I Know My Redeemer Lives! - Mark 16:1-8

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
We are risen! We are risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

We have again heard the Easter narrative with all its joy, with all its excitement. Mark’s Easter story is short and condensed compared to the other Evangelists, but it is still rich with Good News. We have seen the three women and, with them, saw the rolled-back stone and heard the angels with their Easter Proclamation, “He has risen, He is not here.” As Easter people, we have responded, “He has risen, indeed! Alleluia!” Our hearts are full with Easter joy!

And then we get to the last verse of Mark 16, verse 8, and it reads, “and they were afraid.” Did you feel the air rush out of your sails? Does that leave you just a little bit displeased this Easter morning? Does that put you at unease that here we are with great joy, great excitement, great anticipation, but the women are left with fear? 

Put yourself in their shoes. They were afraid of what was going to happen to them with their Master gone. Perhaps the Jews were looking for them at that very minute. Were they next? Or perhaps they had set a trap for any of Jesus followers who went to the tomb. Maybe they were afraid of what might have happened to Jesus’ body. Did someone steal it? Or, was it all just a giant misunderstanding? Was it the greatest hoax of all time from the One who promised that if he were destroyed, three days later he would be raised again? Was it all just a giant scam that they all misunderstood on many, many levels?

Lest anyone think I am badmouthing Mary Magdalene, or Mary the mother of James, or Salome, I assure you – the men, the disciples, the Eleven were no better. They had not yet figured all of this out, either. All were slow to believe, slow to understand, slow to grasp the events of the past week – from Jesus’ entrance into the Holy City on Palm Sunday, to the upper room on Thursday, to the cross on Friday, to the grave on Saturday, to the empty tomb on Sunday, they could not, would not, did not understand any of it. All they knew is that their Master had died a shameful, terrible death.  Even on the first day of the week, an 8^th day new beginning, the Third Day since death, on resurrection day, they were still struggling, unable to connect the Scriptures together, unable to believe Jesus’ words and promises. The plain words Jesus used over the previous few weeks, how He must suffer and die at the hands of the chief priests and the teachers of the Law, those words were forgotten and disbelieved. His resurrection promises, that He would be raised on the third day, all were hollow words, as empty as the grave they stood in front of. Even seeing it, they could not believe it.

We know – we have the wonderful benefit of 20/20 vision through the lens of the Scriptures. We know, believe and trust what they did not yet know, could not yet believe, would not yet trust that first Easter. On this Easter morning, as we hear the gospel of Christ, the good news that death and the grave in Satan himself have all been defeated, there is joy. We know the story. We know the narrative that on this morning 2000 and some years ago Christ who was crucified, died, and was buried, this same Christ Jesus is raised from the dead and lives and breathes again. His resurrection was not a joke, a scam, the mother of all falsehoods. The angel spoke truthfully, proclaiming Good News. Jesus’ resurrection was as true and truthful as life itself because He who is the resurrection and the life died and is raised! He who raised Lazarus from the dead is Himself raised from the dead! He who was the first fruits of all of the dead, He is also the first born from the grave, restored to life!

During Lent, we heard the story of Job, his stubborn defense of his own innocence and his faith in the promises of a silent God. At the tomb of Jesus, the confidence of Job comes to its fruitition: I know that my redeemer lives! Regardless what Job’s eyes have seen, what his body has felt, what his friends have said, what his own wife told him, Job clings to the promises of God. He knows who God is: a redeemer who will rescue, redeem and save. Not a godly figurehead, not a divinely distanced god, not a god who is kicking back to watch the show, but a God who takes on flesh to step into Job’s own suffering, taking His place, trading His own innocence for Job’s misery. Yet, not a dead God, but a living God. Job confessed it: I know my redeemer lives: My redeemer king will rescue and redeem me. When we stand in Job’s place, when Job’s sufferings and difficulties and terrors are dumped on us, we are able to echo his own confession of faith, I know my redeemer lives!

