Easter Sunday Sermon

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No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’” (Luke 16:30-31)

The rich man in hell was trying to convince Abraham to send poor Lazarus to warn his brothers. But they already had the Word of God, Moses and the prophets. If they would not believe the Word, why would they believe even if someone were to rise from the dead?

What do you suppose would happen if we had a funeral for someone and everyone in the community saw him dead and buried and a few days later we invited the town to come and see this man who was dead and is now alive again? I suspect people wouldn't believe it. It was some kind of a trick. He wasn't really dead, he was faking it, it was all staged. Someone stole the body.

It is not through seeing with the eyes that faith. It is through the Word of God. You do not believe that your body and the bodies of your loved ones will rise again on the last day, you do not even believe that the body of Jesus rose from the dead because you saw it. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe! It is only by hearing the Word that you believe. The first two verses in Paul's great resurrection chapter, 1 Cor 15, from which our epistle came today, is: “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.” Sounds a lot like Romans 10, doesn't it: “Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ.”

It is the Word preached into your ears that saves you. It is the promises of God regarding the bodies of your loved ones that give you hope in the graveyard. Yet even with the clear word of the resurrection preached clearly, even then sometimes people miss it, or deny it outright. The Jewish leaders knew Jesus rose from the dead - they had the report of the soldiers. They knew the disciples didn't just steal the body, they knew it wasn't some kind of a trick. Jesus had risen - the soldiers had seen the stone thrown off the tomb, they had seen the angel, felt the earthquake, they reported it to the High Priest; that's why he paid off the soldiers, told them to lie about the body, that’s why he protected them from Pilate’s rage who would have killed them – death was the punishment for Roman guards who failed in their duty and let the prisoner escape. The leaders of the Jews knew Jesus rose from the dead, they were just hard-hearted unbelievers who out of malice tried to silence the news.

But Mary and the other women whom came to the tomb that day, and the disciples who were still cowering in the upper room, theirs was another story. They should have known, Jesus had warned them of His death and promised them His resurrection how many times? But yet here come the women to anoint Jesus’ body. And what were they worried about? Who was going to roll the stone away from the tomb for them!

And then they got there and saw – the stone had been rolled away, but still they didn’t believe. They cautiously looked in the tomb and saw His body was gone and still they didn’t believe. But there was a young man, an angel, who preached the Word into their ears, the Gospel in which they were saved: “Do not be alarmed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; He is not here.”

Don't be alarmed? Don't be upset? Really? People spend a lot of time and money taking care of graves and preparing the bodies of their loved-ones. That's what Mary and the women were doing, but when they got there the tomb was empty. What would you do if you went to the grave of your loved-one a couple days after their death and when you got there the first thing you saw was that the grave was open, the dirt was lying in a nice pile on one side, the cover of the vault had been thrown out of the tomb and was laying against a tree, and the coffin was open and in order, but ... no body?  And when you look up there was some guy standing there in white clothes, leaning on a shovel, with a grin on his face, and he says, “Don't worry, he is risen!”

But, remember, it is the Word of God the angel is speaking so there is power to save in those words, power to create faith. That is why God arranges that we can hear the Word over and over again in the worship of the Church, accounts from the Scriptures that we have heard so many times ... we need to hear all of it at least one more time, and then hear it all again and again and again, because one of the weaknesses and problems with our human mind, clouded as it is by sin, is that we forget God’s promises, we forget the GOOD NEWS! Especially when we are standing in cemeteries. We need to be reminded. It had only been a few days, a few hours, really, and the disciples and the women had forgotten. So God preached His promises into their ears again ... through the angel, just as He is preaching it into your ears again today through the voice of the angel, the preacher He has sent with the Good News message.

So, as the women understood and believed, it was by faith that understanding and belief came; not only is what the angel said exactly what happened, but it's also what Jesus had many times promised would happen. A dead man rising from the dead and walking alive among us again. What a thought! And this isn't The Walking Dead either. Jesus is really alive, and He will never die again!

