A Gospel Reading for Easter Sunday: All Years
John 20: 1 to 18
“Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the feet.” (John 20:11 – 12)
All of us share with Mary in the fact that it is through Jesus that we even know who we are. We read from the Gospel of Luke that our Lord Jesus casts out 7 demons from Mary; (Luke 8:2). It is in this way that Mary even knows who she is. She owes her identity to her Lord Jesus. It was when she heard him call her name, “Mary,” that she knew beyond any doubt that her Lord and Savior was back! Which to her means, she can remain who she is supposed to be. Because Jesus lives, she lives. Because Jesus lives, we live.
We, you and I, are who we are only through our risen Lord, Jesus Christ. I am sure that throughout my life I have had some demons. However, knowing and loving Jesus has enabled me to rid some demons and more fully know who I am supposed to be. Like Mary Magdalene, we come to know fully who we are in Christ Jesus our Savior. We have a Covenant of knowing ourselves in Christ. This Covenant in Christ Jesus will never be broken.
God has had many covenants with humanity. All were broken at some point. We had a covenant with Noah symbolized by a rainbow; we had a covenant with Abraham that all nations will be blessed through him; we had covenant through Moses with the Law, whether it was the 10 Commandments or the 613 recorded in the Hebrew Book of the Law: we broke covenant with God every time.
In Jesus, we again tried to break covenant by crucifixion. But God knowing we are not able to hold a covenant, became one of us and “un-broke” the attempted brake by Raising our Lord Jesus, the living Covenant, thus, not allowing His covenant with us to be broken. In this move by Christ death itself has died. “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? (Hosea 13:14). What we get from this is that death does not win. Our Lord Jesus defeats death and keeps us with him forever in Covenant.
We have so much to be thankful for. God loves us and has walked among us to experience what it is like to be us, the good and the bad. Easter is about God keeping Covenant with us in order that we can be who we are intended to be, a Covenant we are not able to break. Thank You Lord Jesus. Happy Easter Everybody!
Let us pray:
All mighty God, who lives and reigns and loves forever, we give you thanks for being one of us in our Lord Jesus Christ and enduring the pain and suffering that came with it as well as what it means to be family and to live in community. Thank you for inviting us into your family and community of eternal life and love through baptism by breaking the bonds of death as we remember this Holy act this day. In your most Holy Name we pray: Amen.
Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine, and our schools including St. Augustine in Raleigh, North Carolina.
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
onewhoponders 