Lenten Darkness
The Sealed Tomb
Personal Daily Scripture Readings
Matthew 27:57-61 (Jesus’s burial)
Mark 15:42-47 (Jesus’s burial repetition)
Matthew 27:62-66 (Guards stationed)
Matthew 28:1-10 (Jesus is risen)
Mathew 28:11-15 (Guards’ report)
Questions to Consider
What good vs. evil (light vs. darkness) do you notice in this scripture passage?
What do you think about God lying in a tomb—beaten, bloodied, and silenced by death?
What do you think the disciples are thinking and feeling during these events?
Journal your thoughts on each reading in preparation for the group meeting
Opening Discussion
What things stood out to you in this week’s scripture reading? Was there anything surprising or confusing to you?
Related Spiritual Reading
In Surprised By Hope, N.T. Wright writes about Easter:
“Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins. We shouldn’t allow the secular world, with its schedules and habits and parareligious events, its cute Easter bunnies, to blow us off course. This is our greatest day. We should put the flags out…
The Word through whom all things were made is now the Word through whom all things are remade…
Jesus’s resurrection is to be seen as the beginning of the new world, the first day of the new week, the unveiling of the prototype of what God is now going to accomplish in the rest of the world.”
Wright argues that Easter makes us a resurrection people, who walk along Jesus, making all things new. What does that thought stir up in you?
Closing Question
How has your understanding of Jesus grown or changed this week? Has He become more real to you in any way?