Lo! Jesus meets us - Matthew's Easter Sunday

One of the finest Easter hymns – and certainly the most triumphant – surely must be ‘Thine is the glory’.  The words were penned by Swiss minister Edmund Budry, and translated into English, from their original French, by Richard Hoyle almost a century ago.  But the tune to which that fine lyric was set is older still.  It is often referred to as Maccabeus, because it is a movement from George Frederic Handel’s oratorio, Judas Maccabaeus.

Just in case you don’t know much about Judas Maccabaeus (the person, not the oratorio), he was the main leader of what came to be known as the Maccabean Revolt.  It happened in Palestine during the Second Century BC.  The Jewish land had been occupied by Greek King Alexander the Great of Macedonia, who died suddenly (and young) in 323 BC, leaving a monumentally vast kingdom around the Mediterranean, with no heir.  So his generals fought it out, and two dynasties were formed: the Seleucids and the Ptolemies.  Palestine changed hands between their rival empires, but ultimately came under Seleucid control.  Things came to a head during the reign of Antiochus IV, who apparently incited the Jews to revolt – after the invasion of Greek (Hellenistic) culture, the final straw was forced worship of Zeus.  (There is a belief among scholars that Antiochus merely intervened in a Jewish civil war, between the Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem, and the traditionalists in the country.)

In any event, there was certainly a sense of oppression in some quarters, of displacement, of lost or damaged identity.  A sort of exile, even within one’s own land.

In those days of unrest and conflict, the traditions around the figure of Daniel were popularised.  The stories of Daniel and other heroic Hebrews in exile in Babylon (in the Fifth Century BC) became emblematic of the struggle of the Maccabees.  It’s thought that the book of Daniel was written or at least heavily edited around that time (the mid-160s BC).

Great.  What’s all that got to do with Easter?

Maccabeus, remember?  Thine is the glory…

In Matthew’s account of Easter Sunday, we read about a single angel “in bright raiment” rolling the stone away: “His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow” (Matthew 28:3).  Each of the four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – recounts the Easter story slightly differently, for their own reasons.  I was interested in why Matthew wrote it this way.  So I looked into references to lightning, and found something pretty similar in Daniel chapter 10.  There, Daniel has an angelic vision, and the angel’s “face [was] like lightning” (Daniel 10:6).  That angel wore linen, but it was a very particular Hebrew word for linen, that denotes white linen.  It kind of sounds like Matthew wants people to link Easter Sunday with Daniel.

There’s more: in both cases, there’s trembling or fear among others present (the companions in Daniel 10:7; the guards in Matthew 28:4); the angel says “Don’t be afraid” (Daniel 10:12; Matthew 28:5 – ok, they usually say that…); there’s also something about the efficacy of words – Daniel’s words had been heard, prompting the visitation (Daniel 10:12), and Jesus was raised “as he said” (Matthew 28:6). 

A further connection between the 2 narratives lies slightly outside the immediate texts, and has to do with wider resurrection.  In Matthew 27, at the moment of Jesus’ death, we read that “many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.  After his resurrection, they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many” (Matthew 27:52, 53).  Compare this with the end of Daniel’s vision, which comes in Daniel 12: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake…” (Daniel 12:2).

Why, though, would Matthew be so interested in Daniel?  Perhaps it has to do with Matthew’s audience and context.  This gospel was probably written toward the end of the First Century AD, and probably for a group of Jewish Christians living either in Syria (adjacent to Palestine) or in Galilee.  They were possibly displaced, in a sort of exile.  Even if not geographically exiled, they were probably in a state of flux – by this point, relations between the early Jewish Christians and ‘mainstream’ Jews were strained to say the least.  So there people may have been looking for ways to be faithful to both their past and their present.  Trying to forge a new identity, not getting rid of their roots, but translating that for their new reality.

Into this context, Matthew’s angel announces that the risen Jesus is going ahead into Galilee (not staying in Jerusalem, but going to perhaps the very place they found themselves, or nearby).  God’s presence in the person of Jesus is a key theme in Matthew.  The gospel is virtually bookended with this promise.  In the opening chapter, the impending birth of Jesus is linked with the sign of Emmanuel from Isaiah: “…’and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us’” (Matthew 1:23; cf Isaiah 7:14).  The closing line is Jesus’ promise, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

What’s particularly interesting in Matthew’s Easter is the phrase, “there you will see him/me [that is, Jesus]” (Matthew 28:7, 10).  This has a sense of discovering, meeting, encountering Jesus, out there, in Galilee.  Not in Jerusalem.  And not at the tomb.  But in the place where they live.  Where life happens.  That is where we, like them, meet Jesus.  In one another.  In our daily struggles and interactions.  In our circumstances.  In our working stuff out.

Jesus pushes and breaks boundaries, he doesn’t maintain and enforce them.  Easter is, of course, about triumph – over adversity.  And about hope.  But it’s also about this promise of God’s presence symbolised in Jesus, whose resurrection and ongoing presence show a breaking of barriers – barriers of place, of culture, or experience.  Jesus’ resurrection is the dawn of a new era, of new possibilities for new kinds of community – and a new humanity, where you don’t have to fit in, and it’s ok to be on the margins, because there you will see him.

If, like me, you feel isolated from your faith tradition, your religious roots, or whatever (whether physically or by ‘not fitting in’), you’re not alone in that, and you’re not the first.  Matthew’s Gospel was written for people like us – trying to connect where we’ve been with where we are, seeking and finding new ways to live the old story.