Sermon: Easter – 2023

9 April 2023

Text: Mark 16:1-8 (Job 19:23-27, 1 Cor 15:51-57)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

When Jesus conquered Satan on the cross, when He died to atone for the sins of the world, when He declared victory by saying, “It is finished,” – it sure didn’t look like anything of the sort.

The devil was celebrating, though he had a mortal head-wound and was unaware of it.  The mobs were being entertained by the spectacle of a crucifixion, though they had no idea that they were killing God, nor of what this would mean.  The chief priests and the scribes thought they had gotten rid of their rival once and for all, ignorant of what was to come.  Pilate struck up a friendship with King Herod, not realizing that Herod would soon die a painful death, and that the entire Roman Empire that he served would eventually confess that the man whom he, Pilate, sent to the cross, to be not only king of the Jews, but God in the flesh and the Ruler of the universe.  Pilate’s name is remembered week after week in the Nicene Creed.  He had no clue this would be the outcome.

Even our Lord’s disciples were confused and afraid.  Their Master, it seemed, was not the Messiah.  Peter had denied Him three times in the head-spinning events.  Judas, the betrayer, was dead.  The rest were in hiding, being perceived as enemies of the Roman state.  And they were even enemies to their own nation, being Jews who followed what appeared to be a fraudulent blasphemer.  Mary saw her Son tortured to death and put in a tomb – which seemed contrary to what the archangel told her about Him.  None of this made any sense.

But it does now, dear friends.  And the Old Testament figure Job, whose book is so old that we cannot even put a date on it, said it best, “I know that My Redeemer lives.” 

We are so used to seeing death as final, that the idea that Jesus was going to rise and walk out of His own tomb didn’t even occur to anyone – even though Jesus told His disciples many times that this is exactly what was going to happen.  They had conveniently forgotten this in their sorrow and confusion.  But they are about to be reminded of all the things He taught them – and they will understand, dear friends.

And so will the devil, the chief priests, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Council – and yes, even the Romans.  Jesus has turned the world upside down, and continues to do so to this day.  Jesus’ enemies are still denying His resurrection, and they don’t want us talking about it.

Well that’s just too bad, isn’t it?  We’re going to continue to read it in the Word, and proclaim it with words.  We will continue to greet one another in every human language: “Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!”  And we will make it a point to stir up the demons by reminding them every day that the cross was their undoing, for we know that our Redeemer lives!  He is not only alive, but He is our Redeemer.

For the greatest club Satan wields against us is our own mortality – his very own handiwork in destroying our communion with God in the Garden of Eden.  He used a motherly woman, a powerful tree, and lying words to bring misery, chaos, and death to every person born of a human father from that time until now.  But God used another motherly woman, another powerful tree, and truthful words to bring joy, order, and life to those born of men and women, to those born again of “water and the Spirit,” restoring communion with God in a different garden – one in which a tomb was found.  One that happens to be empty. 

When the women found the empty tomb that Sunday morning, everyone was afraid.  The fact that the Marys, who came there thinking that they were going to anoint a body, found the tomb empty instead, except for an angel, well, they were indeed “afraid.”  The angel made the announcement, gave it to the women, told them to find Peter and the rest, tell them the good news, and also tell them that Jesus will be appearing to them to give them further instructions.  So yes, “Trembling and astonishment had seized them…. For they were afraid.”  And though our Easter Gospel ends here, St. Mark continued with the narrative and completed His Gospel with these words:

Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.  After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.’ So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs. 

Bit by bit, from the apostles, to Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, everyone was to learn that this was not the end, but the beginning of our Lord’s work and kingdom.  Jesus’ kingdom is, of course, not of this world, but it will conquer the world.  It is a Gospel to be proclaimed, that is, Good News for everyone who seeks the truth, who desires to live as God originally created us, who wants to overcome sin, death, and the devil, and to live forever.

The enemies of Jesus still think they can have paradise in this fallen world, eternal life in these fallen bodies, communion with false gods by making themselves gods, and do all of these things in their denial of Jesus, our Redeemer that lives.  They think their technology and their mob of doctors and elite high priests of science (so-called) and the Satanic popular culture will aid their denial of the reality that Christ is risen! 

But, dear friends, we know better.  We know that because of our Lord’s resurrection, we too will rise: “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.”  For just as Jesus rose bodily and incorruptible from His tomb, so will we, dear friends.  “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.” 

Yes, indeed, we will be “changed.”  Death will be reversed.  We will rise again, just as our Lord and Master did, and just as He said that we would.  The enemy doesn’t stand a chance.

And just as the enemies of Jesus mocked Him on the cross, we can now mock them from the empty tomb: “Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?”  Where, indeed, dear friends?  Where are these mockers and liars who put our Lord on the cross?  Where are the false witnesses?  Where are the soldiers who sadistically tortured Him?  Where is Pilate?  Where is Herod?  Where are the guards who guarded the tomb?  Where is the devil, whose days are numbered, nursing his wound from when the Seed of the Woman impaled and smashed his serpentine head with a cross made out of a tree truck? 

Because of the cross and empty tomb, death has been swallowed up by death.  And we say with St. Paul, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

He is coming again, dear friends, and He is coming soon.  We know that our Redeemer lives, and in our flesh, we shall see God.  It is finished.  It is finished indeed.  Alleluia.  For…

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Amen

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.