Daily Manna 26-04-2016

Topic: The empty tomb 25

Reading: Matthew 27:57-66, 28:1-15

Scripture: He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee. (Luke 24:6)

Note: Even the apostles, who had literally lived and walked with Christ for more than three years, had difficulties with the accommodating nature of Christ towards people who were shunned, denigrated and classified as typical sinners by the average Jew, and even worse by the rigidly ritualistic, unaccommodating and ceremonially minded Pharisees.

This sub-culture of over focus on the demands of the peripherals of the law to the detriment of the substance of the law found most adherents of the law deviated to positions trapped between the external poles of ritualism and ceremonialism. This was the purpose for which Jesus came, that he might provide leadership, focus and direction to the requirements of the true rudiments of worship in Spirit and in Truth.

Jesus Christ is the Truth and the fulfillment of the law. His encounter with a prominent sinner such as Zacchaeus, a rich man and regarded as the chief among the publicans, an encounter that led to a feast in Zacchaeus’ house, a miraculous conversion and a divine turnaround in character of Zacchaeus, was to have served as exemplary demonstration to the disciples of the changing culture to come.

Jesus’ encounter with a woman of ill-repute; the Samarian woman at the well of Jacob in John 4, who had been through five divorces and currently living in sin with a man who hadn’t married her, the outcome of which led to the gospel entering Samaria for the first time through a woman as the vessel, was expected to have provided sufficient proof of a cultural paradigm shift among the disciples regarding the witness and significance of women in God’s Kingdom business.

The refusal of the disciples to acquiesce readily to the news of the resurrection story shows the extent to which they were prepared to subject the improbable news to rigid verification of the facts as pertains in the Jewish system of validation of improbable news.

Food for thought: The improbable news of Jesus’ resurrection would inure to the advantage of the disciples, yet they weren’t prepared to accept the happy news hook, line and sinker until it was verified.

Declaration: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32)

© Author: Rev Fred Aboe