Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Dr. Kari Vo "Rock of Ages" for Saturday, March 31, 2018
And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. (Matthew 27:59-60)
Matthew 27:59 Yosef took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen sheet, 60 and laid it in his own tomb, which he had recently had cut out of the rock. After rolling a large stone in front of the entrance to the tomb, he went away. 61 Miryam of Magdala and the other Miryam stayed there, sitting opposite the grave.
62 Next day, after the preparation, the head cohanim and the P’rushim went together to Pilate 63 and said, “Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will be raised.’ 64 Therefore, order that the grave be made secure till the third day; otherwise the talmidim may come, steal him away and say to the people, ‘He was raised from the dead’; and the last deception will be worse than the first.” 65 Pilate said to them, “You may have your guard. Go and make the grave as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and made the grave secure by sealing the stone and putting the guard on watch. (Complete Jewish Bible)
***We are used to thinking of rocks as things that do not change -- or, if they do, only very, very slowly, over thousands of years. An old rock -- what hasn't it seen? Surely of all earthly things, a rock should be able to say, "There is nothing new under the sun." And yet, this rock -- the one sealing Jesus' tomb -- had a surprise coming.
Joseph of Arimathea had ordered a family tomb built for himself -- cut out of the limestone surrounding Jerusalem. There was nothing surprising about that. Plenty of people had done the same. This tomb was to be closed by a giant rounded stone, which would roll down a small slope to cover the entrance. It was made big and heavy on purpose, to discourage animals or grave robbers.
So Joseph and Nicodemus wrapped Jesus' body in a shroud, put spices around Him, and laid Him in the tomb. Then they rolled the stone down in front of the entrance and went away. Nothing would change (or so the men probably thought!) until the next member of Joseph's family died and needed to be buried. The stone would simply sit there, unchanging, heavy -- doing its job.
But things did change. First came a squad of soldiers to seal the stone and keep watch, just in case Jesus' disciples got up the courage to try to steal His body. (The Jewish leaders obviously didn't know them very well.)
Then came the women, walking out to the tomb to finish the details of Jesus' burial. They too worried about the stone, which was too heavy for them to move.
But they didn't have to. There was an earthquake, and an angel of God came down. Casually, as if the stone weighed nothing, the angel rolled it away from the door. Then he sat on it!
The stone had no purpose anymore except as an angel's seat. There was nothing left inside the tomb to guard. Jesus had already risen and gone.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, there are things in my life like the stone that guarded Your tomb -- things that imprison me though not You. Come, please, roll away these stones and set me free to live trusting in You. Amen.
Reflection Questions
- What kind of burial or cremation arrangements does your family use?
- Why do you think the angel rolled away the stone if Jesus was already gone?
- What in your life feels like it is imprisoning you now? Ask the Lord to roll it away and set you free.
Today's Bible in a Year Reading: Deuteronomy 20-22; Luke 6:1-26
Deuteronomy 20:1 “When you go out to fight your enemies and see horses, chariots and a force larger than yours, you are not to be afraid of them; because Adonai your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you. 2 When you are about to go into battle, the cohen is to come forward and address the people. 3 He should tell them, ‘Listen, Isra’el! You are about to do battle against your enemies. Don’t be fainthearted or afraid; don’t be alarmed or frightened by them; 4 because Adonai your God is going with you to fight on your behalf against your enemies and give you victory.’
5 “Then the officials will speak to the soldiers. They are to say, ‘Is there a man here who has built a new house, but hasn’t dedicated it yet? He should go back home now; otherwise he may die fighting, and another man will dedicate it.
6 “‘Is there a man here who has planted a vineyard, but hasn’t yet made use of its fruit? He should go back home; otherwise he may die fighting, and another man will use it.
7 “‘Is there a man here who is engaged to a woman, but hasn’t married her yet? He should go back home; otherwise he may die fighting, and another man will marry her.’
8 “The officials will then add to what they have said to the soldiers: ‘Is there a man here who is afraid and fainthearted? He should go back home; otherwise his fear may demoralize his comrades as well.’ 9 When the officials have finished speaking with the soldiers, commanders are to be appointed to lead the army.
(vii) 10 “When you advance on a town to attack it, first offer it terms for peace. 11 If it accepts the terms for peace and opens its gates to you, then all the people there are to be put to forced labor and work for you. 12 However, if they refuse to make peace with you but prefer to make war against you, you are to put it under siege. 13 When Adonai your God hands it over to you, you are to put every male to the sword. 14 However, you are to take as booty for yourself the women, the little ones, the livestock, and everything in the city — all its spoil. Yes, you will feed on your enemies’ spoil, which Adonai your God has given you. 15 This is what you are to do to all the towns which are at a great distance from you, which are not the towns of these nations.
