“Stories galore”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Monday, April 21, 2025
Matthew 28: 9-15 (Forward, p. 82) CEV p. 1024
One of the very real problems with social media posts these days is that given the fact that they are so ‘immediate’, so close to the actual event, that there is often not sufficient time for the wider picture or for the overall context. And, certainly, not enough time for ‘the rest of the story’, that is, what happened next. And so, as a result, there are lots of theories, lot of half-baked conclusions, but a pronounced shortage of verified ‘facts.’
We see something of this in today’s accounts of that first Easter Sunday morning, two instances in fact. Firstly, there was the empty tomb and the inability of the soldiers who were supposedly guarding it to account for it. And so the Jewish authorities made up the story that Jesus’ disciples had stolen the body. A plausible enough explanation at the time, but could it stand up to intense and prolonged scrutiny? Not in the least, the disciples stuck with the story that Jesus had indeed been raised from the dead through thick and then, and never once did any of them diverge from this truth. That’s pretty incredible, that none of them ever ‘cracked’, never deviated from what would have been a massive cover-up despite all the pressure to do so. And so, all of this would suggest that this story, the story that Jesus was indeed raised from the dead, is true.
And then there was the message of the angels and the women’s encounter with the risen Jesus. That too sounds pretty implausible, pretty outlandish, but then it was repeated over and over again—in numerous occasions, with over 500 people at once, and over forty long days. It’s hard to refute such a mass of evidence. And this likewise, points to the highly unlikely story, the Resurrection of Jesus, is actually true. The subsequent facts bear this out. It is more than ‘just’ a story; it is the truth. Thanks be to God.
Forwards notes: “And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him” (verse 9b).
“In tomorrow’s gospel reading from John, Jesus says to Mary, ‘Noli me tangere’ when she reaches out to touch him: Do not hold on to me. In artistic depictions of this scene, Mary’s agony at Jesus’s withdrawal is often visible and wrenching. Yet in Matthew’s version today, the disciples hold onto Jesus’s feet, which are probably still covered in the blood and wounds of his crucifixion. If we fast forward to the Ascension, art depicts those bloody feet as the last sight of Jesus ascending into the clouds. Perhaps those feet were the last part of Jesus’s body the disciples touched before he was crucified. There is a posture of worship in the disciples kneeling at his feet, as the author of Matthew says.
“As I left my mother’s body after she died, the last part of her I touched were her feet. Perhaps that was a gentle well wish for her on her journey, and perhaps it will be the first part of her I touch when we meet again. I hope so.”
Moving Forward: “What would you do first if you saw the risen Christ?”