Lessons from the Gospel of Matthew
Matthew 28:1-10 (Year A, Easter Day) is a story of the discovery of the empty tomb. Mark forms the basis for the story, with Matthew motivated by addressing issues raised by Jewish authorities later in the century. The earliest written account of the discovery of the empty tomb is in Mark 16:1-6, 8, on which Matthew has based his account. The story establishes the empty tomb as a fact. What it cannot do is explain why the tomb is empty. The perception that the tomb is empty is a matter of observation. It is reasonable to think of the church forming in Jerusalem in the opening years formed a tradition around the empty tomb, a story that might not have been as significant to churches in Greece or Asia Minor. Yet, the message of the resurrection that the disciples brought back to Jerusalem could not have survived a single hour if anyone could have shown the body to be in the tomb.[1] Yet, would resurrection require an empty tomb? A negative answer is implied in the view of Herod expressed in Mark 6:14, 16, namely, that Jesus was the beheaded Baptist risen again. However, the re-embodiment of a dead person in someone else is different from an eschatological resurrection of the dead and transformation into a life that is vastly different from existence on earth.[2] The trustworthiness of the historicity of the discovery of the empty tomb receives confirmation in the early Jewish polemic against the Christian message. It does not offer any suggestion that the grave of Jesus had remained untouched. To make a bold statement, the separate nature of the appearance tradition and the secondary tradition of the empty tomb makes the testimony of the early church that God raised Jesus from the dead historically very probable.[3] However, to go to the length of saying it involves proof is a step I would be unwilling to take. The story shows that these ancient persons did not find belief in the resurrection of Jesus easy. It was a struggle because the logic of the situation demanded a cause-and-effect answer. Death and nothingness have the final word. If the tomb is empty, there must be a rational reason for it. If anything exists beyond the void, the emptiness, and the silence of this Good Friday world, it will be because God has acted and spoken in an event within our history. If so, the truth is that life has the final word. For that reason, those who believe continue to share the message and invite others to allow Jesus to intersect with their lives. It will never be enough for this truth to remain in the past. Because if the event and the moment to which these first witnesses testify is true, life can never be the same. The empty tomb tradition is a separate and secondary independent witness to what happened to Jesus after his death. The empty tomb is a hint that the end of humanity and indeed for all creation is not death, the abyss, emptiness, and silence. Rather, the end involves a word and act of God that says life, meaning, and fullness are the end. Such an end finds its anticipation in the course of our lives as well as human history. It also finds anticipation in nature. Yet, the fact the present anticipates the end reminds us of the ambiguity of our present. The end will be the surprise God brings to bring to fulfillment all that God has made. God has defeated death. Life wins. Here is God's great reversal of history, the total dissolution of our march toward death, God's great triumph over sin and death.
At dawn on Sunday, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James (27:56), went to visit the tomb. They are mourning by going here to pay their respects, as we might put it today. Jesus had to be entombed on Friday because it was against Jewish law to leave the body of a person who had been executed outside overnight.[4] The women have to wait until Sunday to tend the body, not because it is prohibited to tend dead bodies on the Sabbath,[5] but because doing the work of rolling the stone away from the tomb is prohibited. Additionally, any person who goes to the tomb and is exposed to a dead body will be made ritually impure for seven days afterward.[6] This means that any man who might come with them on Sunday would render himself ritually impure for the rest of the Passover holiday. Typically, one would give up his state of ritual purity only for the death of one of his nearest kin.[7] Because the women themselves are not entitled to perform Passover sacrifices, becoming ritually impure is less of an issue for them. These very women have been with Jesus for a long time. They witnessed the burial of Jesus. These women observed the burial “from a distance.” Unlike the disciples, the women do not “desert” Jesus, nor do they deny him. Instead, they are the most “faithful” of Jesus’ followers. They testify to the grim reality of Jesus' death and the burial of his body. Of course, it was not supposed to be like this. Jesus was dead. His life ended with the declaration that he was a criminal. So popular in Galilee, his presence in Jerusalem stirred opposition from Jewish leaders, the Roman rulers, and even among the Twelve, one who would betray him. However, an earthquake occurs (see 27:51-54 as well). The preponderance of New Testament references to earthquakes in the book of Revelation points to their apocalyptic nature, which is also the primary significance of Matthew's mention of an earthquake in the context of Jesus' resurrection.[8] Matthew explains that an angel of the Lord caused the earthquake, rolled the stone away, and sat on it. With the angel appearing like lightening in dazzling white clothing, the guards become stiff, silent, and fearful, fear being a common response in the Bible to an angel. The appearance of death upon the guards contrasts sharply with the announcement of the angel that he knows they are looking for Jesus, who was crucified, but who God has raised him. They are to come to see the place of his burial, suggesting the emptiness of the tomb was an uncontested fact. After interpreting the reason why the body of Jesus is not in the tomb, the angel gives the women the mission to share the good news with the disciples that God has raised him from the dead. The angel hints of the ongoing involvement of the risen Lord with the disciples by saying that the risen Lord has gone ahead of them to Galilee, which will be the place where they have a personal experience of the risen Lord. The separation of the emptiness of the tomb from the appearance of the risen Lord suggests the empty tomb as an isolated fact does not carry the weight of the message of the church. The empty tomb is the presupposition of the message regarding the risen Lord, but not its content. The empty tomb is a sign that points to the risen Lord. [9] They run to tell the disciples, with no indication that they obey the angel by coming inside to see. As is typical of the appearance tradition, the risen Lord comes to these two women. After he greets them, they hold his feet, stressing the physical nature of the resurrection, which would be consistent with the Jewish view of the union of soul and body, and worship him. The risen Lord also has the message that they ought not to fear, and reinforces the message of the angel that his brothers are to go to Galilee, where they will see him.
