First Sunday after Easter (B) Your dead shall live
Isaiah 26:2-9, 19
Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust. The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy. The path of the righteous is level; you make level the way of the righteous. In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul. My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.
Psalm 111:1-10 BCP 482 or Psalm 118:19-24 BCP 489
Acts 3:12a, 13-15, 17-26
When Peter saw the people running together to him and to John, he addressed them, saying, “Men of Israel, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”
John 20:19-31
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.” Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
-----------------------------------------------------
YOUR DEAD SHALL LIVE ISAIAH 26 AND ACTS 3
At first glance, it would appear that the readings from Isaiah, Acts and the Gospel of John have nothing in common.
There is a common thread running through the readings that would not have been lost on Christians who grew up in Jewish Synagogue, had observed the Passover and celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus Christ every Sunday.
(Review the Isaiah History, correlating his life, Isaiah 7:14 and Isaiah 11 with II Chronicles 34.)
(Review the second founding of IsraEl/Judah and the cleansing of the temple. )
The Promise to the Jews in Babylon, though the temple had been destroyed – God was still in the midst of the people who would keep covenant. There was a promise of restoration of the earthly kingdom – righteousness in the land. The temple was rebuilt, but the people did not keep covenant. . . .and in the times of Jesus, he still had to call the people, to repentance.
Isaiah had forseen a resurrection, not only of the nation, but a resurrection from the dead (Isaiah 26). This is not a large teaching in Jewish literature, seldom found, and not well understood in Jesus day. Even among the 12, Peter could not understand how the Kingdom could be restored, and even after eating the Last Supper, still reacted with a sword when the Roman soldiers approached.
Isaiah had forseen and preached a kingdom of peace. . . .reconciliation with God, that would ultimately reconcile men with one another.
Jews came to look forward to a Davidic King who would rule the world in righteousness and restore the Kingdom. God would be sovereign in a restored Jerusalem and through the Messiah would rule the world from Jerusalem.
Peter announced that the Jews, who had a history of killing the prophets, had killed Messiah who had come to restore all things. He too preached repentance and announced the Good News that God, who is sovereign, had overruled the madness of the world that had put Jesus to death, by raising him from the dead and that even now, Messiah is at God’s right hand restoring the hopes of mankind by bringing in a new Kingdom, a New Israel in which people from every nation could become citizens if they would trust and obey Jesus as the Messiah. This new kingdom would be world-wide and represents the hope of all. Peace would eventually reign not only among these who become disciples of Christ, but would ultimately end in a new heaven and a new earth where all would be fed at a heavenly table.
One of the signs that this was happening, is that people would no longer worship at the Jerusalem temple and look for God there. Even the Old Testament prophets told often how Jerusalem was abandoned by the Spirit of God.
Now, wherever people worship in Spirit and in Truth they have the “earnest of the spirit”, the down payment, the sign, the assurance of eternal life with the Father because the spirit of Christ is in the midst.
Last week at the Wed night study, I emphasized the importance of the Davidic King (Messiah for his generation) in ruling in God’s stead. Isaiah lived at the time of extreme evil, when Ahab (?) was King; during his reign, the temple was desecrated and a fertility cult was in supremacy, leading the people into immoral living. The gods we worship do influence our living. Likewise, the succession of prophets had been compromised as the prophets of Baal had replaced the prophets of Yaweh.
The cleansing of the temple in the days of Hezekiah and again in the days of Josiah were heralded as a second founding of the nation. II Chronicles says there was never a greater Passover than that when good king Josiah cleansed the temple and restored true worship.
The Gospel of John depicts three important acts or signs at the beginning of Jesus ministry. One was the wedding feast at Cana, a second was the cleasing of the temple and the third was the miracle of the loaves. Each of these told the people, relying on their knowledge of Jewish history that this is the promised Messiah. He cleansed the temple and called for repentance and return to worship of the heavenly Father and he gave bread from heaven, reminding the people of the deliverance from Egypt. Surely, Messiah will deliver us from Rome and feed us and bring peace and righteousness to the land.
Peter in his sermons in Acts makes clear the mistaken understanding of his peers, the Jewish people. He himself had been, as Jesus said to him, “Slow of heart to understand.” He had to be told, put up your sword, this is not the way we win. Jesus also had said to Peter on the night in which he was betrayed and deserted by all but John, “Peter, after you have been converted, strengthen the brothers.” And this he did, as evidenced by his Pentecost Day sermon.
Now that he had established the Kingdom again, how was it to function in history? How could it grow and prosper and become a fulfillment of the temple mountain prophecy (Isaiah 11)?
Several places in the Gospels, Jesus sends out apostles, emissaries, ambassadors, preachers, to announce that the Kingdom is Coming, or is “in your midst.”
In his final great sermon, he promised that when he goes away, he will return. The Spirit of Truth will guide his followers. He speaks of himself as vine, and his followers as branches.
At the final supper he says, this is my body and blood, eat and drink it. He announces that he is the bread come down from heaven, and that if we eat that bread we will have life; the aionian, divine life.
In John 20 he announces that he is sending his spirit on the disciples, and that they have authority to forgive sins. He announced peace, they are to announce peace with God. Josiah, in restoring and cleansing the temple and bringing back the laws of God, enjoyed a reign of peace under God’s protection. Instead of a Davidic King, Jesus puts in place a Royal Priest hood, a Kingdom of Priests. Each Christian, baptized into Christ has a responsibility to intercede for the entire world and to teach by his life, and if possible with his words. To assure the continuing authority of the teaching, that it remain Christ centered and true, the Church selected bishops who were the successors of the apostles. There is no other reason for bishops than to be teachers of the Truth. These fathers in God are to instruct, correct, being faithful to hold forth life in Christ through both word and sacrament.
History does repeat itself.
Just as Kings Hezekiah and Josiah had to cleanse the temple and restore the teachings given to Moses, so in Christian history there has been repeated times when those assigned with teaching the truth became involved in other things, such as politics or became enamored of other teachings regarding basic morality and the life of the world to come than that given by our Lord.
Bishops and other leaders who have taught and lived in a manner expressly forbidden in Scripture have not been corrected or censored by their respective communions: this is true of not just one denomination, but of several. There is evidently a “falling away” from the faith in the last half century by major Christian communions.
Scriptures warened this would happen; we shouldn’t be surprised. Like Ezra of old, we must, “rise up and build.”
Now, once again a prophetic voice is raised calling the faithful from the worship of idols and from vain hopes and inferior means to return to the apostolic teaching. Christ is Lord, and He is Risen!
Charles R. Scott, Pastor
Church of the Good Shepherd, Anglican
2060 E 54th Street
Indianapolis, In, 46220
crscottblu@yahoo.com
http://www.goodshepherdindy.org
