Other comments on this day's readings can be found here.
Reading 1 - Deu 8:2
"Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the
desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what
was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands" (Deu
8:2).
"This is the lesson of chastisement. Not forsaking but
purifying, not casting down but building up. Had Israel but seen these things
and turned to God instead of to mourning, murmuring and despair, then would she
have blossomed in the wilderness, the Lord would have opened the windows of
heaven for her and brought her early to the land. The Lord had withheld food and
drink but not to starve and shrivel His people. He asked simply that they would
know that 'man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of the Lord.' Have we learned the lesson? In this affluent age
have we been tempted to rely on the abundance of sustenance to be had by daily
work, rather than the increase of faith which comes by daily prayer?" (Harry
Tennant, "The Man David" 173).
Reading 2 - Ecc 3:11
"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set
eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from
beginning to end" (Ecc 3:11).
"Eternity" is the Hebrew "olahm" -- the age, or the hidden
time: in essence, the concept if not the hope of life everlasting. "If a man is
not conscious of 'eternity in his heart', he ought to be" (LG Sargent). Although
each person has at least the concept of eternity in his heart, only Christ can
provide ultimate satisfaction, joy, and wisdom.
"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the
only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what
they ought to be" (William Hazlitt, 1819).
This is something of the meaning, surely, of man being created
in the "image" of God. Physically, he is nothing more than another beast (Ecc
3:18-21), but mentally and spiritually, he is a special creature, made in the
"image" of God, and capable of understanding and appreciating eternal
things!
Those men and women who are believers must live in the "border
land" between what is and what will be! Seeing the day-to-day world for what it
is -- the place where daily bread must be found, where practical choices must be
made, where ordinary life must be lived. But especially seeing the invisible
world, the world which is hidden, but right around the corner, or just over the
horizon -- the "real" world of all hopes and aspirations, the world of "our
better natures", the world of the coming King. "For our light and momentary
troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So
we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is
temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2Co 4:17,18).
Reading 3 - John 20
"Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood
outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb" (John
20:10,11).
Now Mary, following behind the men, returned the second time
to the tomb (still unaware of the angel's appearance to the other women: Mar
16:2-7). There was no reason why she should linger here, except that this was
the spot where she had last set eyes on her friend. In the past two days she had
shed tears as never before, and now more than ever they refused to be
restrained. If only she might be able to express her love in some last act of
devotion to his poor dead body! But even this was denied her, for apparently his
body had been stolen away. To this pathetic figure of sorrow and despair was
soon to come one of the greatest privileges of all time: the first sight of the
resurrected Lord! Within moments, the deepest despair was to give way forever to
the greatest joy! (Cp with Song 3:2-4.)
*****
"...And saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had
been, one at the head and the other at the foot" (v 12).
The tomb of the risen Christ is the true mercy-seat, the true
Most Holy Place. Here is the ark of the covenant, and the mercy-seat, flanked by
the cherubim, where the blood of the one true sacrifice has been poured
out.
*****
"They asked her, 'Woman, why are you crying?' 'They have taken
my Lord away,' she said, 'and I don't know where they have put him.' At this,
she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it
was Jesus. 'Woman,' he said, 'why are you crying? Who is it you are looking
for?' Thinking he was the gardener, she said, 'Sir, if you have carried him
away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.' Jesus said to her,
'Mary.' She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, 'Rabboni!' (which means
Teacher)" (vv 13-16).
She seems to have expected no help nor comfort in response to
her appeal, for she is already moving away when one spoken word ("Mary") stops
her in her tracks. Does not that voice have a strangely familiar ring? She
turned around, stared in shock, and then in a moment was at his side -- grasping
for the evidence by which to turn the impossible into certainty, and all the
while incoherent with joy. There was nothing to say except one exultant word of
greeting and self-reproach: "Rabboni!" The silent road from which no traveler
returns had yielded back the one whom she longed to see above all others, and
how blind she had been not to recognize it sooner. A wild jumble of emotions
rushed through her mind, and all the while she sought added assurance by the
evidence of her senses.
"My Lord, who dead and buried lay, of late
Made void this tomb and stood before my face;
And I was first of all his ransomed race:
At first I knew him not! nor pondered there
By what strong means at that unseemly hour
The gard'ner should with some uncanny power
Have borne him hence beyond my reach.
But when he spoke, calling out my name,
And I beheld my Saviour standing there,
My heart did leap with sheer and utter joy;
'Twas then, O Lord, that recognition came:
With tear-dimmed eyes my precious Lord to greet,
I knelt in the dust to grasp his feet."