God Moves through History – 9 April 2023 – Easter Sunday

Easter is not primarily a day or even a season. Easter is a perspective, a lens through which one views the world and its history. If one were to consider the first chapter of Genesis and the last chapter of Mathew's gospel—the readings that bookend the Easter Vigil—as texts that circumscribe the biblical view of the world, then one can see the trajectory of God's movement through human history. . .

Genesis begins with God and a desire to create, and a celebration of sheer delight in what God has created. The gospel as Matthew records it ends with Jesus sending his disciples out into all of the world—through all of creation—in his name with a promise of his presence to the ends of the earth. No matter what occurs in the history of the reality we call the universe, God sees it as good and offers his undeniable authority over all that opposes God's will as a promise and pledge until all has been fully restored and redeemed. –– Todd Johnson

Matthew 28:1–10

The narrative follows Mark's outline and supplements it with imagery straight out of the Jewish apocalyptic tradition (see Daniel 10:6, for example). Verses 1–8 place strong emphasis on the women going to the tomb and affirming that it is empty. While in Mark, the women's response to the empty tomb is one of fear, in Matthew they respond “with fear and great joy”: the empty tomb affirms their already present faith. Those who are gathered to encounter the risen Lord in most of our Easter Day assemblies probably come for similar reasons.

Verses 9 and 10 very much parallel the Fourth Gospel's account of Mary Magdalene's encounter with the risen Lord and probably are a later, liturgically driven addition to the pericope. Here the emphasis is on their response to the risen Lord, which is worship.. –– Amandus J. Derr

Colossians 3:1–4

Do not hold on to the past. Do not live in memories. Face the present and the future, because Jesus is not dead anymore. He is alive. He calls you by name. He calls you to go and to tell others what you have seen, what you have heard, what you have experienced. And remember: you are called by your name—he calls you. Do you hear the voice calling? –– Sigrid Rother

Acts 10:34–43

“They put him to death on a tree, but God raised him” (Acts 10:39b–40a). Those words, but God, are the church's only good answer to the troubles and trials the world offers. Trying to reason our way through grief and loss, trying to make sense of the senseless, trying to convince a world gone crazy with the desire for more of everything and anything that desire is deadly of both body and soul; these things are, at the end of the day, pointless. There is no reason that can assuage our grief, there is no sense to be made of the raging evil we see around us, there is no way to divert the addicted and bloated from seeking their fix, be it oil or drugs. –– Delmer Chilton

Todd E. Johnson served as associate professor of worship, theology, and the arts at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, and is now a pastor serving a Covenant church in the Pacific Northwest.

Amandus J. Derr served for twenty-two years as senior pastor of St. Peter Lutheran Church (ELCA) in New York City.

Delmer L. Chilton, and Lutheran pastor recently served as assistant to the bishop of the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA in Atlanta, Georgia.

Homily Service 41, no. 2 (2008): 102–112.