Lent and Easter with Matthew and John
Lent
Lent is a season for reflection. The Bible readings we will be following during Lent help us to reflect on the issue of identity. In each of the stories, people’s identities are affirmed and challenged. In each of them God calls us to a deeper and broader understanding of who we are in Christ.
The season is topped and tailed by Matthew’s account of Jesus’ temptations and his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In the former, the devil challenges Jesus' identity as Son of God. In the latter Jesus makes a very clear claim to his identity as Son of David, the king of Israel coming to bring peace to his people.
Matthew has a particular interest in showing how Jesus was the fulfilment of the hopes and dreams of Old Testament prophets and storytellers. So the two accounts are laden with references to the Old Testament on the lips of all the characters. In particular, Matthew is keen to show that Jesus is Son of God. This term, in its Old Testament context, referred to Israel’s kings (e.g. see Psalm 2). The greatest of those kings was David. So Matthew often refers to Jesus as Son of David, which therefore means the same as Son of God. Matthew is telling us that this carpenter from Nazareth is Israel’s true king, God’s chosen Son, come to save his people from their sins.
In between are four stories from John of Jesus’ encounters with individuals of various kinds – an educated Pharisee, a Samaritan woman, a blind man, and two grieving sisters. John is a writer with a keen eye for detail, a wonderfully sly humour and a deep understanding of how the central character in his narrative is the fulfilment of Scripture.
John writes to help Jewish believers in Jesus hold onto their faith in the turbulent times towards the end of the first century. Israel had rebelled against Rome in the mid 60s, and was finally defeated with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. With no temple or civic leadership, Jewish identity was under threat. Those who had thrown in their lot with the followers of Jesus felt particularly vulnerable.
Keen to demonstrate how Jesus is the fulfilment of all that God has been saying and doing in the Old Testament, John begins with a prologue that echoes Genesis 1. He then tells stories that show how Jesus stands in continuity with the great heroes of Israel – especially Moses – and yet moves their story on. In particular, John portrays Jesus as the focus of God’s activity in the world. He replaces the Temple (which is good news, as the Temple has gone); he is the good shepherd who will lead God’s people to safety (also good news, as Israel’s leadership has been scattered to the four winds).
So, the stories we will be reading through Lent show us how Jesus is the one who is full of grace and truth, the focus of the coming kingdom and the one who takes away the sin of the world. In short, John wants his hearers and readers to have confidence that the central character of his book is the trustworthy saviour of the world, the light to walk by, the shepherd to follow, the bringer of life and the giver of the Spirit of God. Each of the four stories illustrates these central truths about Jesus in a way that helps each of us to meet him, and find our true identity in him. And they do it in a gentle, down-to-earth way that makes these profound truths about him accessible to all of us.
The Revd Simon Jones is a Baptist minister in Bromley, and a tutor at Spurgeon’s College.
Easter
At first sight the readings for this period seem to be a randomly ordered selection from Acts, Colossians, 1 Peter and the Gospels. The main readings are from Acts and the Gospels, with Colossians and 1 Peter illustrating some of their themes. The extracts from Acts move backwards and forwards between the preaching of Peter, Stephen and Paul, the day of Pentecost and the first community of Christ-followers in Jerusalem, before ending in Jerusalem between Passover and Pentecost. The Gospel passages start in the post-resurrection period, then step back to the story of the Good Shepherd in John 10, before moving into the upper room with excerpts from John’s account of Jesus preparing his disciples for his departure.
What are we to make of the way these readings are used during the Easter season? The Acts readings bring out the impact of Jesus’ resurrection on the first followers of Jesus, both in Jerusalem and further afield. Rather than reading them as factual transcripts of actual events, it may be more helpful to see them as the crystallisation of a more protracted process of understanding and spreading the story of Jesus. The speeches of Peter to Cornelius and his household in Caesarea, and to the Pentecost pilgrims in Jerusalem, include the barest of outlines of the ministry of Jesus as it moved from Galilee to Jerusalem. This may have provided the framework on which the later Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke were constructed. As well as these outlines we see some early examples of the developing use of Jewish Scriptures to interpret and validate the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The real value in this material lies in the way it depicts the Early Church in action, working out the implications of the shock of the resurrection, so that the story of Jesus could be shared with new audiences, some of whom were more receptive than others. But this ‘working out’ was not merely a matter of theory. The readings show how the post-Pentecost community extended Jesus’ own ministry into the Jewish communities in Jerusalem and further afield, in Caesarea and Athens. Sometimes, this missionary activity provoked division (as in Athens with Paul) or violence (as in Jerusalem, when Stephen was stoned). At other times it was deeply attractive, as the Spirit recreated the impact of Jesus of Nazareth in the hospitality and prayerfulness of those who believed in him. The readings from Acts prepare us for Pentecost, by encouraging us to ask what inspired the community that gathered round Peter and the other apostles. What was it that turned a group of disappointed, frightened and dispirited people into such energetic advocates of the cause of a crucified man? We find the answer as we join the nucleus of a new movement waiting expectantly and prayerfully for God to fulfil his promise at Pentecost.
The Gospel readings narrate the roots of this turnaround in the mysterious encounters between the risen Jesus and his first followers. Again these are best understood not as transcripts of ‘what actually happened’ (they diverge too much for that), but as accounts of what the followers of Jesus came to believe, with the benefit of Spirit-inspired hindsight, about the mystery that we now call Easter. The common core in the resurrection appearance narratives is highly credible. The women who followed him from Galilee and saw him crucified and buried found his tomb disturbed. They were the first to tell the others (mostly men) about what they saw, including a figure they didn’t recognise at first, but who they realised was Jesus raised to life. The other disciples came to believe – sometimes against their better judgement – what the women told them. The fact that the women’s testimony is so prominent in documents that come from a culture that would not have valued their evidence is a mark of authenticity at the heart of the Easter stories.
The Gospel readings explore how Jesus came to be recognised. Immediately in Matthew, who highlights the revelatory power of the resurrection. More slowly in John and Luke, where disciples eventually identify Jesus as a result of hearing him call out a name, or say grace over a meal – familiar actions that suggest that ‘this can only be the Jesus we know’. The timescales are compressed, as in the Acts readings, but this is common in ancient storytelling, where characters move easily between their own world and that of their later audiences. This approach to the Easter Gospel readings sheds light on the series of readings from John’s account of Jesus’ teachings in the upper room. See them as the evangelist having Jesus address two audiences simultaneously (the disciples in the upper room, and the community for whom he is writing), and the chronological chaos in the lectionary is no longer an issue. Just as Jesus reassured and strengthened his disciples before his death, so the risen Jesus addresses the concerns of a new audience, particularly about what it means to be loyal to a Lord whose absence only adds to their anxiety. What Jesus said in the upper room about the coming of the Spirit takes on new meaning as we wait with these first disciples for the coming of the Spirit, and hear the call of our risen Lord to live in the glory of his presence.
The Revd Dr John Parr is based in the Anglican diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich where he was Director of Ministry, Education and Training for several years.