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Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke 24:1-12; Acts 10:34-43
Luke 24:1-12 has at least four basic themes within it, anyone of which could stand as its own sermon or Bible lesson. We will now explore these four themes.
Theme 1: The Second Beginning. Luke 24 is the final chapter of the Gospel of Luke. But in a profound sense, it is not the final chapter; rather, it is prelude to the continuing story as related in the book of the Acts of the Apostles (also written by Luke). This chapter both ends the gospel account and begins the account of God’s continued work through God’s people who have been transformed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
The life and work of Jesus does not conclude as do all other biographies – with the death of the subject. Luke’s story ends with an empty tomb and with a present Christ! The word of the angel to the women coming to Jesus’ tomb was “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen” (Luke 24:5b).
The text then continues, “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again” (24:6-7).
The resurrection was not unanticipated. Jesus had spoken of its predicted occurrence at least three times in the gospel account. But, obviously, his listeners didn’t hear it – likely because they didn’t want to hear it! It was a statement so outrageous from their perspective, and so outside their experience and imagination that they likely dismissed it or ignored it. It didn’t fit into their paradigm of the world, and therefore they couldn’t consider it. How often this is how we respond to the Word of God!
But now what Jesus had declared would happen did happen! He did indeed rise from the dead. He spoke through the angel to the women who came to the tomb (24:5-8). He appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus (vss. 13-32). He met with his disciples (vss. 36-49). His resurrection was now irrefutable. But even in this account, some doubted. It would take a direct encounter with Jesus to bring all of Jesus’ followers to the place where they could all accept it. Such is the difficulty of shifting one’s conceptual framework!
But the impossible had happened. And a new world was being born. The kingdom of God was coming. The Christ had not been defeated by the political, economic and religious systems of the city, nation or empire – nor had he been defeated by the spiritual forces behind those systems. He had won – and the advent of God’s kingdom had now come into the world!
Joel Green beautifully summarized the second beginning of the Gospel of Luke, when he wrote, “As one might expect from the last chapter of a narrative, Luke 24 draws together many of the main threads of his book. At the same time, this final chapter of the Gospel anticipates the opening of Luke’s second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, and propels the reader to move on to “the rest of the story”. In a series of scenes, Luke emphasizes that (1) Jesus’ suffering and death are not a contradiction of God’s redemptive purpose; rather they bring God’s purpose to realization; (2) Jesus’ resurrection and ascension are grounded in Scripture and constitute God’s vindication of Jesus’ life, his identity, and the nature of his ministry; (3) the Scriptures of Israel are understood best in the light of Jesus’ career, including his death and resurrection; and (4) Jesus’ followers not only must be enabled to interpret the Scriptures faithfully but also must carry on the ministry of Jesus to the whole world”.[1]
Theme 2: It is the Marginalized Who Best Tell the Story. His women followers who go to the tomb following the Sabbath day in order to prepare his body for burial make the discovery that Jesus rose from the dead. Luke spends considerable time developing this story (24:1-12).
The sequence is as follows: (1) The women go the tomb to prepare Jesus’ body for burial (24:1); (2) they find the stone removed from the tomb entrance, and the tomb empty (vss. 2-3); (3) two angels appear and tell them that Jesus has risen from the dead as he had prophesied he would (vss. 4-9); (4) the women are named: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James “and the other women” (vs. 10); (5) they tell the disciples, who do not believe them (vs. 11); (6) but Peter runs to the tomb, sees Jesus’ grave clothes there, and believes (vs. 12).
What is intriguing about this story is that it is the women who are the first both to discover and to announce Jesus’ resurrection. This fact is reported in all four gospel accounts. But in Matthew, it is only two women (Mary Magdalene “and the other Mary”: Matt. 28:1), in Mark it is “Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome” (Mk. 16:1), and in John it is Mary Magdalene alone (Jn. 20:1). It is only in Luke that the writer reports that it is a much larger group of women – in fact, all those who followed Jesus. So it is to a marginalized group in Israel, a grouping who “does not matter” either to the Jewish/Roman systems or to the mass of men in Israel to whom God imparts the initiating knowledge of the most significant event in the history of the world!
As one would expect, the testimony of the women is not believed. In Jewish society, the testimony of any two men on any item would be sufficient for adjudication in any Jewish court. But not that of two women – or even a whole group of women! Their testimony could be dismissed, as the disciples dismissed it, as “an idle tale”.
