The first words of the Easter story place us on a threshold. Something new is about to begin. “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark...” (John 20:1). When the early Christians heard these words, many of them would have been reminded of the first lines of the Bible when God, in seven days, created heaven and earth, and of that moment on the first day when God said, “Let there be light.”

As we continue reading the Easter story, however, we see that the subject of these first lines is Mary Magdalene. “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.” Mary is a picture of loving attachment to Jesus and audacity. After having gone out in pitch dark to the tomb and returning to tell two of the disciples about the stone, she follows as they then go there. Once they’ve left, she stays. She stands there and weeps, it says. Overcome but standing.

Two angels call out to her. “Why are you weeping?” they ask. The word angel means messenger. When angels intervene in the Bible they do so on God’s behalf. But here, rather than announce simply what God has done, as one might expect, the angels seem to see only Mary. Their words convey tenderness and concern.

Then Jesus appears. “Why are you weeping?” he asks, “Whom are you looking for?” The first words of Jesus in John’s Gospel were very similar, “What are you looking for?” Jesus never stops seeking people out. Mary replies to him, thinking he’s a gardener. The tomb is located, it said earlier, in a garden. Is this another reference to the beginning of the Bible? In Genesis chapter 2, after having created Adam, God entrusted the Garden of Eden to human care. Finally the decisive moment arrives. Jesus calls her by name. Suddenly recognizing his voice, Mary the disciple bursts out, “Rabbouni, Teacher!”

As one contemporary theologian has put it, “Christianity is a contact before it is a message.” (Rowan Williams, in Tokens of Trust, Canterbury Press, p. 92) Its essence lies not in ideas or even fine principles but in something we find here in the Easter story and which indeed the entire Gospel is communicating to us, namely the way God sees and approaches us, the manner of God’s presence, Jesus’ voice and gestures, in short, the way God loves us. This touch of God in Jesus Christ is what was at work, both powerfully and gently, on that first Easter morning, overturning death, bringing new life.

The words Mary then brings back to the other disciples suggest surprisingly that relations—among them, with Jesus and with God—have been changed, opened. “Go to my brothers,” the risen Christ tells her, using the word for the first time in John’s Gospel, “and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” In the light of the resurrection, there is only one family in God. The new creation is not some other world. It is this world transformed by God’s touch, infused with fraternity. And it is present already now, in nascent form, through the words and gestures by which we take responsibility for one another and for our common home.

Monthly Bible Commentaries

Journeying together

Luke 10:1-11

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house. “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’

Monthly Bible Commentaries

“Do Not Be Afraid!”

Matthew 28:5-20

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.” So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” […] Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28: 5-20)

Monthly Bible Commentaries

Hoping for Everyone

1 Peter 3:18-22

Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him. (1 Peter 3:18–22)

Monthly Bible Commentaries

Opening a Path of Hope

Isaiah 61:1-3a

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion — to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. (Isaiah 61.1-3a)

Monthly Bible Commentaries

Walk humbly with your God

Micah 6:6-8

With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Sometimes it feels as if we live in a trembling world where every step is uncertain. The first chapter of the book of prophet Micah finds words for such experiences: it seems as if “valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.” In the sixth chapter of the book of Micah, the reaction to this shaking of the foundations is initially a lot of activity, the understandable attempt to find something to do, to cope. It almost sounds hectic, exaggerated. But then the text becomes calm. The narrative stops itself and takes us into this quiet space: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?’”

Monthly Bible Commentaries

Choosing to Love

1 John 3:11-18

This is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, and not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not wonder, brethren, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that that one laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:11-18)

Monthly Bible Commentaries

Love Builds Up

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “we all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God. So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak,it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall. (1 Corinthians 8:1-13)

Monthly Bible Commentaries

Discerning God’s Presence

1 Samuel 16:1,6-13

The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.” (…) When Jesse and his sons arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord.” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Then Jesse called Abinadab and had him pass in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, “The Lord has not chosen this one either.” Jesse then had Shammah pass by, but Samuel said, “Nor has the Lord chosen this one.” Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, “The Lord has not chosen these.” So he asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered. “He is tending the sheep.” Samuel said, “Send for him; we will not sit down until he arrives.” So he sent for him and had him brought in. He was glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features. Then the Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; this is the one.” So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David. (1 Samuel 16:1,6-13)

Monthly Bible Commentaries

The Baptism of Jesus

Mark 1:7-11

John the Baptist announced, “One stronger than I am is coming after me. I’m not even worthy to bend over and loosen the strap of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” About that time, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. While he was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down on him. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”