Acts 10:34-43
Luke (that is the same author that wrote Luke) wrote this. He (most likely he) can be hard to follow sometimes. He tells of a virgin birth, but here in v 38, he says God anointed Jesus at his baptism. Was he the son of God, or did he need to be anointed? It may not have been that big of a deal for Luke just when or how Jesus became or was or appeared to be the Christ. The church you go to this Easter might not mention it either. It was hotly debated for a couple centuries during and after the time these words were written, and it's still important to many. There is less wiggle room about something happening on the third day, some kind of "raising". That's what is being celebrated today. It wasn't until 381 AD that the final form of the creed came to be, inspired by verses here and there, like v 42 in this passage, "judge of the living and the dead". I still find very little help for just what a sin is or how you test whether or not someone truly believes. The theology here though is pretty clear. Not so clear, some see this as an "inclusive" text. It says right there, "God shows no partiality". If you're like me, you don't notice a loving inclusiveness, since you are required to fear him. You see at the end of the passage that everyone receives forgiveness, everyone that believes in him that is.Isaiah 25:6-9
The Old Testament passage is suspiciously short. Read before and after it and, unlike the above where you might have missed the inclusiveness, you won't miss the exclusiveness. The message of Easter today will be about swallowing up death forever, but unless your church is very progressive, you won't hear about the cost of being saved. Luke may not have been concerned about specific theologies, but others who studied the texts were. They also looked back at these older scriptures where it was more clear who was in and who was out. There may not be any more Moabites, as in Isaiah's day, but clearly there are "aliens" who will harm your cities by being there. And obviously you have to believe in the right God and in the right way, or you won't be rejoicing when this Lord shows up. These ideas were combined in to what eventually became the Roman Catholic Church. In the gospels, and bits like this from Isaiah, there seems to be some hope for a brighter future and as the passion narrative plays out, it seems this is finally coming to pass. But we know very little actually happened that day. There were few witnesses and no major shifts in the power structure and the followers themselves do plenty of arguing about what's next in Acts. We are left making the choice to either blame those not like us for our problems or to work for peace.Mark 16:1-8
In early manuscripts, this is the end of the book of Mark. In many Bibles you will see some sort of footnote telling you that the last 11 verses were added on later. This is not a controversial statement. If this is the end, it's kind of confusing. That could explain why scribes later added on the chapters that end more like the other gospels. Unfortunately they also included things like handling poisonous snakes in those verses, but if you believe you should do that, you probably aren't reading this. It may very well be that the actual original ending is lost forever. Or it may be this is the intended ending. If it was meant to end here, something else happened, because the women "said nothing to any one", so how could we know? It could be that this was known to be a tale, a myth, so you the listener would know things that characters did without the need for it being factual. Other gospels, written later, have accounts of appearances. You can lookup explanations with timelines if you want, I find them twisted, but there are those who claim this is just one perspective of the events of that day. What I find universal in this ending is that the savior is gone and his followers are told to go home. It was prophesied that the savior will be crucified because everyone knows that's what we do with saviors. People who have wisdom and teach us to care for each other and work together for a better world are not automatically given positions of power. They are highly scrutinized. Meanwhile, people who give us easy answers and tell us they will take care of us and we just need to wait for them to work out a few details, then we'll get what we want, they are handed the keys to the city.