Our problem is that even though we go through life expecting death, knowing it is coming, when it finally does come we don’t believe it — I can’t believe she’s gone! — and then we have an equally hard time believing that we shall see her again in the resurrection. We don't like it, it hurts, we cry, we mourn, we get angry and bitter. But we knew it was there, standing like a road closed sign at the end of life's path, we knew every mortal would have to go through it, it is, after all, the just wage of sin. So we can fight against it all we want, we can kick and cry and scream, and we do, and even Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus, but when someone dies, they die, and all the time and money we spend trying to push death back for one more day is buried with them. And no matter how we try to camouflage death behind colorful flowers and a beautiful casket, a brand new grave in which no one has ever laid, in the end, death is still death and, as far as the Old Adam can see, death still wins. Don't you think that's what Joseph and Nicodemus were thinking when they took Jesus’ cold corpse off the cross, and the women who followed to His burial? Death wins. Even with Jesus, death wins. We had hoped He was the one who was going to redeem Israel.

But starting with Jesus, death doesn't win anymore! Starting with Jesus, death has been defeated. Christ is risen! HE IS RISEN INDEED! Go, tell His disciples, the ones hiding there behind those locked doors. And make sure you tell Peter, the one who denied Him three times. Go tell them all He is risen!

And then there is Jesus, alive among them. Speaking Mary's name in the garden. Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, showing those Emmaus Road disciples, reminding them once again, that the Christ had to suffer and on the third day rise. Appearing in the upper room. Roasting some fish for breakfast on the shore of the lake. Eating with them. Walking and talking with them. Are you a ghost, Lord? Are you just haunting my thoughts, preying on my hopes? “Touch Me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bone as you see I have.”

Beginning with Jesus, death is undone. The resurrection of Jesus is that first pull of a thread that will eventually unravel the whole shroud of death. It begins with Jesus alive again on that first Easter and continues on to the Last Day when He comes again and the trumpet sounds and the sky rolls up like a scroll and every one of you will rise from your graves, in your bodies, now perfect in Christ, and you will live forever. Death will be completely unraveled then! Jesus’ death takes away all your sin and guilt along with its deadly consequences and His resurrection from the dead robs death of its power. "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Cor 15:55-57). 

No longer is death the worst thing ever for us who love living – you think you love life here, wait until you see what life is like on the other side of the grave! Jesus’ resurrection from the dead shows that He really did take care of sin in His death on the Good Friday cross. Sin leads to death. But Jesus being alive means death has been overturned and that means sin has been buried and that means your death will be undone and you will live again alive from the grave forever in Christ Jesus.

Right now, beautiful flowers and nice caskets and family pictures are how we handle death. It’s how we try to wrap our minds around and deal with the fact that this person is dead and we will never see them again in this life. But Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, the preaching of Christ crucified and risen, and the Holy Supper of His body and blood – those are the ways in which God now deals with death and in these holy Means, which are Christ for us, in which lies the power of the risen Jesus, death itself dies. Jesus is the death of death and Jesus is yours in His Word and Sacraments. Come and hear the Word, come and receive Jesus in the Absolution, in the holy Supper, come and in these holy Means God will remind you once again of the promises He makes about you and your loved ones who go ahead in the faith. Come and see your grave, too, open and empty and you standing in eternal victory with your Lord. Come and hear and wash and eat and in this way, when you gather here in this place around Jesus in Word and Sacrament, in this way you mock death, in this way you laugh in the face of the grave and scorn even the devil for Jesus has died and risen again and the devil can no more hold you in slavery in the fear of death. Death and the devil are  powerlessness because you have already died with Christ in Baptism, and you already live with Him, so whether you live or die you are the Lord’s and the Lord does not leave His holy ones in the grave. Jesus’ resurrection is your resurrection.

Christ is alive; His tomb is empty. And just like that, your grave is going to be empty on the Last Day and you will be alive and live forever. 

So now we Christians face death boldly and we decorate the graves of our loved ones not as those who are tying to hide death, but the flowers on the grave and at the funeral remind us of Easter that hides death behind life and the grave behind the resurrection. Today, friends in Christ, we mock death. Today as we gather here, we laugh at it's pathetic attempts to destroy us. We know in Christ that death is only temporary and passing. On that great eternal Easter morning not to many days from now we shall stand with Christ and all his saints alive again forever. It’s not life that is fleeting and short. It's death that is not going to last very long and is destined to be forgotten forever in the light of the eternal Easter morning. Easter is here! Easter is coming! Jesus lives! You shall live! The angels still preach the good news you can count on: Christ is risen! HE IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA! Amen.