This is significant. Luke has demonstrated quite clearly, through the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus, the betrayal of Judas, the denial by Peter, and the abandonment of Jesus by all his disciples, how truly marginalized the disciples were. Only the women stood by Jesus, Luke reports. It was the women who mourned Jesus on the Via Dolorosa (23:26-31). It was the women who remained at the scene of the crucifixion, watching him die (23:49). It was the women who followed his corpse to the tomb and planned to return after the Sabbath to anoint his body for burial (23:55-56). Only the women stood by Jesus at the moment of his greatest need.
Yet Luke is careful to point out that it is these same women who testify to Jesus’ resurrection who are not believed by the disciples. Of all people, they should be the ones most believed, precisely because they alone proved themselves most faithful. Yet their testimony to the resurrection is dismissed by the disciples as “an idle tale”. Only Peter, in Luke’s account, grasps at the hope that it might be true, and runs to the tomb to check on it himself. But the others simply do not believe.
What Luke is demonstrating is that, even among those who have proven themselves both marginalized and faithless, the women are even further marginalized in spite of their faith. The marginalized marginalize – even in the disciple band, even in the face of their own fear and lack of courage, even at Jesus’ time of greatest need. They cannot accept that God announces God’s greatest intervention in human history through the most marginalized people in their society – whether it is women at the resurrection or shepherds at the birth. Even at this both apparently darkest but in reality greatest moment in the history of the world, unconscious prejudice and conscious rejection reign. Jesus’ work of redemption, even among his own people, is not yet completed.
But in spite of the disciple’s reactions, God gives to the most marginalized of that marginalized disciple band, the privilege to proclaim, “Jesus is risen! He is risen indeed!”
Theme 3: Angelic Bookends. The account of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is intentionally paralleled by Luke with the beginning of the gospel story, in the announcement of Jesus’ birth to another Mary (1:26-38) and to shepherds (2:8-20) of God’s miraculous intervention in human history. Thus, Luke’s telling of Jesus’ story is “book-ended” by two angelic visitations, announcing both the birth and the resurrection (or re-birth) of Jesus. Luke is the only gospel narrative to do this.
The first “act” of Luke is the births of John the Baptist and of Jesus. The last “act” of Luke is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Both segments begin with an angelic visitation. Thus, Luke intends to both begin and end his story with a miracle – with the intentional intervention in human history of a visit by an angel, announcing what it is that God has just done in order to bring about the transformation, redemption and deliverance of humanity. No other gospel writer encapsulates his narrative in such a way. It is therefore important that we pay attention both to this literary device and to the two stories told through it.
The parallels in the two stories are striking. First, the angel announces to women God’s intervention in human history and the miracle that accompanies that intervention. In Luke 1:26-38, the angel announces to the Virgin Mary that she will carry the Christ child. In Luke 24:1-12, the angel announces to a group of women that Jesus has risen from the dead.
Second, in Luke 1, the women are specifically named. It is not humanity in general or even women as a gender to which God reveals God’s intervention in human history. It is certain specific women that become “the handmaid of the Lord”. In Luke 1, it is Mary and Elizabeth. In Luke 24, it is Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James “and the other women”. And, intriguingly, the two primary women are both named “Mary”. The name “Mary” means “bitter”, from the Hebrew “marah”. In what is revealed to both Mary’s, there is the bitter with the good in God’s intentions.
Third, in both situations, the angel announces birth from a womb. In Luke 1, it is a literal womb. “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus” (1:31). In Luke 24, it is a figurative womb. “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen” (24:5). The Christ has gone forth from the womb of the earth – his tomb – into new life. A new birth has occurred in each instance.
Fourth, consider the message of the angel in each instance.
In Luke 1, the angel declares, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (1:30-33).
In Luke 24, the angels announce, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again” (24:5-7).
Both messages exist to make clear what it is that God has just initiated. In the first, it is the declaration that life has now sprung into existence in a virgin’s womb – the life of the “Son of the Most High”. This baby, to be born from this particular virgin’s womb, will establish God’s kingdom upon this earth – a kingdom that will never be annihilated. And this he will do by bringing about an inner transformation to people and to their systems. This is symbolized and given witness to by the very name Mary is commanded to give to this baby – “Jesus” or “God saves”!
