November 18th, 2023

This Sunday is known as the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost, and that is the highest number we will be seeing this year. (Next Sunday will have the following title: ‘Last Sunday of the Church Year’.) This week’s Gospel Reading will continue along in Matthew 25[:14-30]. And the writing for this week will look at the start of the last chapter of that gospel account.

What follows is this writer’s attempt at a somewhat-literal translation of the start of Matthew 28[:1-10]. Although it is probably a very familiar text, you may wish to look also at a study bible or at least another translation of the text, to help with your understanding of it (why, for example, the word ‘Sabbath’ is in the plural below). The following words are very important, since they are the closest to the time that we have today; Jesus is alive again after he died, and his name means ‘Savior':

Now after Sabbaths, in the enlightening into first of Sabbaths, she came, Mary the Magdalene, and the other Mary, to view the grave.

And behold, an earthquake happened, a great one; for an angel of Lord having come down from heaven, and having approached, he rolled away the stone, and he was sitting upon it. Now it was, the appearance of him, as lightening, and the clothing of him, white as snow. Now from the fear of him, they quaked, the ones watching, and they become as dead.

Now having answered, the angel said to the women, “Do not fear, you; for I know that Jesus, the one having been crucified, you are seeking. Not he is here; for he has been raised, just as he said. Come, see the place where he was lying. And quickly having gone, tell the disciples of him that he has been raised from the dead. And behold, he is going before you into the Galilee. There him you will see. Behold, I said to you.”

And having gone away quickly from the tomb, with fear and joy, great; they ran to report to the disciples of him. And behold, the Jesus met them saying, “Rejoice!” Now the ones, having approached, they seized of him the feet, and they worshiped him. Then he says to them, the Jesus, “Do not fear; go, report to the brothers of me that they may go away into the Galilee; and there me, they will see.”

If you have been on this website before, you probably know that the above words in bold are called the historical present, where the past tense is expected but the present tense is given. The vast majority of the verbs in the historical present in this gospel account have been words of speaking. We will see other verbs in the other accounts doing something like this—yes, we will continue on with the Gospel according to Mark in a couple of weeks.

It may be interesting to note that there is a hint of Jesus’ importance in the words that are right before the historical present. Usually when there is a description of whose noun it is, that description comes right after the noun. Earlier in this text, there is ‘the appearance of him’, ‘the clothing of him’, and ‘the fear of him’, just to name a few. But now it is ‘of him the feet’ that the women seized.

You might imagine that the word ‘seize’ does not happen too often, but that is only somewhat true. The word did appear VERY frequently when Jesus was getting arrested. It should be pretty obvious that the women are not interested in arresting Jesus’ feet. But there is something important about that Jesus; after all, his name does mean ‘Savior’. And therefore, there must be something very important about Jesus’ feet.
​
Those feet of Jesus went to the cross. Then those feet were carried to the tomb. And then those feet went away from that tomb. And even though the feet of Jesus’ disciples went away from him, and even though they deserted him before he died, Jesus calls those disciples his brothers in the text above. And you can probably imagine how few times that title is given to Jesus’ disciples in this account.