The Resurrection Of Our Lord
LUKE 24:1-12
For a gospel of the empty tomb and post-resurrection events, the liturgy gives us an option - a gospel reading either from John or from Luke. Since this is Luke's year Cycle C, let's choose Luke's post-resurrection gospel. Jesus was quickly buried before sundown on Friday to avoid profaning the Sabbath by work. The Sabbath began at sundown on Friday and ended at sundown on Saturday. "On the first day of the week at the crack of dawn," the faithful women who had followed Jesus from Galilee came to the tomb with spices to enclose them within the shroud around Jesus' body. To their consternation, the tomb where Jesus had been buried was standing open, "the stone rolled away." They entered the tomb, but it was empty.
In the tomb they encountered two men "in dazzling apparel." The women were frightened and bowed to the ground. The men said, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" They remind the women how Jesus had told them during his ministry in Galilee that "the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise." The scene at the tomb ends with the note that the women now remembered what Jesus had said, returned from the tomb and related their encounter "to the eleven and all the rest." How did the eleven and others react? "These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them." Why not? To them the story was women's gossip. The testimony of women was not considered reliable at the time. Christianity would begin to change that attitude.
Luke identifies the women: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women." Mary ofMagdala in northern Galilee is known from all the gospels as one of a number of women from Galilee who were disciples of Jesus. Luke 8:2 introduces her as one "from whom seven devils had gone out." Although there is not the slightest evidence that Mary Magdalene had been a prostitute, the Fathers of the Church did her and womanhood no favor by confusing her with the "sinner woman" of Luke 7:37-50. They went even beyond this by confusing her also with Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus in Luke 10:39-42 and John 11:1-45. Joanna, (we learn in Luke 8:2), had connections to the royal court of Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee. Mary, mother of James, cannot be further identified. There were two apostles named James, besides James called "the brother of the Lord," later a powerful figure in the Church at Jerusalem.
Some ancient manuscripts of Luke add verse 12, which speaks of Peter running to the tomb of Jesus, looking in, and going home clueless. This seems to be inserted from John 20:3-7, and was not an original part of Luke's gospel. The two men "in dazzling apparel" at the tomb appear also at the transfiguration and at the ascension of Jesus. At the transfiguration they are identified as Moses and Elijah, one representing the Torah, the other the Prophets. In that episode they bear witness that Torah and Prophets are in harmony with what was about to happen to Jesus in his "Exodus," his suffering, death, and resurrection.
Luke may intend their presence twice more to witness that the glorification of Jesus through the resurrection/ascension is in harmony with Torah and Prophets. Even though Luke 24:23 notes that "the word on the street" was that the women had seen angels, they need not be angels. Luke gives the final message of these two glorified figures in Acts 1:11, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into the sky. This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven, will return in the same way...." Important truths taught by Luke in this gospel reading: that the tomb was truly empty; that the faithful women disciples were rewarded as the first to hear the proclamation of the resurrection and the first to proclaim it outside the empty tomb; that the Old Testament, Torah and Prophets, bears witness to the truth of Jesus' resurrection/glorification.
ACTS 10:34a. 37-43
This reading is one of many examples of early proclamation of the Word of God. The speeches Luke includes in Acts were written by him at least fifty years after the events he describes. The principle used in those times was stated by a noted Greek author, "We don't always know what they said, but we write what we think they should have said." In this sermon attributed to Simon Peter, Luke simply restates the gospel in very brief form - Jesus' anointing by the Holy Spirit, his ministry of preaching and healing, his death, his resurrection. Then follows the authorization of the apostles to proclaim the word, the witness of the Old Testament to Jesus, and the obligation to proclaim forgiveness of sin.
1 CORINTHIANS 5:6b-8
In the context of this reading, Paul just advised these Greek Christians how to deal with a scandal in their Church. In symbolic language he warns that sin spreads through the community just as yeast pervades bread dough. "Get rid of the old yeast. Become a fresh batch of dough!" Like the unleavened bread eaten with the Passover Lamb, Paul demands that they become the pure bread of sincerity and truth, "because Christ, our own Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed," for our sins.
