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Resurrected God-Man
Holy Monday
15 April 2019
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Life has few enough certainties. Today's federal tax festivities remind us that there are even fewer certainties that are good outcomes. There are death and taxes. Sometimes we think that we are being taxed to death. There's a great two-fer of certainty. Our Lord Jesus knew our need for certainty about death and its ultimate outcome. He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection to quell their fears that He was dead and in so doing rescued them from the fear of their own death. About death they were certain. They had seen Him crucified and buried. Now about life after death the Lord was making them certain. He who was dead now lives.
He went out of His way to show Himself to His disciples, so that there would never be any doubt about the truth of His resurrection from the dead. He knew there would be plenty of doubting Thomases out there. "Put your hand here. Touch me and see." He chooses to eat in the presence of these people to emphasize the reality of His resurrected flesh. He was not a ghost. He wasn't an apparition or appearance. He was a human being, although crucified, dead, and buried, now very much fully alive and in his glory unrestrained by the material conditions; such as locked rooms. He is aware that the ruling authorities will claim that his disciples merely stole his body, stashing it out of sight. Therefore, He appears in the presence of 500 people simultaneously. He was making deadly sure that His resurrection was not perceived merely as a figment of the fevered religious imagination.
His actions displayed the characteristics of both His human and divine natures. He appears among the disciples unrestrained by closed doors; disclosing the full glory of His divine nature. He eats the fish and bread in the presence of His disciples, that they would perceive the presence of His human nature. This is our living Lord, the God-Man raised for us.
Rev. Dr. Scott R. Murray
Memorial Lutheran Church
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Leo the Great
"There followed many proofs [after the resurrection of Christ], on which the authority of the faith to be preached through the whole world might be based. And although the rolling away of the stone, the empty tomb, the arrangement of the linen cloths, and the angels who narrated the whole deed by themselves fully built up the truth of the Lord's resurrection, yet He often appeared plainly to the eyes both of the women and of the Apostles not only talking with them, but also remaining and eating with them, and allowing Himself to be handled by the eager and curious hands of those whom doubt assailed. For to this end He entered when the doors were closed upon the disciples, and gave them the Holy Spirit by breathing on them, and after giving them the light of understanding opened the secrets of the Holy Scriptures, and again He Himself showed them the wound in the side, the prints of the nails, and all the marks of His most recent passion, so that it might be acknowledged that in Him the properties of the divine and human natures remained undivided, and that in this way we might know that the Word was not what the flesh is, but to confess God's only Son to be both Word and flesh."
Leo the Great,
Sermon on the Lord's Resurrection, 3
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Hebrews 9:11-15
When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Therefore he is the mediator of a new testament, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first testament.
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Prayer
God our Father, in these solemn days you give us the joy of recalling the dying and the rising of Christ to new life. May the joy of our annual celebration of the Paschal mystery bring us to the joy of life in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
For Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, and Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, that God the Lord would support the students, faculty and staff in their high calling to learn and to teach the Word of the living Lord
For all those who grieve the loss of loved ones in these holy days, that they would grieve with hope
For Matt Heise of the Lutheran Heritage Fo
undation,
that He might deliver the power of God unto salvation and tell the story of that power the world over
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Art: GRÜNEWALD, Matthias
Isenheim Altarpiece (c. 1515)
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