Easter Feet - Mark 16:1-8

Audio file

Easter Feet – Mark 16:1-8

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

I want to talk to you about feet today. My Dad had some of the biggest feet I’ve ever seen – size 13-4Es, and even then sometimes shoes didn’t fit right. He usually ordered his shoes from Mason Shoes (pre-internet days) because they made them big enough.  He had one pair of boots that he liked so much he had them re-soled three times. Big shoes…big feet…big man. I followed those feet a lot when I was a boy – in the garage, in the garden, in the pasture, to the barn, to school, and to church. My small feet followed the path made by his big feet.

We lived near the church cemetery when I was a boy. When I say near, I mean a couple hundred yards; just up the hill. In the evenings after work, when the chores were done and dinner was finished, it wasn’t at all uncommon for Dad to lead us through the pasture to the cemetery for our evening walk – big feet, little feet, all in a row. And in the cemetery, we would carefully walk through the graves, placing our feet carefully so as to not step on a grave, and Dad would tell us the stories of the men and women who had walked the life of faith before us. He told us stories about men like Ben Kurio and Gus Jacob and women like Lydia Neitch and Lula Richter. Some stones were so old, everything was written in German. Dad would translate the Bible passages, written in German script, for us. Other stones, written in English, we would read together – names, dates, and Scriptures. We didn’t do it every day or even every week, but we did it frequently.

I tell you this, because I learned the power of Easter in the cemetery of Zionst Euangelische Lutheraner Kirche – Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church – in Walburg, Texas. When you see the graves of the faithful who have fallen asleep in Christ and have gone before you, it’s a humbling thing and it’s a powerful thing. Humbling, because these are saints of God who lived through some very, very tough and difficult times; powerful because of the confession of faith that was made both with lips that were living and in stone when sleeping. Over and over again, you can read brief statements like, “In my Father’s House are Many Rooms,” or “Christ is risen!” or “Jesus’ Little Lamb.” Those are important statements because those tell us something about the life of faith that was lived – in the midst of tragedy and difficulty, in life and in death, these people, these saints of God trusted in His promise that was spoken outside another tomb 2000 years ago: I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me shall never die.

On the morning of Saturday, April 29, 2000, my family and I took that walk again from our house to the cemetery: My mom, brother, two sisters, some of my aunts and uncles, my wife and me. This time, we weren’t walking with my Dad to hear stories. My dad had fallen asleep in Jesus earlier that week on Tuesday. This time, we were walking to my Dad, to the grave-side, to his casket that was waiting to be placed into the ground. It was one of the longest and slowest walks of my life.

This all came back to my mind this week as I once again read the account of the women making their slow journey to Jesus’ tomb. I wondered if they retraced their steps from three days earlier when they followed Jesus as He carried His cross. Did they stop at the place where Jesus spoke to them about grieving over Jerusalem? Did they pass by places where Jesus had taught in the streets, or healed a sick man? Did they pass by the temple, still buzzing because of the split curtain, wondering what Jesus meant when He said He would rebuild His temple in three days? I’m sure their feet were heavy with grief; were they heavily burdened, too, with the spices and embalming cloths? Did they stumble, or were they steadfast in their journey?

The Bible does not tell us how long this walk was, but no matter how many steps it took, the journey probably felt like an eternity. Part of their conversation was very practical, too – St. Mark says that they were talking, trying to figure out how they were going to move the stone away from the opening so they could anoint Jesus’ body.

They get within sight of the tomb and suddenly, their pace changes. They slow to a standstill; start; stop; stammer a few steps father; stop again. The stone was already moved! Where were the soldiers? Did grave robbers hit? Did the Jewish leaders have to commit one more atrocity against their Lord, even in death by defiling the body of their Lord? Closer…closer…

Now, stepping into the tomb, they saw two men dressed in dazzling clothes from head to foot. In fear, they fell to the ground near the angels’ feet.

