I want to apologize to anyone who has been following along with me on a daily basis. Yesterday had, as Jesus said in Matthew 6:34, “Enough trouble of its own,” and those challenges sort of derailed me from posting. So I hope you will forgive me for not posting. I did get my reading done according to the schedule and I hope you also are up to date.
Today, we finished off with the culmination of the Gospel of Matthew and all the events leading up to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Perhaps there is no more glorious news, even good news, than to see Jesus alive again after such a brutal series of punishments, insults and murder. It is the joy of the disciples and the victory of the Lord over sin and death that make all the difference. It is truly good news.
We are on the down slope of our reading and I hope that each of you are persevering. We can do it, I know we can, one step at a time.
Here is what I took away from my reading today.
After the crucifixion and the Sabbath, the women go to the tomb. It doesn’t say in Matthew why they did this except to say they went to look at the tomb. At any rate, they where there and we read that there was an earthquake, then an angel appears from heaven. Wow! I think all of us would have the same response as the guards at Jesus’ tomb (they shook and became like dead men).
Yet the women there hear a message that is beyond belief. The one they are looking for, Jesus, isn’t there. He is risen from the dead! The angel says to them that they should not be afraid and should tell the disciples.
The women, understandably, are shook themselves, but hurry away to tell the disciples. Their emotions are such that they are filled with a strange mixture of fear and joy. Fear and joy. Yes, the angel told them to not be afraid, but how could anyone, after those events, not be afraid. Yet their fear is mingled with a smoldering joy that is about to be fanned into a flame that would not stop even to this day.
Jesus appears. “Greetings,” He says to them, as if this was the most casual of chance meetings on the road to market or the city well. “Greetings,” He says to them and this is enough to send these caring women into a raging fire of joy. They went to Him (I bet they ran) and, the text says, they “clasped His feet and worshiped Him.”
You cannot grab someone’s feet without being on the ground or kneeling. These women hit the dirt in JOY at the sight of their Lord and Savior. They bowed down and worshiped the only one worthy of worship. And they did this without hesitation, without thinking about the possibility of getting dirty, without any thought of themselves, only, “Here is our Master, ALIVE.”
Their fear turned to unleashed joy. Their worry to wonder. Their woe to worship.
Oh how we need to see the risen Lord today. Oh how we need to hear from His lips, “Do not be afraid.” Oh how our faith seems so small in the light of our world’s anything. Oh how easy it is to be discouraged.
Yet Jesus ends the book with the most incredible statement. “Surely I am with you ALWAYS, to the VERY END OF THE AGE.” We can either trust Him, like those women or not. He meant what He said or not. He is with us now or not.
I think He is still speaking…let’s not be afraid, but let us worship Him with joy.
No reading until Monday (unless you need to catch up). I hope you are blessed this weekend as you “worship Him with joy.”
Blessings!
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