jesus to the exclusion of his divine nature. Peter does not here echo St. John in chapter one of his gospel, or St. Paul in Philippians 2 (he emptied himself of divine glory to take the form of servant) or Colossians (in him all the universe finds its coherence). Peter here starts with “Jesus of Nazareth” rather than the “Word made flesh who dwelt among us.” As we have before in this space noted, Pelikan once declared, in a conference I attended, that the “book of Acts is blatantly adoptionist.” Probably too strong a statement, but nonetheless possible, if not for Pelikan at least for Ebionites or Jesus Seminar adherents.

4.          What the sermon does declare, and most prominently for Easter Sunday, is that “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify about him that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (39-43)

5.         It is worth remembering how this passage has been used in the last couple of years by some of the most virulently insistent of the revisionist cadres. That is, invoking the newly discovered (in the newly disclosed vision to Peter, by God no less), invoking the newly discovered and newly asserted acceptance of the Gentiles into the Kingdom of God – in principle and in fact – as both precedent and parallel to the latter-day claim for acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships and sexual behavior into the church. The argument runs this way: as God disclosed to Peter that the Holy Spirit is doing a new thing to welcome Gentiles into the fellowship of Jesus Christ, so too, in today’s climate, the Holy Spirit is doing a new thing to disclose to the church the acceptability of behavior always before labeled intrinsically evil. Again: in the claim for accepting gay and lesbian relationships and blessing them in the manner of marriage resides the parallel from Cesarea: what God has declared clean let no man scorn as evil or unclean. The claim: the Holy Spirit is doing a new thing.   This is keine Zeitgeist, aber Heilige Geist. The claim is not this year so prominent as last, most likely because some cognoscinti informed the advocates that they were skating on ice perilously thin to heresy, if not outright blasphemy. Kyrie eleison

6.          As to the apostolic vision, Peter testifies that he is a witness to these things, that God raised Jesus from the dead, that some ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead, and that he commanded that his followers preach these things. And now also to the Gentiles!

7.          In today’s religious climate, which is a mind-boggling miasma of twists and innovations and retrogressions, people going off in all directions to mix and match in their own fancies, it is incumbent on Christian pastors to proclaim the orthodox faith, as St. Paul instructs: “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. Bu this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of who are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he has appeared to me also, as to one untimely born.” (I Cor. 15:1-8)

************************************

JOHN 20:1-18

1.          St. John’s account of the Resurrection has the Magdalene coming to the tomb alone, and, seeing the stone removed from the entrance, went running “to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved,” (the one Lou Smith claimed is Lazarus, rather than St. John) with the message that “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him.” The “we” suggests that perhaps Mary was among others who went early, but the text does not say so. The two men also ran, the one Jesus loved reaching the tomb first. Peter, however, went in first. Both saw the cloth and linen strips and “believed (but) they still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.” Then the disciples went back to their homes. (Where? To their homes? Why not the upper room? Peter to Capernaum and the “beloved disciple” to the same place, as they were former partners in Galilee fishing business? Can someone help me understand this reference?)

2.          What happens then is the encounter of the Risen Lord with Mary, outside the tomb. She looks back into the tomb and sees “two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.” They ask her why she is crying and she replies that “they have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.” Then it is that she turns around and sees Jesus standing there but does not recognize him. Supposing him the gardener, she asks if he has carried the body away. Jesus says, simply: “Mary.” She cries out: “Teacher.” Jesus tells her not to hold on to him but to tell the others that “I am returning to my father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary goes to tell the others that “I have seen the Lord!” and she related what Jesus had said to her.

3.          The testimony of the gospel witnesses is varied slightly in the details but in absolute unity in the central point: Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God and Son of Man, was crucified, dead, and resurrected. The meaning of the resurrection is the new being, the new metaphysics, the new cosmology, the new humanity—and the present and future reality for those who believe. To proclaim less is to do injustice to the events, to the apostolic witness, and to God Himself—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To proclaim more is not possible.

4.          Paul knows this in I Corinthians 15, as he addresses those who contest the notion of resurrection. How it can be that one can be a Christian and contest the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a puzzle both ancient and modern. The debate itself is no mystery. Were it not for the eyewitnesses, and the proclamation, there would be no puzzle, because there would be no claim. Hume's scorn concerning the hypothetical resurrection of Elizabeth I illustrates the modern empiricist reductionism. But that scorn is not novel, and not modern only. The third evangelist reports that even the disciple compadres of the women who first came rejoicing called their account "an idle tale." And the fourth recalls the reaction of both the Magdalene in the garden and Thomas Didimus in the Upper Room. Resurrection is questioned because, of all the Gospel phenomena, it is the least recurrent, the least susceptible to duplication. Miracles of healing one runs across, now and again. Pastors who frequent hospitals and who counsel with parishioners can relate instances of miracles, or near-miracles. Ordinary everyday people, many of them, can tell of events that defy the course of nature, or of a disease.