In the second message, God has just acted through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. New life has sprung into existence in the cold and dark of a tomb, as God’s power flows into Jesus’ body – and the “dry bones” live! The baby, born to establish God’s kingdom, has done so through his crucifixion and resurrection. It is not that crucifixion happened to Jesus, demonstrating the superior power of the Roman and priestly political, economic and religious systems over the hapless victim of a deceived would-be messiah! It is, the angel declares in Luke 24, that “the Son of Man” was “handed over to sinners and (was) crucified, and on the third day, rose again”. His death and resurrection were intentional, orchestrated by Jesus and controlled by him – precisely to demonstrate that the systems did not hold the power nor Satan behind those systems. Rather, God through Christ holds power over life and death and therefore can intentionally lay down that life when he so chooses, the systems (and even Satan) thereby being reduced into a puppetry that follows the choreography. Thus, it is that obedient and freely offered death that establishes the new political, economic and religious reality – the kingdom of God. And the fact of that establishment is the acting out of what Jesus had predicted months earlier would happen – that he would rise from the dead!
Finally, in both instances, a response is required. In the first story, the Virgin Mary must be willing to assume pregnancy out of wedlock, and to be the living host for the Son of God. And that assumption of responsibility will not be all joy, for “a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:35). In the second story, Mary Magdalene and the other women must assume the responsibility of making known this good news of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Such proclamation is an extremely dangerous act, a political act, inevitably revealing both Pilate and the high priest as villains who use power for their own ends, and announcing both God’s vindication of Jesus and condemnation for the systems. And such a proclamation is bound to be disbelieved – not only by the systems and their representative, but even by those who had been closest to Jesus. The women will not be believed, but will be dismissed as the teller of “idle tales”. And the long-term result will be dismissed by and moved into increased obscurity by a disciple band that cannot afford to build a church around the women who were the first witnesses of a risen Christ.
So, these are the “book-ends” of two stories about women and angels, and God’s amazing intervention into human history. The Gospel of Luke is encapsulated by these two stories, and the Gospel itself is so encapsulated, as well. For both stories declare the primary theme of Luke – that God has acted through the life, teaching, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to establish God’s Order – his Jubilee system – upon the earth. And the world will never be the same again!
Theme 4: Where to Look for the Living! In the story of the women’s discovery of the empty tomb, the angel asks of them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen” (24:5). This is the only gospel account in which this question is asked. It appears nowhere else.
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” This is precisely the issue, as perceived by Luke. The Gospel of Luke is about the establishment of God’s kingdom through the intervention of Jesus the Messiah in human history. That kingdom is modeled on the Deuteronomic vision of what Israel was called to be and do in its social institutions and in its corporate life. But it was not simply a resuscitation of that vision. It was something much more than that – both individual life and a society’s political, economic and religious life built upon God’s grace and justice. It was not about putting new wine into old wineskins, but in creating a new structure for a new order.
Jesus had preached a return to the Deuteronomic vision of society as God intended it to be – a vision that is best encapsulated by the Hebrew word, “shalom”. Jesus had sought to call both Israel’s leadership and its people back to embracing that shalom community. But Israel’s leaders had made it abundantly clear that they would have nothing to do with it. They had the world arranged in exactly the way they wanted it – a way that guaranteed them staying in the primary positions of power, wealth and influence while having that reality covered over by the religious veneer of Yahweh worship.
So it was that Jesus abandoned the conversion of Israel’s leadership to a confrontation and exposure of the systems for what they really were, while introducing the nation to a new society – the kingdom of God – as lived out in his life and modeled by the disciple band. That change in strategy cost Jesus his life, and the apparent victory of the systems. But his resurrection had made it clear that it was God who had won, it was Jesus who ultimately controlled the systems, and it was God’s kingdom that would come upon the earth.
So the question is well put by the angel. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” It is not in a cemetery that you will find the risen Christ. And it is not in systems dedicated to exploitation, oppression and control – no matter how much god-talk they speak – that you will discover the Kingdom of God. New wine requires new wineskins. And God, through the resurrected Christ and his kingdom, will supply both the new wine and its containers.
So the question comes to us. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” What are the dead in our lives, our commitments, our priorities – those places, causes or concerns – to which we presently give our allegiance? And where is the living into which God would call us both as individuals and as God’s people, the church? How has God moved on and how is God calling us to follow Christ into God’s new intentions for the world, God’s people and for each of us? How are we to get on with the “living” as a resurrection people? This is a crucial question that Easter Sunday requires us to answer, and to keep on prayerfully answering. For on that answer depends that mission and work into which God would lead us as the church, as we seek to act out God’s resurrection power in the world!
Isaiah 65:17-25 is perhaps one of the most exhaustive statements in the Bible of the society that God intends for all humanity – the world as God created it to be, for which Christ died, and toward which God’s people are to work. It is God’s vision of society that permeates both the Old and New Testaments, that which Jesus meant when he spoke of “the kingdom of God”.
