Saturday April 23 Easter Saturday
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Psalm 145
Praise to God because God cares for the oppressed and feeds all creation—God is praised everywhere.
Exodus 13.17-14.4 What’s Exodus about?
As they leave Egypt, God is concerned that the Israelites will give up too easily and return, and so God sends them through the much longer path in the wilderness. This is easily applied to ourselves who often would prefer the apparent security of the world’s violence instead of trusting in God’s ultimate victory over violence and slavery through the act of self-offering. The forces of evil, symbolized as Pharaoh, are as real now as they were then.
These stories seem to say that God caused Pharaoh to pursue the Israelites and continue to exploit them, and by implication to say that God uses evil to accomplish God’s plan. However, the stories use this image of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart in order to assure us that God is ultimately in control even over evil – even Pharaoh does not have independent power, separate from God by which evil could successfully challenge God. The God who is justice, the stories say, is powerful over all. It’s a certainty we need to rediscover in our day.
Mark 12.18-27 What’s Mark about?
The idea of resurrection is challenged by some who ridicule the idea by pointing out that a widow of multiple husbands would have to commit adultery in heaven when they all came back to life! Jesus responds that God is interested in people who are alive now and not interested in clever arguments about heaven in the future. That’s why, Jesus says, Moses experienced God as a burning fire driving him to complete the freedom God had promised through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God is interested in freedom and dignity now, not in idle speculation about the future.
The more Jesus insists on loyalty to the God of justice and inclusion taking place now and refuses to participate in making fun of a tragically bereaved widow, the more those in power are determined to attack and silence him forever.
We read this in Easter week to understand how Jesus was thinking about resurrection.
This week’s collect:
Lord of life and power,
through the mighty resurrection of your Son,
you have overcome the old order of sin and death
and have made all things new in him.
May we, being dead to sin
and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
reign with him in glory,
who with you and the Holy Spirit is alive,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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