While fear knocks them to their feet, the angels’ message makes them stand – wobbly legged, maybe – but stand nonetheless in hope. “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.”

Just a week ago, Jesus had taken them aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.” They didn’t understand it then, and on that first Easter morning, it was just too much to believe – they were afraid. 

I can’t say I blame them. Can you? I’ve stood at the empty grave myself, both for my father and with dozens of other sons and daughters, fathers and mothers who laid loved ones to rest. It is a daunting, frightening thing to stand there. Not because we don’t know the eternity of what happens after death – we know that, in Christ, we shall be raised – but because, in that moment, our lives – like those of Mary, Mary, and Salome – have been turned upside down. But we are able to stand there, as children of God, because Christ’s grave, which once contained His body, stands empty. Christ is risen!

The resurrection of Jesus is not just a one-day-out-of-the-year celebration. His resurrection is a life changing event. It’s a life-changing event because our Lord Christ, in His resurrection, defeated the power of death and the grave and crushed Satan’s hold over us. For the past 40 days, we have followed Jesus’ footsteps to the cross; we heard the nails driven into his feet and hands; we listened somberly as Jesus spoke his last words and took his last breath. But this morning, on this first day of the week, we stand outside Jesus’ open tomb that He walked out of – alive – with hands and feet marked by the nails, his side showing the mark of the spear. Crucified for us, He now lives for us.

And we live in Him. You are a baptized child of God. Not merely a symbol, Baptism is an act of God. You notice the baptismal candle is lit this morning. In your Baptism, you are united in Christ. Think of the Easter power that has for you! “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:3-5). Today, you will hear people say, “Christ is risen” you will probably answer “He is risen indeed.” Today and tomorrow and the next day and every day, I want you to add something. I want you to say, “We are risen, we are risen indeed! Alleluia!”

And that changes the way we see a cemetery. Don’t get me wrong – for all of us who have had to take that long walk to the casket of a loved one, a cemetery will always carry at least some measure of sorrow and grief and fear. But, for us as Christians, cemeteries are also places of hope. When I say “hope,” I don’t want you to hear “one-in-ten-million-chance” hope. I want you to hear certainty, confidence – the “amen” of faith in Christ Jesus.

At a funeral, you hear people say their loved one is now with Jesus. They’re missing the best part: the resurrection. When we lay a loved one in the ground, the grave serves as a resting place for the faithful who have died in the Lord. Jesus speaks of this as being asleep. In cemeteries all across the globe, the bodies of faithful Christians await the great resurrection of all flesh when Jesus returns. On that day – on that great Easter of all Easters when the resurrected, ascended, glorified, victorious and returning Christ appears, we too will be raised. The voices of the faithful, present, will join the voices of the saints past in repeating the Easter victory cry, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “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” (I Cor 15:54-55).

How do I know this? How can we know this? Because Jesus said so. And, like those women on the first Easter who remembered and believed, I remember and believe --- we remember and we believe --- Jesus’ promises – especially His Easter promise.

I said I learned about Easter in the cemetery of Zion Lutheran Church with the stories of the faithful saints of Zion’s past. Those stories of people’s lives took the power of the Gospel and tied it to a person whose name was chiseled in stone and whose name was written in the Book of Life. April 29, 2000 was the Saturday after Easter. Nine days after remembering Jesus’ burial, we stood and buried my father. But, we knew the Easter story of Jesus’ resurrection so with Easter faith my family said “I believe in the resurrection and the life of the world to come.” Yes, we said it with fear, like the women on that first Resurrection morning, but we also said it trusting Jesus’ baptismal promise. In Christ, the grave does not hold the faithful forever. My Dad will rise and stand on his size 13-4E feet, and I, with my little feet, will one day stand next to him again. How do I know that? Jesus said it. My Dad taught me that. And Dad’s tombstone confesses it: “I know that my redeemer lives!” Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. We are risen! We are risen, indeed. Alleluia!