The Feast of the Resurrection of our Lord (Easter)

 The Feast of the Resurrection of our Lord – April 20, 2025

Psalm 8; Job 19:23-27; 1 Corinthians 5:7-8

St. Mark 16:1-20

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.[1]

The fast is over, and the feast has begun. Christ the Lord, who was slain, is risen from the dead. Alleluia! Christ has conquered sin and death, buried them in the grave, never to rise again. Alleluia! Our hope, our faith, rests on the historic reality of the resurrection of Christ. “Had Christ, who once was slain, not burst His three-day prison, our faith had been in vain: But now has Christ arisen!”[2] Alleluia!

By all measures of how we understand history, the events of the past, there can be no objection to the reality of the resurrection. Only the logic of fallen man can insist Christ did not rise. Only the sin-stained conscience can claim, “I’ve never seen someone rise from the dead, therefore Christ couldn’t have risen.”

And yet the consolation of souls does not end with the historic reality of Christ’s resurrection. We mustn’t hear the story of the resurrection in the same way we hear and understand Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, Washington crossing the Delaware, or Gordon’s last stand at Khartoum. Christ did not just rise from the dead. He rose for you. His resurrection is your resurrection. There is a great gulf of difference between “Christ is a Savior and King” and “Christ is my Savior and King.”

Yet even the Christian conscience, still assaulted by sin, struggles with this notion. Christ’s own disciples scarcely believed that He had risen from the dead. We stand separated from the historic event by 2,000 years, making it even harder to accept. Yet Christ said, “Go and tell my brothers.”[3] Brothers and sisters in Christ, He was speaking of you.

“You have heard in the Passion how Christ let Himself be crucified and buried and how sin and death trampled Him underfoot. Satan and the sins of the world lie on Him in the tomb. Sin, death, and the devil are His lord. Therefore you must look into His tomb and realize that my sins and my death tear Him apart and oppress Him. There the devil regards himself as secure, and the chief priests boast and rejoice: He is gone and will not return.

“But in the instant when they believe Him destroyed, the Lion tears Himself away from sin, death, hell, and the jaws of the devil and rips them to shreds with His teeth. This is our comfort, that Christ comes forth: Death, sin, and the devil cannot hold Him. The sin of the entire world is powerless. When He appears to Mary Magdalene, one sees in Him neither death nor sin nor sadness, but sheer life and joy. There I see that the Lor is mine and treads on the devil. Then I find my sins, torment, and devil where I ought to find them. There is the seed of the woman, who has struck the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15), and says, ‘Death, you shall die; Hell, you shall be defeated!’ Here is the victor.”[4]

It is a Christian art to regard Christ as the One alone whose business it is to deal with our sins. Malformed by sin, our conscience wants to believe that either we can manage sin on our own or that nothing can be done about our sin. In the first case, if we could manage sin on our own, then we have no need for Christ. His death would be in vain, and salvation would be according to your own ability to prove yourself righteous before the Almighty God. You must be perfect as God is perfect. What a silly, self-righteous notion that we could approach God in our filth and demand salvation.

In the second case, despair over your sin, there is nothing you can do. Faced with sin, temptation, plague, and assaults of the devil, you have no recourse…except to abandon what your conscience says and turn to Christ. Look to what He has said and what He has done. Christ did not die and rise for Himself. He gained nothing for Himself. He died and rose again for you, to give you everything that already belonged to Him. He is the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!”[5] He took your sins into death and the grave, and there they remain. He rose the spotless lamb, no longer bearing your sins because they remained in the grave. The devil will try to convince you otherwise, but you know the truth – Christ has arisen for you! The deadly power of death is gone for Christ has destroyed it.

When your sins lie on Christ, you can see what they’ve done. They crushed Him on the cross and drove Him deep into the ground. “But because today He comes forth from the grave and remains in honor and glory, everything that the devil, sin, and death have done is destroyed.”[6] This idea is foreign and contrary to human reason, yet the Scriptures still stand. The Scriptures do not lie when they say your sins lie on Christ and if they are on Him, they are not accounted to you. The Christian has no sin and is a lord over sin. This is most certainly true.

And satan cannot stand this. He has a tremendous labor to fight against the resurrection and accuse Christians. We can stare into the very pits of hell and proclaim, “You who have tortured and killed Christ, now you get what you deserve! You thought you had won the victory but your coup de gras did nothing but ensure your defeat. Christ is risen and you are defeated!”

