Easter Monday – First Reading

Commentary on Acts 2:14,22-33

We begin today reading from the Acts of the Apostles. From now until the end of the Seventh Week of Easter, the weekday First Readings will be from Acts. The Sunday First Readings will also be from Acts.

Today’s reading follows immediately on the account of the Pentecost experience. The immediate result of that experience is for Peter, filled with the Spirit and as leader of the new community, to begin proclaiming the message about Jesus Christ as Saviour to the people gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish festival of Pentecost.

It is the first of six such kerygmas (from the Greek kerux, meaning a ‘herald’) or proclamations in Acts about Jesus as Risen Lord and Messiah-King. Five of them are attributed to Peter and the final one to Paul (to the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia, Acts 13:16-41).

Peter’s address follows a pattern that became common in the early Church: 1) an explanation of what was happening; 2) the proclamation of the death, resurrection and glorification of Jesus, the Christ; 3) an exhortation to repentance, a change of life and baptism.

Peter stood before the crowd, flanked by the Eleven (including Matthias, newly chosen to replace Judas as a witness who had been with them “during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us” (Acts 1:21). Peter spoke, then, not just in his own name, but in the name of the whole apostolic ‘college’. Right from the beginning, his special position in the group is recognised.

And he has ‘good news’ (i.e. ‘gospel’, from the old English ‘god-spell’; Greek, euanggelion) to communicate to them. His words reflect the content of the earliest apostolic preaching:

1. He gives witness of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and his being raised to glory.
2. He describes some general details of Christ’s ministry and how it was proclaimed in advance by John the Baptist, inaugurated by teaching and miracles, and completed by appearances of the Risen Christ and the giving of the Spirit to his followers.
3. The story of Jesus is put in the wider context of the Old Testament prophecies, while at the same time looking forward to a Messianic age. All—Jews and Gentiles alike—are called to a radical change of life in order to be ready for the Christ’s glorious return—believed to be in the near future.

Peter, then, reminds them that Jesus had come to live among the people—as many of his listeners were well aware—and performed signs and wonders as the credentials of his real identity. But in the inscrutable plan of God, he was “handed over” (again we have that term which is a refrain throughout the New Testament).

Sad to say, those who handed Jesus over were from among his own people, perhaps including some of those listening to Peter, and they had even delivered him into the hands of the Romans (“those outside the Law”) for crucifixion. There must surely have been some uneasy feelings among the crowd when he said that.

But Jesus was liberated from the pain of death, and death had no power over him. Peter sees in words spoken by King David, their fulfilment in Jesus, his descendant:

…you will not abandon my soul to Hades…
(In Hebrew, Hades is Sheol, the place of the dead.)

These words are seen as applying more appropriately to Jesus because David died, was buried, and the place of his tomb was known to his hearers, while Jesus:

…was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.

Instead,

This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.

We, too, are called to be witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection and his living presence among us by the way we live both individually and as a community.

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Easter Monday – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 28:8-15

The women who had come to the tomb early on Sunday morning to embalm the dead body of Jesus were amazed to find the stone rolled back from the entrance and the tomb empty. Their reactions are a mixture of anxiety and joy. They are anxious that the body may have been stolen, but there is also an expectant joy. Could it be that he is alive? This is in contrast with the Gospel of Mark (16:8) where he tells us that the women “said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

And, while still wondering what could have happened, they run to tell the news to the disciples with “great joy” (obviously they were having optimistic thoughts) and, at that point they encounter Jesus, who greeted them with an Easter greeting of “Peace!” (Shalom!).

As they cling to Jesus’ feet (like Mary Magdalene in John’s Gospel, they do not want to lose him again), they are told not to be afraid, an admonition that will be heard frequently during these days, but to go to the disciples and instruct them to go to Galilee where they will see Jesus.

There are various, and to some extent, mutually conflicting versions of the resurrection story and of how and where the Risen Jesus was seen and by whom. There are basically two types of experiences. Appearances to individuals (Mary Magdalene, the Emmaus disciples, Peter and Thomas) help prove the fact of Jesus’ resurrection. Appearances to several disciples together are accompanied by a mandate to continue the work of Jesus.

In today’s reading, the women are to instruct the disciples that they will see Jesus in Galilee, their own place. Galilee is their home ground, the place where they were born, grew up and worked. That is where the Risen Jesus is to be found. And, it is in our ‘own place’ we will expect to see him, too.

Jesus is saying the same thing to us. We do not have to go to Jerusalem or Rome or Lourdes or Fatima to find him. If we cannot find him in the place where we live and work, we won’t find him in those other places either.

As well as the distinction between individual and collective post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, there are two other distinct traditions: 1) those appearances that take place in Galilee (in the north) and 2) those in Judea (at Jerusalem, in the south). Commentators have pointed out that these seeming inconsistencies provide a better witness than any artificial uniformity to the antiquity of the evidence and its historical value. The physical details are not that important; it is the meaning that is all-important.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the Jews put another twist on what is happening. They also are reporting that the tomb is empty. All sides agree that the tomb was empty; the disagreement was over the why. Obviously, they are wondering what could have happened, but cannot accept the possibility of resurrection. The guards are bribed and told to say that the disciples stole the body while they were asleep. Guards who sleep on the job would be punished, not bribed. And, if they were asleep, how did they know what happened?

But when people do not want to believe something, reason and logic can often go out the window. We see such rationalisations frequently in those who find it inconvenient to continue living a Christian life.

Those who take the Gospel seriously and try to live according to its vision have all the confirmation they need that it is the recipe for a happy and fulfilled life.

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