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He is risen! Grace, mercy, and peace to you on this glorious day of our victory. Brothers and sisters, this is our day of victory. And this day of victory, of which we mark and celebrate as a feast, sets us apart from the rest of the world. But where we come into contact with it most is here in this country. It sets us apart from the people with whom we work, the people with whom we live, the people with whom we do business. Classmates, workmates, playmates. It marks us and sets us apart.
Interesting conversation with our confirmation age kids. I asked them about whether they are a part of this culture here in this country. Well, sure, they said, yeah, we’re a part of this culture. No, you’re not, I said to them. And they looked at me very quizzically, because in their minds, like all of our minds, they thought, Well, we’re Americans. We’re a part of this culture. You and I may bear the moniker American. Absolutely right. But you are not like the rest of the culture in this world. You’re sitting here to celebrate your feast, while so many of your fellow countrymen are not. You look at life through the eyes of Christ, which sees morality and views all about this life differently than those in this world and in this country. Paul said it probably the best: You are living in this world, but you are not of this world. If anything, we are counterculture.
It’s interesting. There’s so much desire to fit in with this culture, but we’re not. We are counterculture. Funny, isn’t it? Because Austin’s moniker is Keep Austin Weird. Well, brothers and sisters, we’re the weird ones in Austin, because we’re different. Markedly different. We’re different, because we view this day as our day of victory. We do not view death, which will take us all, as the final and ultimate statement. We view it as merely a portal. Did you hear the words that you sang? Death has lost its sting. That’s right out of 1 Corinthians 15 that Pastor read. Death is not the final statement in this world.
And in this world and in this country, where death is glorified almost forever, and it’s feared by many, you and I need not fear that which will take us all, for it is only a portal. But we’re in good company, you and me. Good company because God’s people throughout the ages have always been counter-cultural. They have always been different than the surrounding cultures in which they lived. Look at the Old Testament people in the Old Testament reading. Living in Egypt, a land of non-believers… They were already different because all of their males were circumcised. Every one of those little boys knew he was different from the other Egyptians. “Mommy and Daddy, why am I different? Why are we different?” Surely, brothers and sisters, those words came out of your mouths as you grew up. Why can’t we stay in and sleep in? Do we have to go to church? And then you also probably had the same argument with maybe your own kids.
In the Epistle reading and in the Gospel reading, you have people who switched and changed the day of worship. The culture of the Jews worshiped only on Saturday, the true Sabbath. But here are these counter-cultural Christians who mark this day of the week, the first day of the week, as their day of victory, because it was the day of resurrection. Every Sunday is a little mini Easter. It is the day of resurrection, and that’s why we gather on Sunday.
God’s people, brothers and sisters, have always been countercultural to the world, and we will remain countercultural to the world because it is our faith that sets us apart. Not just the fact that we have faith, but that which our faith is based on. That the one who is God and man died. Amen. Deader than anything you have ever seen on the side of the road, dead. And that same one who died and was deader than anything you’ve ever seen on the road dead rose again from the dead.
And when you see your loved one, and when you are near your loved one, that is your hope. And do not let this world and this culture rob it from you. It is yours that God laid in your breast, put it there, and the Holy Spirit keeps it there. Don’t let this world and its culture take you away from this faith. It is yours. It is God’s gift to you.
And if you want to see different and counter-cultural, look at the Gospel reading. You have a prostitute, Mary Magdalene. Well, by virtue of her being a prostitute, she’s already different, and different from her culture in which she lived, because she’s one of those kind of people. Luke records that she had seven demons driven out of her, so that marks her as even more of a “whack job,” as we use today’s colloquial words. And yet of all the people that God could have revealed himself unto, including Peter and John who ran to the tomb, it was Mary Magdalene, the different one that God chose to reveal himself to.
Different is okay, brothers and sisters, and different in this culture is okay, brothers and sisters. It is what sets us apart. It is our hope, and it is our salvation. For Mary Magdalene, she already knew she was different. She saw how the others looked upon her. But she knew she was different also in this: She saw how her Lord Jesus looked upon her. How he did not judge her like the world did, but forgave her. He saw in her eyes the work of the Spirit who wrought the faith that trusted in him.
Who was different from the religious culture of that day too, wasn’t he? Which is why his own people turned their back upon him and killed him. This woman became the very absolution spoken to the disciples. Yes. When she grasps him and says, “Rabboni, teacher,” he gives her a mission. “Go and tell my brothers.” He did not say, “Go and tell those scalawags who left me in the garden in the lurch. Go and tell those boys who talked the great talk and never fulfilled it. Go and tell them who made promises and broke their vows.” He did not condemn them with those words. He said, “Go and tell my brothers.”
