Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
We are risen! We are risen, indeed! Alleluia!
I love Easter. I think most Christians do, too. The joy and
excitement are palpable – particularly after the solemnity of Lent. There is a
spring in our steps this morning. The joie de vivre has returned. New
dresses, new slacks, new shoes, fresh haircuts, all mark our acknowledgement
that today is no ordinary Sunday. It is celebration-with-a-capitol-C time! Not
because of Reese’s eggs or chocolate bunnies, spiral cut hams and family
gatherings. It’s time to celebrate because of Jesus’ resurrection from the
grave!
You heard it a few minutes ago from St. Mark. The stone was
rolled away. The resting space was bare; the grave was empty. The angelic
announcement was heard, “He is not here – He is risen!” St. John added that there was a little bit of
confusion as the women reported to the Eleven that Jesus was missing, but Peter
and John soon joined in the cadre of eyewitnesses to the empty tomb.
The three-day sign of Jonah was complete. The meaning behind
Good Friday’s “It is finished” becomes clear and gains exclamation points as the
church in heaven and on earth joins in the eternal cry, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving
and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Rev
7:11–12). Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Last
Sunday, I told you that when I was a kid, we entered church singing the Palm
Sunday “Hosannah’s.” There as another
song that we sang on Easter and in the Easter season, written by Presbyterian
ministers Donald Marsh and Richard Avery. It had kind of a 60s camp song feel
to it, but it was catchy and easy to sing.
(Ref) Ev'ry morning is Easter morning from now on!
Ev'ry
day's resurrection day, the past is over and gone!
Goodbye guilt, goodbye fear, good riddance! Hello Lord,
Hello sun!
I am one of the Easter People! My new
life has begun! (Refrain)
Daily news is so bad it seems the Good News seldom gets
heard.
Get it straight from the Easter People: God's in charge! Spread the word! (Ref) [i]
I like
that description of us as “Easter people.” It’s a short, two-word summary that
we trust that Christ died for the sins of the world, that His death fully
atoned – paid for – our sins and the death price of eternity is satisfied. It
says that peace, restoration, is made with God through His Son. It says that
the Baptismal declaration spoken over Jesus, “You are my beloved Son,” is
delivered to us as well, sons and daughters, who are baptized into Christ’s
death and resurrection. You are made righteous – right – with God through
Jesus.
Last
Sunday in Bible class, a comment was made something like this: “That might be
true, but I don’t feel righteous.” Sure – this side of heaven, we still carry
our Old Adam alongside our New Adam; the sanctified Christian is alongside the
sinful self. We do things we are ashamed of and we don’t do things that we
should have done. This is what Luther called “simul justus et peccator”
– sinner and saint at the same time. But, of the two, the saintliness in Christ
is greater because it is in Christ. He is greater than your sins. You
are wrapped, dipped, drenched, covered so fully and completely in Christ, by
God’s grace through faith, that the Father does not see a single sin to hold
against you. They have all been fully atoned by Christ. All God sees is you,
His beloved, His righteous one.
It’s
not just your sins: even your works, the things you do, the day-in and day-out
normal things you do, the nothing special things, are redeemed in Christ as
well, so that even your vocation is redeemed and made holy. Best of all, this
is a constant truth – not just something that is on Easter morning. “Every
morning is Easter morning from now on! Every day is resurrection day, the past
is over and gone!” You are always redeemed, always covered, always rescued,
always beloved through Christ our Lord. You live in that constant hope, joy and
promise. That is what it means to be Easter people. That is why we can answer “Christ
is risen! He is risen, indeed!” with “We are risen! We are risen, indeed!” It’s
no wonder Easter joy abounds today!
But
this isn’t the case everywhere. This morning, there are a dozen or so families
in the Baltimore area wondering, “now what do we do with our loved one gone in
such a random, horrific accident?” There are farmers and ranchers in our
Panhandle wondering how they are going to survive given their losses in the
fires. There are spouses missing their life’s companion, parents missing their
children, children missing their parents because an illness, an accident, or a
mystery unknown to anyone except God. There is the individual on fixed income
who tries to give faithfully, but while the cost of living keeps adding up, the
budgetary math just doesn’t. This morning, among you in these pews, there is
hand-wringing, chin-pulling, head-rubbing, stomach-gurgling and tear-wiping
happening as faithful people, faithful men and women and children of God
wrestle with what it means to be Easter people in a world that seems so far
from Easter’s joy.
If
that is you, or someone you know, listen again to this description of the women
at the tomb that first Easter: “And they went out and fled from the tomb, for
trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone,
for they were afraid.”
It
would be hard to blame them. After all, given the events of the previous 72
hours would have been traumatic for anyone to witness, let alone these who
loved Jesus so dearly. They were afraid how they could get the massive stone
moved to care for Jesus’ body. Then, arriving at the tomb, seeing the stone moved,
that was fearful. They bravely entered the sepulcher – I don’t know if I would
have done that – only to find things even more frightening: a missing Jesus, an
empty resting place, and a heavenly, angelic man, dressed in white in His place.
He tried to console them, reminding them of Jesus’ words and promises. He tried
to engage their faith into action by sending them to spread the message. But
their fear was too great, too raw, too much. They ran away, speechless and
afraid.
I am glad Mark tells us this. I am glad because there are times for God's people when we are afraid -- even, even at Easter. For
you whose Easter isn’t ringing with alleluias, whose joy is tempered with the
hardness of life, whose restorative peace feels like a fragile stalemate, whose
excitement is replaced with dread or even indifference, that simple inclusion
of the women’s fear is for you. It is for you because it speaks that this side
of heaven, because of the fallen world we live in, the proclamation of the
resurrection, the words of the angels, the preaching from this pulpit will, at
times, sound less like a ringing chime and more like the clunk of scrap iron. The
resurrection doesn’t make the hardness of this life under the cross go away. The
Good News doesn’t turn everything into bunnies and lilies. “Christ is risen, He
is risen, indeed!” doesn’t always drive away every fear.
But,
what it does do, the proclamation and the words and the preaching, what it
does, this Word of God, is that it keeps you from leaving here empty handed.
Just like the women two thousand years ago who left the tomb with the Words
ringing in their ears, you also have this Promise: “He has risen. He is not
here.” That is enough. It is enough because it is all true: Christ is risen, as
He said. He is not here, as He said. He is alive, as He said. Sins are
forgiven, as He said. Peace is restored, as He said. We only get a glimpse of
it, a foreshadowing of it now, but that doesn’t change the fact that it will
all come to completion on the day of Christ’s return, the great resurrection of
all flesh.
Don’t
forget that, this Resurrection Day. Christ’s resurrection is a foreshadowing of
our own resurrection day. That’s why every day is resurrection day – every day
we live in the promise and in the Capitol-H-Hope that even thought we will die,
we will live with Him into eternity. Whether today you are eating a 5-star meal
of honey glazed ham, buffet potatoes, and fresh bread with three dozen family
members, or you are eating a 2-star ham and scalloped potato frozen dinner by
yourself, it pales in comparison to the feast that awaits us on the day of
Christ’s return.
We
began the Lenten season with Isaiah’s picture of Christ as the suffering
servant. Let us begin the Easter season with his description of the great
Easter feast:
On this
mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
And he will
swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow
up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
It will be said
on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
We are risen! We are risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
[i] https://www.hopepublishing.com/find-hymns-hw/hw2970.aspx I am using this under "fair use" for educational purposes. To hear the music, do a YouTube search and sing along!
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