5.          But resurrection is another matter. Recall the tale of friend Eric Gritsch, late of Gettysburg Seminary, who tells of his father's experience as a pastor in pre-World War II Austria. The elder Gritsch served in a small rural village where good sense and lack of morticians mandated funerals within twenty-four hours of demise. The elder Gritsch also was famous for his stirring sermons, rather more long and bold than short and sweet. At the funeral of one man in the village, who had dropped over dead the day before, Papa Gritsch was preaching his usual timbre and duration, ten feet above the open casket still in state before him. He was properly proclaiming not eulogy but resurrection: "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied." And the dead man raised up. And looked around. Got out of the casket and wondered out loud where he was. Forever after in the village the pastor was known as "Resurrection Gritsch," the preacher who had preached old Schmidt back from the grave. Eric claims that, to this day, when he has occasionally returned to the village, he is greeted warmly as the son of “Resurrection Gritsch,” and is always tweaked as to whether he can claim properly to be a chip off the old block.

6.          The answer, of course, is no. Resurrection is unique. Even in Christian faith it belongs to the category of hope, on the basis of the precedent. In Denial of Death (1972), Ernest Becker admits that, of all religions, Christianity has its aim in the right place to deal with the central problem of humanity: mortality. Becker, who is (was) no believer, argues that immortality of the intrinsic sort, as with a soul intrinsically immortal, cannot conceptually convey the power of the concept of the resurrection. The fundamental human problem is the problem of death. Immortalities and reincarnations do not have the power of resurrection, which acknowledges the finality of death and the need for intervention. Becker does not claim that Christianity satisfies the problem, because he is unwilling to concede the proclamation. But he acknowledges the power of the claim in meeting the most crucial human question. Becker has no doubt by now discovered the truth, having died shortly after completing his book, which he penned under the sentence of terminal cancer. Either he has by now discovered the truth or else he sleeps, like all the rest, until better informed by trumpet call.

7.          But, back to the original issue: can one be a Christian and not believe in the resurrection? Spong asserted as much a few years ago at Dilworth Methodist in Charlotte. Hundreds of people paid a total of $3,000 for his speaking fee. His message: that we must rid ourselves of impossible claims in the Christian faith. This coming Sunday there will be many sermons preached, in pulpits not a hundred miles from L-R, in which some hedge will be placed about the objective historicity of the event. “In the minds of the disciples” is the common phrase—and, of course, that’s the least that can be said. The disciples did believe it! But they believed it because of the witness the angels and the Lord Himself brought to them. Paul is addressing Gnostics and Gnostic-sympathizers of his own time, people whose intellectual sensibility and, to their thinking, sophistication, regarded resuscitation, or any other kind of “bodily resurrection” as primitive and backward. Jewish, really. Paul rightly hones in on the crucial point: if Christ is not raised then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. You are still mired in your sins. We….we are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testify of God that he raised Jesus from the dead. No resurrection, no Easter. No resurrection, no faith or salvation. It’s that simple. Paul knew it. No less than in Paul’s day—and maybe even more—we are susceptible to intellectual challenge over the “historical reality” of the resurrected Lord. We should be the apologists that Justin Martyr was in his day: the two crucial doctrines challenged in his second-century venue were the Incarnation (by the Docetists) and the Resurrection (by Gnostics of Docetist stripes and others as well). Justin’s theological project was apologetics: to articulate the faith to the “cultured despisers.” And he did. Well. He used philosophy to explain the categories of the faith. But he did not deny or dilute the Incarnation or the Resurrection. On these he held firm, despite significant challenge from the intellectuals and other unbelievers. This when Christianity was yet a struggling movement, without the power of tradition or the state behind it!

8.          St. Paul raises apologetics to new heights for his time. He simply asserts the reality to which he has been witness, and declares that anything less—or more—is misrepresenting God. We are not called to misrepresent God. On Easter morning, Jesus arose from the dead. Period.

9.          Iris Murdoch famously claimed that Christianity was aided at its founding by the advocacy and presence of three “certifiable geniuses” in the apostolic train – perhaps, though she never to my knowledge said so, including Jesus himself among the three. One, at least, was St. John with his logos Christology and his discursive Jesus who gave us both a sacrament and a new commandment in the Last Supper. Another? St. Paul, with his overall brilliance and his eucharistic apologetics, including I Corinthians 15. The Resurrection is where you fish or cut bait. Justin Martyr did not back off. Neither did St. Paul. No facile spiritualizing here, or evasive constructs. Jesus Christ is risen today, alleluia!

JLY 03.25.02 … rev. 03.22.05

top of page

|Home| |Pericope Studies|