When she arrived, you know when she told them that he had risen just as he said, they had to look at her and go, “Get a load of this. That’s Mary Magdalene, all right.” Sure, they thought in their mind and humored her. We wonder. Flesh is flesh. Sinful nature is sinful nature. If you and I do it, you know they probably did it as well.
Now this Mary Magdalene already set herself apart differently than Moses. When God told Moses to go tell the people of Israel and the Pharaoh what he wanted them to be told, he scoffed at it. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” Did Mary Magdalene even question it? The prostitute, the one out of whom seven demons were driven, the one who was different? No. She gladly took the good news that he laid in her lap and wanted to proclaim it, because she knew it would set those brothers of hers in the faith apart from the rest of the world who viewed him as a religious radical, as someone whom we shouldn’t get all spun up about.
And that’s how this culture today treats you and me. Surely you don’t need to go to church Sunday in and Sunday out. Surely you guys don’t take all this religious stuff seriously. Surely all of the choir and all of the bells and the handbells is all just pomp and circumstance to make us feel good. Surely you don’t really believe this, do you? By God’s grace, you and I do, or we wouldn’t be here. And we’re not going to let this world and this culture or any culture tear it from our breasts. It is our faith, it is our hope, and we shall die in such faith and hope.
When she said to the disciples, “Go and tell my brothers,” the first thought that had to come to their mind was, he doesn’t hold it against us. There is a saying that has been said, there is nothing more alone than a sinner alone with his sin. You and I, who have dealt with our pasts and have dealt with words we wish we could have taken back, deeds we wish we could have erased, and a whole host of other things that mark our lives, we know what it’s like to be alone with our sin, and it isn’t fun. It gnaws at us. It eats at us. It erodes us. It tears us down. And the one who glories in it is the evil one.
Can you imagine you who said, like Peter, “Lord, I’ll never deny you?” He is living with a great deal of guilt. And all the other disciples who said, “We’ll never run away from you,” are dealing with guilt. And it is Mary Magdalene’s absolution. “Go and tell my brothers that I will return to their God and my God, to their Father and my Father.” He counts them as one with Him.
Although by rights he could have said, “Go and tell my sinful creatures. Go and tell the ones who talked great talk and didn’t fulfill. Who made promises and vows and weren’t able to continue them. Who were afraid of those around them more than they were afraid of disowning me.” But he didn’t. And this is important for you. Yes, you. He doesn’t do that to you.
It is guilt that keeps us away from God. It is guilt that keeps us away from this place. It is guilt that drives us away from our spouses, from our children, from our work people, and all that goes on in this world. Guilt is a horrible disease, and here is the place where it’s treated, weekly, regularly, with the medicine of immortality. It is that which he brought to the disciples in that locked room for fear of the Jews on this glorious resurrection day.
Therefore, we say, don’t take away my promises in the Word. Don’t take away that baptism, and don’t make fun of it because it’s my hope. Don’t tell me that this isn’t God coming to me in flesh and blood with bread and wine because that is my salvation, and I shall believe in those promises. And don’t tell me I’ve got to fit in with this culture because I’m not of this world. I live in it, and so do you, but we are not of this world.
Brothers and sisters, this is joy. Joy because we’re different. We spend our entire growing-up time trying to be different, to be unique, and we end up fitting in with the rest of the culture. Don’t let it suck you in as well, no matter what your age may be. It’s okay to be different than this culture. This is what you are giving your children and what was given you. This is what has been celebrated for the last several hours around the world by those in far more adverse conditions than you or me are experiencing here.
We don’t have to fear like your sisters and brothers in Iraq have to fear, who are worshiping today, a bomb being thrown into their house of worship. We don’t have to fear like our brothers and sisters in Iran who are persecuted today. We live and are blessed to come to a place that we don’t have to fear. But that’s just as bad sometimes because it wishes to tear us away from the Lord and what he’s done for us.
It’s okay to be different and countercultural, brothers and sisters. And we cry and sing these songs that the world looks at and goes, “Man, you guys are religious fanatics.” Yep, and it’s okay. By virtue of the fact that you know how to respond to what I’m about to say says you see things differently.
Christ is risen. Hallelujah. Enjoy the gift of this day in your family, and enjoy the salvation of your Lord as you eat and drink upon the true meat and bread from heaven. Amen.