The Festival of the Resurrection of Our Lord
20 April, Anno Domini 2025
St. Mark 16:1-8
Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Dearly beloved saints of God,
May God our heavenly Father graciously grant that the joy and hope that has been won for us in Christ who has died and been raised again fill our hearts each and every day and keep us in the true faith unto life everlasting.
This is the day of new life! This is the day when the old leaven of malice and evil is cast off! This is the day when all creation rejoices because the dark, suffocating shadow of death that had consumed the whole world has been cast out by the bright light of the resurrected Jesus. Hell could not hold Him. It had no claim on Him because He had paid every last penny of man’s redemption.
How can we not raise our voices in the most glorious song, reminding hell itself that the Father accepted the sacrifice of His Son on our behalf! That’s what this is all about just as Good Friday was. All that Christ said and did is true. All of the Scriptures that testify of Him are true. He is the Son of God. He is the Passover Lamb whose Blood has set us free. Death has been undone and our sin no longer has power over us.
This is the day of God’s Almighty and eternal “Yes!” to you. It is His definitive promise that sin and death cannot ever lay claim on you or overpower you. Jesus is alive. Your Savior who hung from Calvary’s cross bearing all your sin and enduring it’s full punishment, who died your death, breathing His last and was laid into the ground, has walked out of death, leaving it as nothing more than an empty, powerless shadow. “It is finished,” just as Jesus said. Death is dead. Sin is forgiven. Every ounce of your salvation has been accomplished. The resurrection of the crucified Jesus is our hope and comfort in even the most bitter hours of sadness.
I know that at times the Alleluia’s seem empty and forced. Terrible diseases still ravage the bodies of young and old alike, husbands still turn against their wives, the world is still descending deeper and deeper into chaos, violent weather bears down us, God’s children are harassed and persecuted on every side, death and loss are everywhere we look. So often it seems as though the stone still lies in front of the grave, the guard keeping watching. It seems as though Satan still has an iron grip on us. Not to mention our flesh which is constantly betraying us and trying to lead us into all kinds of wretchedness and unbelief.
But, beloved, these things aren’t proof that Jesus died and rose in vain. That would be like saying your marriage is a sham just because your house was destroyed in a tornado. Instead, the Son of God entered our space and time in the flesh because of these things. He knows how they overwhelm you and threaten to drive you into the deep dark of despair. He came to bring you hope in the midst of your fears. Jesus came so that surrounded as you are by this fallen, pain-filled world you might have peace. He came so that you can shout in the face of death “Your time has passed. You cannot have me. You cannot have the beloved children of God. You cannot frighten me because Jesus is alive and I am baptized into Him. I have already died to sin in Him and the one who has died to sin no longer needs to fear death because death is the wages of sin. My Savior has already received in full those bitter wages. I will not die. None who are in Christ will die. Our skin and our flesh may be destroyed. But in our flesh we will look upon the face of our Redeemer, even with these very same eyes. Our God is the God of the living.”
You, children of God, live in the eternal day of the resurrection. Jesus’ work of salvation is complete. Jesus’ rest in the tomb is over. He has overthrown hell and marched triumphantly through its streets, trampling Satan and his defeated legions into the dust. Jesus has rolled back the stone announcing death’s utter destruction.
What still troubles us is the fact that the blessing of the resurrection aren’t known to us by sight. We want miraculous healings if not a complete absence of disease. We don’t want anyone to die. We don’t want to experience pain and sadness. We never want to hear again of a terrorist attack or school shooting. The problem is that we still remain in this broken sinful world. It can be no other way. The difference is that none of these things can rob you of the eternal life that you have through Jesus because they can’t stuff Jesus back into the grave. He is alive. The one who was crucified is seated the very hour at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. He rules over heaven and earth in mercy and love, shielding you from the eternal harm that Satan daily and hourly seeks to bring to your soul.
He does this by continually coming to you to speak the good news of His victory, telling you again as you tremble and worry “Do not be afraid. I have overcome all that troubles you, everything that causes you panic and anxiety and depression. These things cannot harm you. They cannot steal you out of my hand. They cannot rob you of my forgiveness. Satan has already unleashed the worst of all that he has against me. His arsenal is spent. What he does now are just his last feeble attempts to have you back. He knows his time is quickly drawing to an end and that I am at the very gates prepared to return in all my glory and send death and sorrow into the eternal abyss once and for all where they will never be able to touch you again.”
But the fruit of the empty tomb is just as hidden and veiled under weakness as the glory of God was veiled under the crucified Jesus on Good Friday. Faith alone can see and know and enjoy the angelic proclamation “He is risen; he is not here.” Christ gives you the Easter victory as a promise that at the right time, according to the perfect and merciful will of God of the Father, when the Word of Christ’s victory has gone to the end of the earth and every last one of God’s children are gathered into the fold of the Christian Church, Jesus will come back and the whole world will see and know the absolute truth of what the one holy Christian and Apostolic Church believes and confesses – that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God who atoned for the sins of the whole world and rose again from the dead.
Behind every absolution, every Baptism, every sermon, every prayer, every hymn, every Lord’s Supper, every “Amen” stands the reality of the resurrected Jesus. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then none of these things matter, then our faith is in vain and we, more than anyone else, are to be pitied. But Christ has risen from the dead. We have the witness of those who saw Him carefully recorded in Scripture by the guiding of the Holy Spirit. Your loving Savior did not leave any of that to chance. He knows the darkness of the world in which we live. As the prophet foretold Jesus “is a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” He knows the pain of all that you suffer because he has suffered it. He suffered it because He loves you. He endured your temptations without sin because He wanted to bear the sins which plague you and terrify your conscience. He died your death and now He lives. All your enemies, all who seek to harm you, every weapon of Satan – all of them have been forever conquered and cannot harm you. Satan certainly knows and believes this. And the Lord invites you to know it and find fresh joy and peace in it each and every day. You are baptized. The day Jesus walked out of the tomb is the day you walked out of the tomb, forever freed from death, forever the victor over your enemies.
And here, spread before us today, the Lord has prepared a table before you in the presence of your enemies that you may revel in the fruits of victory and gloat over the conquered. Here, Jesus gives you His Body and Blood to satisfy your hunger and thirst for righteousness and rest. By this food the Holy Spirit strengthens and preserves you as you make your way through the valley of the shadow of death. Thus every Lord’s Day, every time we gather together to hear again of Christ’s death and resurrection and to join in the triumphal banquet is a celebration of and continued proclamation of our salvation. From week to week we live from this day and for this day. Here the weak are strengthened, the wounded are healed, the broken are made whole, the fearful and doubting are comforted and reassured.
You do not need to be afraid. You do not need to be anxious or worry or doubt. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and you with Him. The eternal day of life has begun and one day Christ will come to scatter the clouds of death and sorrow for all eternity. On that day you will see with your eyes what is already yours this very hour by faith.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen!