16 “As for the towns of these peoples, which Adonai your God is giving you as your inheritance, you are not to allow anything that breathes to live. 17 Rather you must destroy them completely — the Hitti, the Emori, the Kena‘ani, the P’rizi, the Hivi and the Y’vusi — as Adonai your God has ordered you; 18 so that they won’t teach you to follow their abominable practices, which they do for their gods, thus causing you to sin against Adonai your God.
19 “When, in making war against a town in order to capture it, you lay siege to it for a long time, you are not to destroy its trees, cutting them down with an axe. You can eat their fruit, so don’t cut them down. After all, are the trees in the field human beings, so that you have to besiege them too? 20 However, if you know that certain trees provide no food, you may destroy them and cut them down, in order to build siege-works against the town making war with you, until it falls.
21:1 “If, in the land Adonai your God is giving you to possess, a murder victim is found lying in the countryside; and the perpetrator of the murder is not known; 2 then your leaders and judges are to go out and measure the distance between it and the surrounding towns. 3 After it has been determined which town is the closest, the leaders of that town are to take a young female cow that has never been put to work or yoked for use as a draft animal. 4 The leaders of that town are to bring the heifer down to a vadi with a stream in it that never dries up, to a place that is neither plowed nor sown; and they are to break the cow’s neck there in the vadi. 5 Then the cohanim, who are L’vi’im, are to approach; for Adonai your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in the name of Adonai; they will decide the outcome of every dispute and matter involving violence. 6 All the leaders of the town nearest the murder victim are to wash their hands over the cow whose neck was broken in the vadi. (Maftir) 7 Then they are to speak up and say, ‘This blood was not shed by our hands, nor have we seen who did it. 8 Adonai, forgive your people Isra’el, whom you redeemed; do not allow innocent blood to be shed among your people Isra’el.’ And they will be forgiven this bloodshed. 9 Thus you will banish the shedding of innocent blood from among you, by doing what Adonai sees as right.
10 “When you go out to war against your enemies, and Adonaiyour God hands them over to you, and you take prisoners, 11 and you see among the prisoners a woman who looks good to you, and you feel attracted to her and want her as your wife; 12 you are to bring her home to your house, where she will shave her head, cut her fingernails 13 and remove her prison clothing. She will stay there in your house, mourning her father and mother for a full month; after which you may go in to have sexual relations with her and be her husband, and she will be your wife. 14 In the event that you lose interest in her, you are to let her go wherever she wishes; but you may not sell her for money or treat her like a slave, because you humiliated her.
15 “If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and unloved wives have borne him children, and if the firstborn son is the child of the unloved wife; 16 then, when it comes time for him to pass his inheritance on to his sons, he may not give the inheritance due the firstborn to the son of the loved wife in place of the son of the unloved one, who is in fact the firstborn. 17 No, he must acknowledge as firstborn the son of the unloved wife by giving him a double portion of everything he owns, for he is the firstfruits of his manhood, and the right of the firstborn is his.
18 “If a man has a stubborn, rebellious son who will not obey what his father or mother says, and even after they discipline him he still refuses to pay attention to them; 19 then his father and mother are to take hold of him and bring him out to the leaders of his town, at the gate of that place, 20 and say to the leaders of his town, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he doesn’t pay attention to us, lives wildly, gets drunk.’ 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death; in this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you, and all Isra’el will hear about it and be afraid.
(ii) 22 “If someone has committed a capital crime and is put to death, then hung on a tree, 23 his body is not to remain all night on the tree, but you must bury him the same day, because a person who has been hanged has been cursed by God — so that you will not defile your land, which Adonai your God is giving you to inherit.
22:1 “You are not to watch your brother’s ox or sheep straying and behave as if you hadn’t seen it; you must bring them back to your brother. 2 If your brother is not close by, or you don’t know who the owner is, you are to bring it home to your house; and it will remain with you until your brother asks for it; then you are to give it back to him. 3 You are to do the same with his donkey, his coat or anything else of your brother’s that he loses. If you find something he lost, you must not ignore it.
4 “If you see your brother’s donkey or ox collapsed on the road, you may not behave as if you hadn’t seen it; you must help him get them up on their feet again.
5 “A woman is not to wear men’s clothing, and a man is not to put on women’s clothing, for whoever does these things is detestable to Adonai your God.
6 “If, as you are walking along, you happen to see a bird’s nest in a tree or on the ground with chicks or eggs, and the mother bird is sitting on the chicks or the eggs, you are not to take the mother with the chicks. 7 You must let the mother go, but you may take the chicks for yourself; so that things will go well with you, and you will prolong your life.
(iii) 8 “When you build a new house, you must build a low wall around your roof; otherwise someone may fall from it, and you will be responsible for his death.
9 “You are not to sow two kinds of seed between your rows of vines; if you do, both the two harvested crops and the yield from the vines must be forfeited. 10 You are not to plow with an ox and a donkey together. 11 You are not to wear clothing woven with two kinds of thread, wool and linen together.