What should the kingdom of God look like? Isaiah begins, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come or mind” (Isa. 65:17). The prophet tells us that God’s intentions for society, when fully enacted, will radically alter the present reality of existence, so that it will be as if we are in “new heavens and a new earth”. This is a motif throughout the second part of Isaiah (42:9; 43:18; 51:6). In much of that book, it is a promise for Israel (42:9; 43:18), but in this portion the prophet takes a radical step, and envisions this “new heavens and a new earth” for all humanity. This, of course, is the passage that is used in Rev. 21:1 to introduce its vision of the “New Jerusalem”.
This prophecy deals with the author’s dream of what human society ought to be like – “the New Jerusalem”, “the kingdom of God”, “new heavens and a new earth”, “the shalom community”. In order to describe society as God intended and created it to be, Isaiah uses the metaphor of a city – much as does John, the author of Revelation in chapters 20 and 21 of that book. But, of course, the author is speaking of human society as a whole, and not simply a defined geographical urban space.
The value of studying Isaiah 65:17-25 is that it helps us to understand the society that Jesus was reclaiming for Israel and for his disciple band when he spoke of “the kingdom of God”. Thus, it enables us to more clearly know what should be the extent of our vision for humanity and the world, and toward what it is that we should be working as the church. This passage presents us with God’s agenda for human society, and consequently what the agenda of God’s people ought to be, as well.
“Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress” (vss. 18-19).
We do not often think of our society as the City of Joy! But that is what God wants it to be. God wants to delight over the world and wants God’s people to find joy in it, as well. The church is called to be a cheerleader to the city. It is also called to name all that is evil and dark about our society, and particularly to confront society’s systems and structures when they act in exploitive and oppressive ways. But in order to be truly effective in the world, the church cannot allow itself to be overwhelmed by its evil. It must take delight in its city, in the people surrounding the church, and in each other in the community of faith. There is much to love in every city.
“No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. For like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be” (vss. 20, 22b).
The city is to be a place of health and longevity, and the church has the responsibility to work for that longevity and health care of its inhabitants. To live in the kind of health conditions that foster infant mortality, deprive people of adequate health care or take adult life prematurely is unacceptable. The work of the church must include advocacy for adequate health care for all society’s inhabitants. That means not only dealing with direct health care, but with the very conditions of a city or society that produce ill health. That means a concern with the issue of stress. It also means a commitment to environmental issues. Health care means more than adequate medical care for all; it also means dealing with the variegated stress of the city and with the city’s environmental degradation. The Bible indicates that such concern needs to be part of the work of the church in society.
“They shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall not build and another inhabit” (vss. 21a, 22a).
Isaiah instructs God’s people to be concerned about how people live in their society. Housing, he says, is a right for all people, irrespective of their wealth or poverty. That means adequate housing for all, so that everyone has a home and no one is forced to live on the street. It means just housing, housing fairly distributed to everyone, whether one is powerful or a “nobody”, whether one is rich or poor. Isaiah states it magnificently: “They (the common people) shall not build and another (the wealthy) inhabit (the homes)”. And finally, it means safe housing. The church is to work for safe and well-built housing so that there are no tenements, no slums, no cardboard and tin shacks!
“They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not plant and another eat. My chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain” (vss. 21-23).
A dominant theme throughout both Old and New Testaments (e.g., Deut. 15:4-12; Acts 4:32-37) is the equitable sharing of wealth. “Give me neither poverty nor riches”, goes a Jewish proverb, “grant me only my share of bread to eat, for fear that surrounded by plenty, I should fall away and say “Yahweh – who is Yahweh”, or else, in destitution, take to stealing and thus profane the name of my God” (Proverbs 30:8-9). One should neither be too rich or too poor, the author of Proverbs states; it is enough to have only my fair share of wealth – and no more!
Scripture stresses the importance of building an adequate economic base under an entire people – not for a few to hoard wealth while others go hungry. Scripture passages like Jer. 22:3-5 and Eph. 6:9 indicate how both Old Testament Jews and New Testament Christians were seeking to deal with economics justly and equitably. Although their particular economic structures are irrelevant to us today, their operating premise can be instructive as we seek to build an urban economics for the twenty-first century. Isaiah calls us to bend our godly efforts to the development of a secure, balanced economy that enables each person to work and to make a valuable contribution to the furtherance of the well being of the city, while eliminating all poverty.