The devil works hard to tear this truth from our hearts. That is why we stand on the truth of the resurrection apart from the thoughts of our hearts. The witness of the God-breathed Scriptures and the objective testimony of history cannot be overthrown. It is true this day just as it was true that first Easter morning. Christ is risen! Alleluia!

In + Jesus’ name. Amen.

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[1] This sermon is inspired by Martin Luther, “Easter Sunday Morning, March 28, 1529: The Resurrection of Christ and Its Meaning,” The 1529 Holy Week and Easter Sermons of Dr. Martin Luther, Translated by Irving L. Sandberg (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1998), 119-127.

[2] This Joyful Eastertide, refrain, LSB 482; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:14, 20.

[3] St. Matthew 28:10.

[4] Luther, “Easter Sunday Morning,” 124.

[5] St. John 1:29.

[6] Luther, “Easter Sunday Morning,” 125.

The Feast of the Resurrection

The Feast of the Resurrection of our Lord – March 31, 2024

Psalm 8; Job 19:23-27; 1 Corinthians 5:7-8

St. Mark 16:1-20

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Very early in the morning, just about sunrise, three women made their way to the tomb of Jesus. They brought spices to anoint His body, showing how much they loved their Lord. Perhaps it was the grief, sorrow over the death of Jesus, that distracted them from the fact that a large stone had been placed over the entrance to the tomb. Along the way, they realized this problem and grew concerned over how they would get into the tomb to tend to Jesus’ body.

But when they arrived at the tomb, they discovered the stone had been rolled away. The door to the tomb stood open. Inside the tomb, the women did not see the body of Jesus. They saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting where they expected to see Jesus. This man was an angel, sent by God, to inform the women of Jesus’ resurrection.

The women were afraid of the man, but he quickly gave them the reassurance commonly heard from holy angels, “Be not afraid.” The angel knows they are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified One, and he boldly proclaims, “He is risen! He is not here.” The angel then gives them a job—go tell the disciples, including Peter, to seek the Lord in Galilee as He told you before His death.”

These women quickly fled from the tomb, trembling and afraid. It is somewhat suspicious that our text tells us the women were afraid but not what they are afraid of. We know the Apostles will gather that first Easter evening behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. Perhaps the women are also afraid to tell anyone about the resurrection for fear of the Jews. Or, perhaps they are afraid of the angel. This particular angel appeared in the form of a young man, so his appearance would not have been supernaturally frightening. Maybe he spoke with such authority that the women were afraid of his confidence.

Or maybe, the women were afraid of Jesus. Jesus had taught all His disciples very clearly about the necessity of the crucifixion and the resurrection. He even told them that they would scatter. These women, like almost all the disciples, didn’t really understand or truly believe what Jesus had said. Again, maybe their grief was blinding them to reality. So maybe they were afraid that Jesus really had risen and here they are, carrying spices to anoint His dead body—evidence of their lack of faith in Jesus’ words. Whatever the reason, these women choose to disobey the word of the angel by telling no one what they had seen.

But Mary Magdalene returned to the tomb and encountered our Lord. She was the first person to whom Jesus revealed Himself in His resurrected and glorified state. After seeing Jesus, she ran quickly to tell the disciples what she had seen.

Then our Lord appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, walking with them until evening. They did not recognize Him until He agreed to stay with them for a meal. When He took bread, gave thanks, and broke it before them, the eyes of these disciples were opened and they saw the glorified Lord. Immediately, Jesus departed from them. These two disciples then ran quickly to tell the others that they had seen Jesus.

Forty days later and after revealing Himself to many disciples, Jesus gathered with the Eleven on the Mount of the Ascension. He offered to His disciples His final teachings before being received into heaven and sitting at the right hand of the Father:

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”[1]

What wonderful words to hear from our risen Savior! Imagine if you truly believed them. Because there are many in error who have taken to dancing with venomous snakes and drinking poison, we are quick to dismiss these words. Those who do such foolish things are tempting God—something Satan tried to get Jesus to do but Jesus refused. Rather than take these things as necessary requirements for faith, something to test out to see if you really have faith, we should see them as flowing naturally from faith.

