Grow! Pray! Study! Daily Guide from the United Methodist Church
of the Resurrection - Monday, 3 February 2014 – “Great fear and
excitement"
Daily Scripture: Matthew 28: The Resurrection of Jesus
1 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning,
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there
was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came
and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning,
and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became
like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know
that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here; for he has
been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he[a] lay. 7 Then go quickly
and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead,[b] and indeed he is
going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for
you.” 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell
his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came
to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them,
“Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will
see me.”
The Report of the Guard
11 While they were going, some of the guard went into the city
and told the chief priests everything that had happened. 12 After the
priests[c] had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large
sum of money to the soldiers, 13 telling them, “You must say, ‘His disciples
came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 If this comes to the
governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So they
took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told
among the Jews to this day.
Footnotes:
a. Matthew 28:6 Other ancient authorities read the Lord
b. Matthew 28:7 Other ancient authorities lack from the dead
c. Matthew 28:12 Gk they
Reflection Questions:
Having set down Jesus' prediction that he would rise after three
days (cf. Matthew 16:21), we might expect Matthew to write words like, "On
the third day the disciples gathered to greet the risen Lord." Not even
close! He wrote, "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the
tomb," when no one in Matthew's day would invent women as reliable
witnesses. These very real women he wrote about felt "great fear and
excitement," a natural reaction to an unexpected encounter with the
supernatural.
The angel told the women "Don't be afraid. I know that you
are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He isn't here, because he's been
raised from the dead, just as he said. Come see the place where they laid
him." Matthew said they felt "great fear and excitement," just
as we do when something amazing, that will cause huge changes in our life,
happens. What about God's work in your life has made, or might make, you afraid?
What about God's work fills you with excitement?
When that sealed, guarded tomb with a huge rock over its door
(cf. Matthew 27:57-66, Mark 16:3-4) stood empty, it became a big problem for
the Roman and religious authorities. All they needed to stop the Jesus movement
was his dead body, but it wasn't there! Matthew said they accused Jesus'
followers of the very thing they'd worked hard to make impossible: stealing the
body. Does the empty tomb help you to choose to believe in Jesus' resurrection?
Why or why not?
Today's Prayer:
Lord Jesus, sometimes I, too, feel great fear about your living
presence—and sometimes I feel excitement. Help my trust in you to keep growing,
that I may more and more enter into your joyous life. Amen.
Monday, 3 February 2014 - Insight from Jeanna Repass
Jeanna Repass serves as the Kansas City Missions Program
Director at The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection.
I love popcorn with M & M’s; sweet fruit with a
sharp-flavored cheese; French fries and an ice cream shake. The contradiction
between sweet and salty makes a flavor combination that I find hard to resist.
Maybe it’s the same reason some people like roller coasters or scary movies.
You know there is something fun in the experience but you are terrified at the
same time.
I recently experienced this feeling when I flew to Chicago for a
summit roundtable on poverty.
I hadn’t flown in seven years and the anxiety and anticipation
of flying had built up so high that I was unsure that I would ever get into an
airplane again. I was terrified yet excited about the flight. I knew that my
inability to fly limited a lot of opportunities in my life that I truly believe
God wanted to open up for me. So I tacked my courage to the sticking place and
focused on the excitement of going to a city I had never been – and I flew.
I wonder if this is similar to the feeling the women felt at the
tomb. The scripture today tells us that after the women had encountered the
angel, “… they left the tomb with fear and excitement…”Matthew 25:8. I can
imagine that the women had some fear about how the disciples would react to the
news that Jesus’ body was gone. Maybe they feared that they wouldn’t be
believed or even blamed for the missing body. Yet at the same time, I think
they must have been so excited about the fact that the angel told them that the
person they came to mourn was actually living.
What I really like about the scripture for today is that the
fear did not overcome the excitement and the women ran to the disciples and
told them what the angel said. The key is not whether or not you feel fear –
it’s about whether you allow it to overcome the excitement and therefore
robbing you of all the greatness that God wants you to experience. Believing in
a resurrected (dead – then undead) human yet divine ultimate savior is a leap -
but that’s what we call faith and faith
is where we get into our relationship with Jesus. Scary yet exciting – salty
and sweet! Amen.
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United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, KS 66224 United States
(913)897-0120
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