12 “You are to make for yourself twisted cords on the four corners of the garment you wrap around yourself.
13 “If a man marries a woman, has sexual relations with her and then, having come to dislike her, 14 brings false charges against her and defames her character by saying, ‘I married this woman, but when I had intercourse with her I did not find evidence that she was a virgin’; 15 then the girl’s father and mother are to take the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the leaders of the town at the gate. 16 The girl’s father will say to the leaders, ‘I let my daughter marry this man, but he hates her, 17 so he has brought false charges that he didn’t find evidence of her virginity; yet here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity’ — (18 ) and they will lay the cloth before the town leaders. 18 (19) The leaders of that town are to take the man, punish him, 19 and fine him two-and-a-half pounds of silver shekels, which they will give to the girl’s father, because he has publicly defamed a virgin of Isra’el. She will remain his wife, and he is forbidden from divorcing her as long as he lives.
20 “But if the charge is substantiated that evidence for the girl’s virginity could not be found; 21 then they are to lead the girl to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her town will stone her to death, because she has committed in Isra’el the disgraceful act of being a prostitute while still in her father’s house. In this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you.
22 “If a man is found sleeping with a woman who has a husband, both of them must die — the man who went to bed with the woman and the woman too. In this way you will expel such wickedness from Isra’el.
23 “If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a man, and another man comes upon her in the town and has sexual relations with her; 24 you are to bring them both out to the gate of the city and stone them to death — the girl because she didn’t cry out for help, there in the city, and the man because he has humiliated his neighbor’s wife. In this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you.
25 “But if the man comes upon the engaged girl out in the countryside, and the man grabs her and has sexual relations with her, then only the man who had intercourse with her is to die. 26 You will do nothing to the girl, because she has done nothing deserving of death. The situation is like the case of the man who attacks his neighbor and kills him. 27 For he found her in the countryside, and the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.
28 “If a man comes upon a girl who is a virgin but who is not engaged, and he grabs her and has sexual relations with her, and they are caught in the act, 29 then the man who had intercourse with her must give to the girl’s father one-and-a-quarter pounds of silver shekels, and she will become his wife, because he humiliated her; he may not divorce her as long as he lives.
Luke 6:1 One Shabbat, while Yeshua was passing through some wheat fields, his talmidim began plucking the heads of grain, rubbing them between their hands and eating the seeds. 2 Some of the P’rushim said, “Why are you violating Shabbat?” 3 Yeshua answered them, “Haven’t you ever read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the House of God and took and ate the Bread of the Presence” — which no one is permitted to eat but the cohanim. 5 “The Son of Man,” he concluded, “is Lord of Shabbat.”
6 On another Shabbat, when Yeshua had gone into the synagogue and was teaching, a man was there who had a shriveled hand. 7 The Torah-teachers and P’rushim watched Yeshua carefully to see if he would heal on Shabbat, so that they could accuse him of something. 8 But he knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Come up and stand where we can see you!” He got up and stood there. 9 Then Yeshua said to them, “I ask you now: what is permitted on Shabbat? Doing good or doing evil? Saving life or destroying it?” 10 Then, after looking around at all of them, he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” As he held it out, his hand was restored. 11 But the others were filled with fury and began discussing with each other what they could do to Yeshua.
12 It was around that time that Yeshua went out to the hill country to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. 13 When day came, he called his talmidim and chose from among them twelve to be known as emissaries:
14 Shim‘on, whom he named Kefa; Andrew, his brother; Ya‘akov; Yochanan; Philip; Bar-Talmai;
15 Mattityahu; T’oma; Ya‘akov Ben-Halfai;
16 Shim‘on, the one called the Zealot; Y’hudah Ben-Ya‘akov; and Y’hudah from K’riot, who turned traitor.
17 Then he came down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his talmidim was there with great numbers of people from all Y’hudah, Yerushalayim and the coast around Tzor and Tzidon; they had come to hear him and be healed of their diseases. 18 Those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being healed; 19 and the whole crowd was trying to touch him, because power kept going out from him, healing everyone. 20 He looked at his talmidim and said:
“How blessed are you poor!
for the Kingdom of God is yours.
21 “How blessed are you who are hungry!
for you will be filled.
“How blessed are you who are crying now!
for you will laugh.
22 “How blessed you are whenever people hate you and ostracize you and insult you and denounce you as a criminal on account of the Son of Man. 23 Be glad when that happens; yes, dance for joy! because in heaven your reward is great. For that is just how their fathers treated the prophets.
24 “But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already had all the comfort you will get!
25 “Woe to you who are full now,
for you will go hungry!
“Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and cry!
26 “Woe to you when people speak well of you, for that is just how their fathers treated the false prophets! (Complete Jewish Bible)
Use these devotions in your newsletter and bulletin! Used by permission; all rights reserved by the Int'l LLL (LHM).
CHANGE THEIR WORLD. CHANGE YOURS.
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.
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