I said, “Imagine if you truly believed these words.” What I mean is, imagine what it would be like not to be afraid of the Jews, the harsh words of Jesus, your neighbors, your coworkers, your children? What if you believed the words of Scripture to say exactly what they say and lived according to them? What if the next time somebody asked, “Any plans this weekend?” you responded, “Yeah, I’m going to go to church and learn more about Jesus”? They might look at you like you’re crazy. They might laugh at you. So what? It’s true. It should be true.

The Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Almighty Word by which creation came to be, took your sins upon Himself; died the death you deserve so that your sins would be buried deep in the earth; and then rose again to new life so that you would receive eternal life with Him in heaven. Why be ashamed of that? Why be afraid to tell someone about that? Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

Rather, revel in the resurrection of Christ. Enjoy the feast of the resurrection. Celebrate the death of Jesus for you, knowing that because of it, you will see Him with your own two eyes, just as Job proclaimed.

In + Jesus’ name. Amen.

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[1] St. Mark 16:15-18.

The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

 The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity – September 19, 2021

Psalm 86; 1 Kings 17:17-24; Ephesians 3:13-21

St. Luke 7:11-17

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

The day after preaching on the plain and healing a centurion’s beloved servant, Jesus went to a town called Nain. He was followed by his disciples and a large crowd, for word of his teaching and miracles was beginning to spread. As he approached the gate of the town, our Lord is met by a funeral procession. The only-begotten son of a widow has tragically died. The boy was barely old enough to be called a man. The widow wept loudly and a large crowd followed in her sorrow. The mourners close at hand, the pallbearers marched slowly out of the town to bury the boy.

Upon seeing the woman, Christ has compassion upon her and tells her to stop weeping. Upon touching the funeral bier, the open coffin, everyone stops. The pallbearers freeze, almost as though they are dead where they stand. Christ then utters his second command, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” Immediately the boy sits up and begins to speak, presumably speaking glory of God and blessing the name of the Messiah. In one of the most tender gestures in all of Scripture, Jesus takes the boy by the hand, helps him down, and presents the now living boy to his mother.

Then everyone in the crowd was seized by fear and began to glorify God saying, “A great prophet has risen up among us,” and “God has visited His people.” The report of this resurrection then spread throughout all Judea and the surrounding lands.[1]

Three times our Lord is recorded to have raised someone visibly from the dead. It is possible he raised many more that were not recorded. It is also entirely possible that this boy, Jairus’s daughter, and Lazarus were the only three souls to be reunited with their bodies during the ministry of the Christ. The important question is not how many, but why these three? St. John tells us “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”[2]

These three were raised to teach you something about Jesus – that he is the Christ, the Son of God – and that by believing you may have life in his Name. How then does this resurrection teach us about the Christ?

First, this miracle is a prophecy of Christ’s own death and resurrection. The boy is carried outside the city in death, just as Christ himself will be given over to death and crucified outside of the city of Jerusalem.

The boy is the only-begotten son of a widowed mother. Jesus is the Christ, the only-begotten Son of God the Father and the son of a widowed mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Upon seeing the widow of Nain, Jesus has compassion on her. At his own death, Jesus looks with compassion upon his own widowed mother, commending her into the care of St. John.

The boy is carried upon an open casket, a funeral bier, for all to see his lifeless body. Christ our Lord would hang upon a cross in full view, for all to see his body as he breathed his last.

When the miracle is performed, the pall bearers, the guardians of the body in a funeral procession, are made to stand perfectly still, almost as corpses themselves. On Easter morning, as the women arrive at the tomb, the guards stationed by the Pharisees shake for fear and fall down as dead men.[3]

Then there is an important difference. The boy’s funeral procession is stopped, and Christ touches the bier. Speaking to the boy, he is raised from the dead and Christ presents the now living boy to his mother. In Christ’s own death, he is taken down from the cross and presented to his mother a lifeless corpse. This is the most important comparison between these resurrections.

In touching the funeral bier, Jesus made himself unclean. He touched the death of the boy and took it upon himself. The clean white robe of Christ wiped the filth of death from the boy’s forehead – cleaning the boy and soiling Christ. We can see very clearly that Christ gave his life to the boy and took the boy’s death upon himself. Jesus took the place of the boy in the grave so that the boy could take his place in the arms of his mother.