Matthew 28:16-20 (Year A Trinity Sunday) is the story of the risen Lord coming to the disciples in Galilee. The eleven (minus Judas, whom Matthew 27:3-5 says killed himself) went to Galilee. We learn for the first time that the risen Lord told them to go to a specific mountain in Galilee. Mountains have figured prominently in the life and ministry of Jesus, especially with the Sermon on the Mount, the Mount of Transfiguration, and the Mount of Olives, making the parallel between Moses the law-giver and Jesus as the new law-giver closer. Since Galilee has been central to the story of Jesus, the reader finds it fitting that this final event occurs there. They worshipped him as did the magi in 2:2, 11 and the disciples in 14:22-33. The custom involves prostrating oneself before the one honored and kissing their feet. However, some doubted, as they did when Jesus stilled the storm. The disciples approach the event with both reverence and reservation. The mixed reaction suggests some unresolved inner conflict. Such experiences are not unique. Martin Luther had his doubts. In August of 1527 Luther wrote to a friend, "For more than a week, I was close to the gates of death and hell...Christ was wholly lost." In the 1530's Luther questioned the very existence of God. "The devil assails me that I do not know whether there is any God or not." For Luther, faith was the object of an agonizing search. The risen Lord distinguishes between doubt and unbelief. The one who doubts is looking and searching, while unbelief closes itself off from the search. Even with their unresolved inner conflicts regarding this event, the risen Lord commissions them for a ministry to the nations. This event could not remain a private experience, for its nature was that of a calling that would give a vocation to them. The risen Lord comes to them and speaks to them with their mixture of reverence and reservation. "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. The saying is an echo of the devil's final tempting words to Jesus at the start of his ministry, "All these I will give you" (4:9). The evangelist's final words on the life and meaning of Jesus indicate that God has given supreme authority to Jesus the Christ, but only through the way of suffering, death, and resurrection. Such authority is consistent with the designation of Jesus as the Son of Man, which we find in Matthew often. This passage ascribes to the risen Lord the dignity, position, and power of the creator.[10] The royal rule of the Father is present in and through Jesus; therefore, the Son as exalted Lord has the power of the Father imparted to him.[11] We can also relate this saying to I Corinthians 15:28, in which Paul says that the Son will hand back to the Father this authority, so that God may be all in all. This notion relates to the sending of the Son, and not to intra-Trinitarian life.[12] Go therefore, based on this authority that the exalted Lord now has, and make disciples of all nations, making disciples underlies all baptism, connected to teaching for this reason,[13] baptizing them, baptizing being an act of transfer, the baptized belonging to God,[14] in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The one who has authority commissions his entourage to recruit followers through the door of baptism into the newly established messianic community. These last words from the risen Lord define the apostolic mission of the church. While this triadic formula provides a basis for later reflection on the Trinity, the later doctrine is trying to define a relation within divine life to which this formula can only point and of which it can only hint.[15]Interestingly, in Acts, baptism is often in the name of Jesus. Matthew clearly connects baptism to the Trinitarian formula, but the historical basis for baptism is the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.[16] It is difficult, considering the total witness of the New Testament, to say that baptism with a Trinitarian formula is something that the risen Lord commanded the church to do. Baptism may well have been in the name of Jesus in the early Christian community.[17] He commands them to teach these future disciples to obey everything he has commanded them, Matthew making this easy by organizing his gospel around five blocks of teaching material, separated by blocks of the deeds of Jesus regarding healing and exorcism. They are to remember that the risen Lord will be with them always, to the end of the age, suggesting a fulfillment of the significance of his birth in 1:23, Emmanuel, God with us. Here is the risen Matthew does not have Jesus ascending to the Father or suggest a separate Pentecost event. It would empty this promise of its significance, meaning, and power. As they make disciples, the risen Lord is present to guide, sustain, and protect. The risen Lord is there to accompany followers of Jesus in this journey and mission.[18] The final word of the gospel of Matthew is one of reassurance and hope.
[1] Moltmann The Way of Jesus Christ, p. 222
[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 357-8.
[3] Pannenberg (Jesus: God and Man, 1964, 100-106)
[4] (Deuteronomy 21:22-23).
[5] (Mishna Shabbat 23:5).
[6] (Numbers 19:11-20).
[7] (Leviticus 21:1-3).
[8] Geologists Jefferson B. Williams, Markus J. Schwab and A. Brauer examined disturbances in sediment depositions to identify two earthquakes: one large earthquake in 31 B.C.E., and another, smaller quake between 26 and 36 C.E. In the biblical tradition, earthquakes marked momentous events or, in some cases (e.g., the earthquake in the reign of King Uzziah, Amos 1:1; Zechariah 14:5) became momentous events themselves by which other events were marked.
[9] Barth Church Dogmatics III.2 [47.1] 453.
[10] Barth Church Dogmatics III.1 [41.1] 51.
[11] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 391.
[12] Pannenberg Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 312.
[13] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 242.
[14] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 239-40
[15] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 301.
[16] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 276-7.
[17] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 340-1.
[18] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.2 [67.2] 658.
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