Sunday April 4 Easter Day
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Psalm 148
These three psalms are especially appropriate on Easter, the anniversary of the resurrection. All creation praises God—the heavens, the earth—including fog, sea monsters, and “creeping things” (perhaps even insects or worms)—and humanity—rulers, young people and old people—all things without exception praise God together. Notice that the sequence is taken from the first creation story in Genesis: first the heavens, then creatures of the water, then creatures of the land, and finally people.
Psalm 149
Songs of joy at God’s victory. The joy of military victories toward the end of the psalm was their way of saying that God has conquered all injustice.
Psalm 150
A scene of riotous joy as every conceivable instrument and every creature praises God.
Exodus 12: 1-14
God describes how God will utterly defeat the evil powers that have enslaved the Israelites in Egypt. The annual celebration of this escape became the festival of Passover, and the ceremonial eating of lambs amidst preparation for immediate departure remains the foundational Jewish experience to this day.
The Jews who followed Jesus identified his death as a re-enactment of of the lamb, and so called him the “Lamb of God.” The implication was obvious to them—Jesus was the sacrifice, like the ancient lambs, that signalled their escape from slavery, and the eating of the lambs was experienced in the food of the communion service. They were interpreting Jesus’ death and resurrection to be a new form of the Passover now applicable not just to Jews but to the entire world.
John 1: 1-8
John’s gospel is more interested in the meanings behind Jesus than in the details of his life. On Easter Day, we read John’s interpretation that Jesus was central to the creation of the universe, and thus imprinted the process of death and resurrection upon all things. John presents Jesus as the creator of the cosmos which then rejects him. But that rejection, seen in Jesus’ execution, demonstrates God’s sacrificial love for us in Jesus, and God’s ultimate victory over all evil and rejection seen in his resurrection.
For the next ten days we will continue to read about the deep meanings of Easter in John’s gospel.
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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