The second teaching of this miracle concerns a false understanding of death and resurrection. When Jesus traveled to Bethany to mourn the death of Lazarus, he is met outside the city by Martha, one of Lazarus’s sisters. Martha confesses that had Jesus been there, Lazarus would not have died, and yet she retains faith that the Father will do whatever Jesus asks. Jesus responds, “Your brother will rise again,” to which Marth confesses, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus gently corrects her, “I AM the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.”[4]

When someone we love falls asleep in death, we are tempted to think like Martha. We know our beloved, our friend, our father will rise on the last day and that is our only comfort. But that is not true of the Baptized. Those who believe in Christ shall never die. Our death was in the waters of Holy Baptism. We were drowned in that saving flood. We come to the waters of Holy Baptism as sinful creatures, less than human, turned away from God. In judgment, the Lord drowns us, just as he drowned the unbelieving multitudes in Noah’s day and swallowed hard-hearted Pharaoh and all his mighty host in the Red Sea. Sinful man has no hope of escaping the waters of Holy Baptism. He is drowned to the depths and cannot recover. His funeral procession will stop for nothing.

Thanks be to God our funeral processions are stopped by the Light of Christ. The Only-Begotten Son of God reaches out and pulls us forth from the water. Our filth of death is left behind and we are raised to a new life in Christ. Death no longer has a claim to us. Those who fall asleep in Christ have already died – on the day of their Holy Baptism.[5] Baptism now saves you.[6] It makes you a child of the Heavenly Father and heir of heaven with Christ. You are fully human, restored to a right relationship with Christ and presented to your mother, the Church.

When we bring a child to the font, the procession is interrupted by the waters of Holy Baptism, just as a funeral procession is interrupted by the Paschal Candle. Both stand in the place of Christ, who freezes the funeral procession of Nain, stopping death in its tracks.

Why then must the Christian suffer temporal death? Sin is still at work in our members. The wages of sin must still be paid by our flesh and yet, as Jesus says, “even though he dies, he shall live. Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.” Those who die in Christ are still living, for our God is the God of the living, not the dead. All who believe and are baptized died in the waters of baptism. Temporal death is now the victory over sin. Even as sin must finish its course of decay in the flesh, the Christian is alive and free from the chains of sin. He now enjoys eternal, sinless life.

Do not weep inconsolably over the death of a Christian. Weep with tears of joy and sadness for the separation you must endure. But know that Christ has compassion on you. When Jesus came to Nain, he did not resurrect the boy out of compassion for him. Jesus had compassion on the mother, the bereaved. The miracle of the resurrection was for the sake of the comfort of the widowed mother.

Tears at the temporal death of a Christian are a confession of sorrow over sin and a longing for eternal life. Christ himself cried at the death of Lazarus. Yet weeping and wailing are a confession of death, the end of life, something unknown to the Christian. We know that the body of the departed will rest in peaceful sleep, even as it awaits the resurrection, to be reunited with the already living soul for all eternity.

Finally, know that this resurrection of the boy at Nain is consolation for the living, as well as the bereaved. If Christ took on the death of the boy, he has certainly taken on your death. Jesus took the sins of the world upon his shoulders, standing in the place of mankind from Adam to the last baby born. His death swallowed the death of all, including you.

You were conceived in sin and born in iniquity. Since Adam, all mankind has been carried out of the heavenly Jerusalem to be buried outside the gates. The pallbearers of sin, temptation, Satan, and our flesh have processed to the grave every hour of our lives. But the Son of God would not have it. He halts the procession and reaches out to touch our sinful filth. He drowns our sin and washes us clean. Even then, he does not leave us alone. He presents us to our mother, the Church, who will continue to care for us even as we grow in the faith. As we age in knowledge and wisdom of Christ, we too come to care for the Church.

There came a day when the widow’s son once again fell asleep in Christ. He presently enjoys the nearer company of Christ, awaiting the day when he will be reunited with his body. So too, we who enjoy life in the Church await the return of Christ look forward not to our rest in the grave, but the coming of our Lord. We, who are held in the arms of Mother Church, look for the triumphal return of Christ, who will lead us into the heavenly Jerusalem through the gate of pearl.

In + Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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[1] A summary of St. Luke 7:11-17.

[2] St. John 20:30-31.

[3] St. Matthew 28:4.

[4] A summary of St. John 11:17-27.

[5] Romans 6:3-4.

[6] 1 Peter 3:21.