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Hallelujah! Christ is risen! Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text for this morning comes from all three scripture readings. You may be seated.
Today we gather. We gather for the Feast of Victory. The Feast of Victory. For today we celebrate that the One who was slain for us now lives again. The lamb whose neck was slit and blood poured out for the world’s sin. We eat his sacrifice. And we receive the gift of eternal life that he alone gives. Because he who was dead now lives. He who was in the belly of the earth, the earth could not contain and had to spit him out. Just like Jonah. The pit into which he was thrown with lions all about. He was rescued on that new day. The fiery furnace which hell’s flames attempted to burn him, he emerged from there with no singeing upon him and no smell of death nor smoke. He lives.
That’s why we gather today. Because today, this is the Lord’s day that He has made for you. This day. The day that He rose from the dead Sunday. This is why we gather on this day—every week to celebrate the gift that he brings to us today. This is the most ancient of all the Christian holy days that there are. It was started in the beginning of the second century, around 150. They began to mark this date as the day that they would celebrate the resurrection of our Lord.
Now the term Easter, it really has no Christian meaning whatsoever. It just happens to be the Middle English term for that direction. The direction where the sun rises. The east. The older Christian word for this day that we still use, that you will sing about and you will hear, is the word Pascha. Pascha comes from the Hebrew word for Passover. This is the Paschal Feast. There is the Paschal Candle. There is the Paschal bread and the Paschal blood of the Paschal lamb that takes away the sin of the world. You will hear and read and sing about these things. But that term describes this day, for it is the Passover of all.
Now on to the text. In the Gospel reading, we have the women heading to the grave. You know what? They’re going to the same place that you and I are going, aren’t they? To the grave. To the grave. We, like they, have to face death. We, like they, are heading to the grave as well. We see it in our faces, feel it in our bones. We see it in one another if we haven’t seen one another in a while. And no matter how amazing it is to see children grow up, well, they become just like us. They’re heading to the same place.
Just as God became man by a woman, Mary, He also honors you women today by revealing himself as the resurrected God to these women. And these women become the first proclaimers to the church, where the apostles and disciples are. Oh yeah, where are the apostles and the disciples found? In the upper room, for fear.
So the women are on the way to the grave. And on their way to the grave, they did not grasp yet the resurrection. It still was a hidden mystery. It was not believed upon yet. And as they’re heading to the grave, thoughts ran through their mind. Where is God in that ugly death? Surely he was not that which was hung on the tree. Surely he was not that which was led to the slaughter like a lamb and willingly offered himself up, opening his side for blood and water to flow forth. Surely he was not the one.
They also asked themselves this question: What sort of God allows such a cruel and heinous death? Indeed, what sort of God does do that? Seems a little sick or macabre? What sort of God is it that you and I are believing in and are a part of and in fact will eat and drink? Our God.
Well, long before these women thought these thoughts, these thoughts had been running through the mind of man. Because the first one to confront and deal with death, the first one to look at death flowing from another human being, was Adam. As he watched his son Abel die, where there were rosy cheeks in his son’s cheeks, ash and gray filled them. The shell that was animated with life now lay lifeless.
So this dealing with death is not a new thing in this world, is it? In fact, there’s probably not a one of you that death has not drawn near to your life. A beloved parent, maybe a beloved grandparent, maybe a sibling, maybe even a son or daughter or a spouse. What kind of faith do we need to deal with such harsh realities of sin? Well, just like the disciples, death causes us to shrivel up sometimes and die. It causes us to turn inwardly on our own fears. It causes us to be so flummoxed that we have no idea what to do and we shut down.
But that just is like the disciples today, isn’t it? Everything seemed to fall apart and they find themselves locked in the upper room, surrounded by fear, smelling fear, tasting it, hearing it in their ears. What kind of a God does that? What kind of a God?
The same kind of a God that finds them in their fear, searches and finds them in that locked room, searches and finds you in your fears, in your dealing with death, in your dealing with life for that matter. He finds you. The same God who allows death to occur in your life, who allows suffering in your life, is the same God who finds you in that same fear and rescues you. He brings you back to the flock and rejoices over you.
The same God who shows you His hands and side and says, “Stop doubting but believe.” That’s the God. Paul said it in the Epistle reading a different way. He said, “If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” If your and my faith is nothing more than bunny rabbits and chicks, Easter eggs and so on, we’re not dealing with the reality of your and my sin or the sin that surrounds us. We’re really not dealing with the bigger picture of life.
Life is not this that we see and experience. This is transitory. This is passing. This is a mist and vapor. Reality is the resurrected Lord who stood before these trembling women and said, “I have risen from the dead, just as I said.” In fact, so loving is your God that He goes and finds these women in their fears with angels. And what do the angels tell them? They don’t reveal to them a brand new revelation. All the angels do is point back to what Jesus had already said.
“Remember how He told you. Remember how He told you that it was necessary that he be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” He reminded them. He told them again. And what did they do? The text says very clearly: They remembered his words.
Let me ask you a question. How long have you been hearing this message of Jesus’ resurrection? How long have you been having it ring in your ears, “Christ is risen, he is risen indeed, hallelujah”? Five years? Fifteen years maybe? Fifty years? Seventy-five years? One hundred? No, I don’t think one hundred years, but we may feel like one hundred years. But you’ve heard this message over and over and over again.
You’ve gathered in this place, your home, to hear the words of your Lord who serves you this day, washes your feet, cleanses you, and feeds you. And the reason you keep hearing it, the reason God called us to keep preaching it is because we live in a life that wants to rip it out of our heart and steal all of our hope and our future. And by golly, we’re not going to let that happen. That’s why we gather to hear it again, to sing it again, to shout it again, to be told again, because you and I find ourselves locked in the rooms of our own heart for fear.
As we live life, we find ourselves in fear again. And the same God who allows you to go through that fear is the same God that finds you in that fear and shows Himself to you again.
But here, here’s where He shows you, not in some vision at home, not in some glorious revelation on hole number five with a 500-yard drive, but here, here in this place, your home, does He show you. And what is it that He shows you? Look at what He showed the women. When he revealed himself to the women, he did not reveal himself as a ghost, for he was not ghost or a specter. He was flesh and blood. They saw him with their eyes. They heard his voice, for he spoke. They felt him and touched him as they worshipped at his feet.
Dear beloved, that’s the kind of body you will enter into heaven with—a real body with real skin, with real eyes that see your beloved who sits next to you in the pew this day, or maybe used to sit next to you in the pew. You will see them again. You will hear their voice. You will be so awed by their smile. And you will feel their embrace. That’s the reality that Mary and the women heard and saw and felt on that day.
So when you come here, you don’t get cream-filled donuts. You get meat. Real meat. Real meat. The Lamb of God slain for you. And you get more than water. You get blood. Blood shed for you that you know He’s real and not some mystery. And He’s apprehended by the very thing He gives you when He finds you lost and trapped by your and my own fear.
Faith. This is God’s gift to you. You have sung about it. You have heard it. You have shouted it. And you will continue to do so. Because every Sunday is his day and yours. Christ is risen. Alleluia.
