Moving
On With Jesus....Christ's Church, Mandurah
Open-ended, Life-centred
Explorations of Matthean Gospels
MT 28: 1-10...EASTER DAY (A)
NOTES:
(1) 'Easter' may come from a real or
imagined Anglo-Saxon goddess of
Spring. (2) The varying Easter
accounts show either great honesty or great
duplicity by early Christians! (3)
The 'other Mary' of v.1 is
revealed in 27:56 as 'mother of James & Joseph', perhaps two
otherwise unknown disciples.
PRAYER:
To be raised up with Christ in victorious new life.
WARM UP:
(for Groups): Do we have a favourite Easter hymn?
MOVING
ON:
1. Why hasn't Jesus'
resurrection brought a resurrected quality to church life, including
the role of women in the church? Given the faithfulness of the women
disciples before & during Jesus' Passion (compared with the
menfolk!), the honour accorded the two Marys here, & the leading
roles women played in the early church, why would any Christian want to
put the clock & our culture back to an ultra-conservative ancient
Middle Eastern view of 'a woman's place'?
Shouldn't we insist: 'one resurrected, all resurrected'?
2. What roles do we understand angels to play in today's
world? With so many keen to latch onto evil spirits, why are we
less keen to say (or sing!) 'I believe in angels'? Have we simply
become too sophisticated to believe in angels today? If so, are the angels the
losers, or are we?
3. Are there times when for any reason, we, like the guards, are
'paralysed with fear ' so that we
'look like corpses'(as a modern
translation puts it)? Who tells us not to be frightened? Are they
words we do need to hear & act on? It's been suggested that the
opposite of love is not really 'hate' but 'fear': does that make any
sense to us? What bearing should the fact that Jesus is raised from
death have on any fears we have today?
4. How do we bridge the gap between
being told Jesus has been
raised from death & actually meeting
Him, in His Spirit, today? Is that gap the
difference between His being raised
having any real effect on
us & our believing it in theory but never experiencing Him
raised? Or, is that too uncomfortable a question to face?
5. Are there times when
we feel a mixture of fear (apprehension?) & joy at the same time?
Is such a combination likely to be energising or numbing in our case?
6.
Is the women's meeting Jesus while they're running to tell His other
disciples about His resurrection a kind of symbol of the fact that real
encounters with Jesus happen while we had something else on our mind,
other business to do? (Like 'life is what happens to us while we're
planning to do something else'?
For Groups: Closing prayers. Will the
Group continue to meet now that this series is over?
For individuals: Is there some follow-up to this series you could
undertake?
