Bible Study Guide for Easter Day, April 17, 2022

• Isaiah 55:1-11
• Isaiah 65:17-25       
• Luke 24:1-12

 

(NOTE: The above readings are selected from the many options for the Great Vigil and Easter Sunday morning.)

Our Collect prays that our Easter renewal will lead to worship with “sincerity and truth.” What an ideal focus for us in this time of deceit at home in our country and war abroad in the world. Isaiah provides an excellent starting point. “Everyone who thirsts” must come and drink from the Lord’s waters and be assured of God’s everlasting covenant. But Isaiah goes on to caution that his thoughts, and ours, are not those of God and we must proceed with humility while seeking God’s guidance.

In the second Isaiah reading (which will be used on Easter Sunday morning at Trinity) we come to God’s promise of a truly new beginning. And we do, at least, have some hope of a partial new beginning as the threat from COVID-19 becomes at least a bit more manageable if not vanished. But for me this is where it gets tough because as we watch the world crumbling from war and environmental disaster, it is hard to see that we will “not labor in vain” or that the serpent will, in fact, have only dust for food. But perhaps the answer lies in the resurrection story itself as told by Luke.

The empty tomb is surely the new beginning promised by Isaiah. Jesus’ resurrection does, in fact, change everything. Belief in that resurrection is hard for me at times. But it can be our one true hope, one that we can honor, as the Collect says, by worshipping with sincerity and truth. It is our role as followers of Jesus to continue working toward that blessed kingdom in which the wolf and the lamb will lie down and feed together.

But how are we to succeed? Read Isaiah 55 again and listen to what he says: spend our money wisely, listen for God, remember God’s everlasting Covenant, look for God in our everyday lives and pray for God’s help as we labor. Sounds like guidance just as suitable in 2022 CE as it was in ancient Israel.

-Chuck Medler

Questions

Have your Lenten practices made you more ready for Easter morning?

What might you do differently next year? What will be new for you this Easter?