All the Scripture readings for this Easter Sunday are connected to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. At the center is the Gospel lesson, from Luke 24:1-12, when women go to the tomb of Jesus and find it empty. Angels appear and tell them: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how He told you… that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise. And they remembered His words.” The women...
All the Scripture readings for this Easter Sunday are connected to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. At the center is the Gospel lesson, from Luke 24:1-12, when women go to the tomb of Jesus and find it empty. Angels appear and tell them: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how He told you… that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise. And they remembered His words.” The women tell the disciples and others, but at first, “it seemed to them an idle tale.”
In the Epistle lesson, 1 Corinthians 15:19-26, Paul affirms the certainly of the resurrection of Jesus, and through His resurrection, the certainty of the resurrection of all the dead and the kingdom of God, with the Lord, for all believers. Then all enemies will be put away and death destroyed.
In the Old Testament lesson, Isaiah 65:17-25, God gives through Isaiah a prophecy of and a glimpse of “the new heavens and the new earth” in which all believers will have eternal life. Much of what is described is in terms of what is not there; for in heaven, we will “be glad and rejoice forever.” “The former things shall not be remembered,” and there will no more be “the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.” (Though sin and death and the accursed are mentioned in one place, they are clearly banished from the perfection of heaven, through Jesus’ final victory over all evil.)
The Psalm is Psalm 16, another psalm of David. He speaks of the “goodness” of the Lord toward him and the “beautiful inheritance” he has in store by God’s mercy. His “flesh” and “soul” are “secure” in the Lord and with the Lord there will be “fullness of joy… forever.” David adds that the Lord will not “let His holy one see corruption.” The New Testament quotes this verse and says that it cannot refer to the body of David, which would only be raised on the last day. It is a prophecy of Jesus, whose body did not see corruption but was raised on the third day. See Acts 2:23-32 and Acts 13:28-35. It is through the resurrection of Jesus that all believers trust that they too will be raised, even though they die, and they will have the fullness of eternal life. And Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross remind us that as soon as we die, in faith, our souls, too, will be with the Lord in heaven.
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