“They shall be offspring blessed by the Lord – and their descendants as well. Before they call, I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear” (vss. 23b-24).
Perhaps that which most separates a biblical vision of the kingdom of God from the utopias of dreamers such as John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith or Karl Marx occurs precisely at this point. Each such visionary builds his utopia on the premise that such an ideal world is achievable. Each utopia is built on the premise that humanity is essentially good and if the formula devised by the visionary is followed, then society will reach that utopia.
Scripture is different. It operates on the premise that although humanity is made in the image of God, that image is implacably scarred by the existence of sin (thus humanity is redeemable only by the action of God). Human beings will therefore corrupt every good plan humanity devises. Only God can make society work, as God redeems us and then creates in us a new community (Jesus’ “kingdom of God”). The difference therefore between the utopias of visionaries and the kingdom of God is that the first is centered on the perfectibility of humanity and the latter is centered on God. Relationship with God is the center of the transformed biblical city.
Isaiah brings out this insight most clearly in this passage on the idealized Jerusalem. In the city as God intends city to be, God will be in such close relationship with his people that “before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking, I will hear”. Relationship between God and God’s people will be so intimate that God will respond to their longing for him even before they have placed that longing into words. The description is almost one of a lover responding to his beloved at the moment before she reaches for his reassurance, or of a mother anticipating the needs of her baby even before the baby begins to cry. This is the intimacy God covets between Yahweh and the people of the city. And it is the task of the church to cultivate that intimacy between the people of its society and God.
Isaiah completes his vision with the words, “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent – its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain” (vs. 25).
The chief end of human existence in Isaiah 65 is “shalom”. God’s intentions for society ends with that which proves whether this city is indeed the city of God – whether or not its populace lives in shalom. It is the responsibility of the church to work for this shalom wherever that church may be placed. This is perhaps most dramatically stated by Jeremiah the prophet as he instructs the Jewish exiles living in the hated city of Babylon, “Work for the shalom of the city to which I have sent you; pray to Yahweh on its behalf, since on its shalom your shalom depends” (Jer. 29:7). The most appropriate worship of God is the service of humanity. A primary responsibility of the church is to seek the reconciliation and shalom of all humanity.
Isaiah 65 provides for us one of the clearest and most concrete statements in scripture of what the biblical writers and leaders mean when they speak of the New Jerusalem or Zion or the shalom community or the kingdom of God. A society of adequate health care, the end to infant mortality, healthy longevity, elimination of stress and of environmental pollution, adequate and fairly distributed housing for all, jobs for everyone at levels of skill that cause people to find fulfillment, economic development, legal systems that are just, relationship of all society’s people with God, and an entire society living at peace with one another encapsulates God’s intentions for the world. This is what the Old Testament prophets longed for. This is what Jesus gave his life for. And this is what the church, empowered by Christ’s resurrection, is called to work for. This is the shalom community!
Acts 10:34-43 is the sermon preached by Peter to Cornelius and his household upon his conversion to Christ and the baptism of his family. It expresses Peter’s new understanding that God intends salvation for Gentiles as well as Jews, and thus signals the most profound breakthrough in earliest Christianity that converted it from being a Jewish sect to becoming a worldwide religion.
In this sermon, Peter proclaims that the gospel is to go to the Gentiles (vss. 34-36). He then summarizes that gospel in a confessional statement about Jesus (vss. 38-43) that includes a significant emphasis upon Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and his appearance to those “who were chosen by God as witnesses” (vs. 41). Peter concludes the sermon by stating that the church, God’s people, are now commanded by Christ to share this good news “to the people” throughout the world.
One of the most intriguing parts of the sermon is Peter’s opening statement, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (vss. 34-35). The Greek phrase translated “shows no partiality” is literally “one who lifts faces”, so that Peter is saying “I truly understand that God is the one who lifts faces”. This is a reference to an ancient custom in the Near East in which, when one greeted or petitioned a superior, he would “bow” or “hang” his head in order to symbolize submission. If the superior lifted up the person’s face so that the inferior could look the superior squarely in the eyes, that would be a sign that the superior had thoroughly accepted the inferior and was now favoring him.[2] Thus, what Peter is saying here, is that God “lifts the face” of anyone who comes to Him (as had Cornelius), beseeching to be accepted and forgiven. In every nation, there are those who have a receptive nature to God and want relationship with Him – and God will not ignore them!
(Copyright © 2007 by Partners in Urban Transformation)