Did you notice this sentence: "It was a night of watching
by the Lord, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; so this same night is a
night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their
generations." What does it
mean? The Lord is watching over Israel,
those who have smeared or anointed their doorposts with the blood of the
sacrificial lamb. He watches as the
angels assigned to the task of killing the firstborn of the Egyptians do their
work. The Jewish interpretation and
belief is that now that the Lord has redeemed them, watching over them as they
slept this night, they now are commanded to keep a night of watching as well on
this night. The night is to be given
over to the observance as commanded in the rest of this passage, remembering
the work the Lord has done. If anyone
falls asleep during this and cannot be awakened by speaking their name, in
other words if they are heavily sleeping, then the observance is ended. They are waiting for redemption as well. The belief is that this night will also be
when the second redemption happens and they are to wait on it. Think about Jesus in the garden with the
disciples and they fall asleep, it is then, when they are not easily awakened,
that the hour has come, Passover has ended, redemption is nigh, the hour has
come for the suffering and death of the firstborn.
The women have observed the Sabbath by waiting until the
morning after before going to the tomb.
They have such love for Him that they go as soon as possible and when
they arrive they experience an earthquake, the stone is rolled away and an
angel sits upon it. Their waiting has
been rewarded, the redemption that all await has come in the resurrection of
Jesus but only these two women see it.
The first ones to whom Jesus reveals Himself are women of all people,
whose testimony was only worth anything to the extent a man could corroborate
it in court. The first person to whom
Jesus revealed Himself in His life seems to have been the woman at the well in
Samaria and the first person to whom God revealed His plan was a woman, another
Mary, Jesus' mother. Here, these women
are told to go and tell the disciples to go to Galilee where He will meet them,
confirming the word the angel spoke. The
disciples believe and go. The Jews have
a problem, how to explain what happened to the body. They know that no one will believe the truth,
the lie is far more believable. Why
would the guards agree? Were their hearts
that hardened?
Paul is not commending the practice of being baptized for
the dead, only pointing to the practice in support of the belief in
resurrection. If the dead are not
raised, what would be the point of anyone practicing such things? Belief in resurrection and eternal life is,
in fact, quite common. Even
non-believers today have notions of immortality of the soul. Nearly all world religions believe in some
form of eternal life, it is the hope of all flesh that this life is not all
there is. Their practices, like baptism
on behalf of the dead, don't accomplish anything, but Paul is only pointing to
the belief and its persistent hope. His
other point is that the bodies we now have are not the bodies we will
have. This body must die as it is
tainted by sin. We will receive a more
durable, stronger, more powerful body in the resurrection. Praise be to God!
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