But there is something that happens to us, even faithful, faith-filled Christians when we stand outside the grave, whether it is ours that seems to loom on the horizon, or at the grave of a loved one. Death is the last great enemy to be conquered (1 Cor. 15:26). There is what we know of the resurrection, that in Christ we shall be raised, but then there is what we see with our eyes and the grave is so...dead. Seeing is believing…except when it isn’t. And, like Mary and Mary and Salome and the Eleven, when we stand facing that enemy, there is fear. I’ve stood at the grave in my vocation as a son and as a pastor. I’ve stood with other sons and fathers and daughters and mothers who have laid their loved ones to rest. It is daunting and frightening to stand there in front of the grave – not because we don’t believe, but because life is being turned upside down.

But remember: you never stand at the grave alone. As God’s children, first we stand with God’s messengers. These aren’t angels but pastors, sent by God to proclaim the resurrection to us. And God is not silent, as He was to Job. God speaks. He speaks and says that His Son died for the sins of the world; that Christ suffered so that God’s people will not endure God’s wrath; He died alone so that we will never be separated from the love of God. Jesus is the redeemer. He redeemed Job from the pit. He redeemed us, He bought us, with His own suffering and death, paid in full by His blood. The resurrection stands as proof that the Father accepted His Son’s redemptive sacrifice for us. His grave was opened at Easter. You do not stand alone at the grave. Christ stands with you, present in Word and Sacrament, with His Baptismal promise that you have already died with Him and have been raised with Him.

Easter makes us stand outside the tomb with the women and the disciples. On the one hand, we are not afraid because we kniw that Christ's resurrection is a foreshadowing id our own resurrection. We have already died with Christ and been buried with Christ through Baptism, and we have been raised to new life as well through Water and Word. That grave is as defeated an enemy as can be.

But we don’t just stand outside the tomb with the disciples. We stand outside the tomb with Jesus. He is not there, remember? Do not be alarmed; do not be afraid. He is risen as He said.

Marge was a war bride. She met her husband, an American soldier, when his unit was in Greece. She came back to the States, married him, and made a house into a home while learning English. They had a daughter who later married and had two girls of her own. Grandkids came along. Although she mastered English, Marge’s native language Greek would occasionally slip out when she got excited or irritated. But it always was used on Easter Sunday with great joy. “Christos Anesti,” she would exclaim – Christ is risen! She taught her family the reply, “Althios anesti!” – Indeed, He is risen! I met Marge when I was in college, and years later I became her pastor. By then, Alzheimers was starting to rob her of some memories. She would forget little things, which soon became bigger and bigger things. The last Easter I saw her, in 2008, she seemed a little lost, but when she got to church, she still called out “Christos anesti!” I joined with her, “Alithos anesti!”

I don’t know if she confessed the Creed that day. I don’t know how much she grasped, or of what she understood, how much she remembered. It was one of the last times I placed into her hands the body and blood of Christ, and I remember her receiving it with a quiet but firm “Amen.”

But as age and illness robbed her of those words and those spoken confessions, Christ’s promises for Marge never changed. Faith doesn’t need to be explained to be alive and active. As surely as an infant, by the power of the Holy Spirit believes, so also an elderly saint, by the same Holy Spirit, clings to faith. And nothing, not even dementia, is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Christ has destroyed death with His death; His empty Good Friday cross and open Easter grave stands as visible promises of our own death-to-life story. Baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, Marge received the full adoption of God as His dearly beloved daughter. God does not abandon His promises or His children.  

And, when Marge fell asleep in Christ last summer in her nursing home bed, she was not alone. Surrounded by angels and archangels, with the entire hosts of heaven, our Lord brought Marge from her own Job-like struggles to her eternal rest. On a hot, July morning, with the family, we gathered at the side of the open grave to lay mother, grandmother, and friend to rest.

It was a little scary – yes, even for me. The grave does that to us. It humbles us and reminds us of our mortality. That’s what we see.  But, there is also what we know: I know my redeemer lives! The grave has been defeated by Jesus’ own open grave. So, together, we again spoke the Easter promise that Marge taught her family and me one more time, “Christos Aneste! Alithos, Aneste!” And, there, with us next to that grave, was the resurrected Jesus.

Because Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed!
We are risen. We are risen, indeed! Alleluia.