Coronavirus Pandemic Easter Monday

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21; Colossians 3:5-11

 

Easter Monday  by Rev. Jerry Eve

 

Our readings, now that we are into the season of Eastertide, ought to be a bit cheerier. And our psalm certainly is. As in the second of our two passages from Exodus, there’s a feeling that we’ve come through dangerous waters (the first explains how) and are now safe from our enemies on that farthest shore.

 

As with so many of the psalms, this one is quoted from in New Testament gospels and epistles, whose authors (in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, and 1 Peter) understand verse 22 to be prophetic of Christ:

 

The stone which the builders rejected as worthless turned out to be the most important of all.

 

Matthew and Mark then go on to add verse 23:

 

“This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes,”

 

and these are words the Latin (Vulgate) translation of which, from Elizabethan times, have been inscribed on sovereigns here in this country.

 

The Epistle, from Colossians, is a little problematic I think. There is what has been called ‘New Man’ theology, and this is one of the places in Scripture people can go to support it. Just one example of its application: I once read an account of a soldier in training who, when embarking on an assault course would tell himself that the new person in Christ he is to become is standing at the end of the course. While it worked for him, I do question whether one of the side effects of such theology is to give us an unhealthy superiority complex. I’d be interested to hear from others about this – or, indeed, if you’ve any other views or thoughts.

 

Today, for me, what I am taking away from these readings is an appreciation of the role of Miriam in the Exodus; with her tambourine. It is clear from the whole story of Moses, that Moses could not possibly have achieved so much by himself; he needed both his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam. It was Miriam who saved his life when he was an infant. And then when he was all grown up, Moses himself was not eloquent. While he knew just what to say, and when to say it, in all their dealings with the King of , for example, it was Aaron who acted as Moses’ spokesperson.

 

The whole story of these three siblings, I think, ringing true because of their flaws: Moses was a murderer; Aaron, when left in charge at the foot of Mount Sinai while his brother went up the mountain, misled the Israelites; and Miriam (together with Aaron, although it was only Miriam who God punished for it in Numbers 12!) was quite wrong in the way she criticised their brother Moses for marrying an Ethiopian (and presumably black) woman called Zipporah. The punishment (which God does seem to have designed to fit the crime) was for Miriam’s face to be turned ‘white as snow’ (verse 10).

 

Can we finish by going back to Peter’s quoting Psalm 118, a referring to Christ as a ‘stone’? He calls him a ‘Living Stone’, and whenever I hear those words together, it’s the famous missionary from nearby Blantyre, David Livingstone, I always think of. Let us pray:

 

God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any ties but the tie that binds me to Your service and to Your heart, Amen (David Livingstone).

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