Living With Easter Hope & Joy - Matthew 28: 1-11

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

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

We know that very simple, but very powerful truth. We know the Easter message. We know, believe, trust and rely on the angels’ three-word sermon, “He has risen,” and we rejoice and celebrate what those words mean: our sins are paid in full with the suffering and death of Jesus; peace with the Father is restored; we are atoned-for by the blood of Christ, so that God sees us as holy and redeemed. He has risen. The resurrection and the empty grave both stand as holy evidence that all of these things are true.

We know and believe all of those things, so our gathering this morning is marked with celebration. Alleluia returns to our liturgy and hymnody. The heavy tone and message of the Lenten hymns is gone; the brighter, triumphant hymns and melodies soar while the organ thunders. The hidden glory of Jesus at the cross behind man’s attempt to silence and murder Jesus is replaced with the open glory of the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection. Whether it’s the first-hand narratives of a resurrected Jesus in the Gospels or the proclamation of the same resurrection message through the book of Acts, the resurrection is front-and-center in our worship lives today and throughout the season of Easter.

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

We know this. We believe this. But it is worth remembering this morning that on that first Easter, while it was still dark, as Mary Magdelene and the other Mary went to the tomb, they did not know these things. For them, the horrors of Good Friday were still fresh in their minds. I can imagine that they spent Sabbath, the thirty-some hours since Jesus died, restlessly mourning and stealthily preparing the necessary oils and spices for a proper burial – something they were prevented from doing Friday because of the beginning of Sabbath at sundown, shortly after Jesus gave up His spirit. Weighed down with spices and aloes, plodding towards Jesus’ grave, they were also weighed down with grief. I imagine they were discussing logistics: how to do the sacred, loving act of wrapping the body properly; how to get the massive stone rolled away from the mouth of the tomb; whether the soldiers who were standing guard would even let them near the grave, let alone allow them to enter. That morning, for those two women, it was not yet “Easter.” It was not a resurrection celebration. It was a day of mourning and lamenting the hard reality of the death of their Lord, their Master, Jesus of Nazareth.

All of their wondering, all of their fearful drudgery comes to a shaking halt as an earthquake rocks the earth. Where the ground shook Friday in mourning for the death of the Lord of Creation, Sunday morning, it shook with joy. Even creation responds to the message: just as the darkness of night is pushed aside as the sunshine begins to glow on the eastern horizon, so the darkness of sin, death, and the grave, is pushed aside as the Son of God incarnate rises. He has risen. Heaven joins the celebration as an angelic messenger, radiant in snow-white clothing, descends to roll back the stone. Angel means messenger, remember, and his actions to open the grave present the visible message while his words to the women proclaim the message: Christ has risen, indeed. Even the guards, who were knocked out at the sight of the angel, can’t ignore the obvious: the grave they protected is empty. The One whom they guarded is gone. Christ has risen.

We could stop there with that announcement and that would be enough. He has risen declares God’s plan of salvation in the death of Christ is complete. The Father accepted Jesus’ death-payment for our own sins’ wages. If all the angel said was those three words, He has risen, that would still be the greatest Easter proclamation of all.

But he added three small words, three important words, that cannot be overlooked. “As He said.” As He said, as Jesus said – not what he, the angel, said. That’s what a messenger does. He delivers what has been told to him. By saying this, the angel defers to Jesus Himself. It’s as if the angel was saying, “Listen! You don’t have to believe me. Believe Him – the same one who called Lazarus from the grave, who declared Himself to be the resurrection and the life, who said He must go to Jerusalem and be delivered into the hands of men, and that they would kill him, and then promised that He would die and three days later be raised. Believe His Word, His promises. They are trustworthy and true. And, if you don’t believe me, if you don’t believe His own words, then look – see for yourself. He isn’t here. He has risen as He said.”

Throughout the Old Testament, God called prophets to speak in His name. They had two specific tasks: to forth-tell and to foretell. Forth tell is to say, “Thus saith the Lord,” and to deliver the words God gave them to say. Sometimes those words were hard words of Law, calling people to repentance. Sometimes, those were words of Good News, words of forgiveness, remembrance, grace and compassion. And, sometimes, to better enable the people to believe – especially when the words were almost too much to believe - God allowed the prophet to foretell, to prophecy, to predict something that was to come. For example, Elijah foretold the three-year drought that would strike Israel. The purpose of those prophesies was to give credence to all of the prophet’s words. If this thing that I foretold happened as God declared, then all the other words I speak in His name are also true.

Now, take that idea and apply it to Jesus. If His death and His resurrection happened as Jesus declared, and His Word was shown to be true, then all of the things He said are true as well – including the promise that an Easter resurrection awaits us – are true as well.

It is no small thing that this takes place very early on the first day of the week. Matthew calls it the day after Sabbath. We would call it Sunday. Sunday is when creation began in Genesis; it came to completion on Sabbath, what we call Saturday, and on that 7^th day, God rested. With the resurrection, when else would you expect a new creation to begin, a new heaven and a new earth to be opened, the dawning of a new life in Christ but at the beginning of a new week? The old week, the old creation, the old adam is completely redeemed and reconciled through the blood of Jesus. “It is finished,” remember? He didn’t mean His life; Jesus meant God’s plan of salvation. The exchange was complete: Jesus’ life for the lives of the world; Jesus’ death substituting for the eternal death of all mankind; Jesus’ holiness in exchange for the sins of the world. All of it: “it is finished.” And on the 7^th day, that holy Sabbath after Good Friday, God’s Friday, Christ rested in the tomb from His work of redemption. As is the week, as is God’s plan of salvation. Rest is followed by resurrection. Resurrection Day begins a new week; it’s the dawning of a new creation, an 8th day of creation, if you will. Resurrection ushers in a new beginning; it gives new life. He who was dead is alive. He who was buried is raised. He who was restrained cannot be contained any longer – not by creation, not by a stone, not by a grave, not by death. He has risen!

On Easter day, it is easy to get caught up in the romance of the day and forget that there is also a word of future promise of the angel: He has gone before us. Now, in the context of the reading, the angel means that Jesus has gone to Galilee and the disciples will find Him there. Before His ascension, He will appear to the twelve disciples and hundreds more as eye-witness proof of the resurrection, demonstrating the angel and the grave were telling the truth. But, for us in the 21^st century, “He has gone before us,” carries a second meaning. These words stand as a promise that we too, when Christ returns, will have our own resurrection day into eternity. On the day of the great resurrection, when the trumpets sound, the dead in Christ will be raised, whole and holy, entering into the new heavens and the new earth, the fulfillment of the new creation that we experience now, but dimly.

But, don’t think that resurrection is just a future-tense event. It’s a present-tense reality. You are a baptized child of God. Note: present tense, are. Not were, not will be. Are. You are a baptized child of God. You notice the baptismal candle is lit this morning. In your Baptism, you are united with 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!”

Psalm 144:1 - Full of Eyes
Used with Permission of Artist

Let’s try it: We are risen! We are risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Now, here’s why that is important.

Twenty-six years ago, Easter was on April 23. I don’t have to look that up on an old calendar, or Google it. I know it; I remember it. I was in my last year at Seminary, about six weeks from graduation. Two weeks earlier, I had found out I would be the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church in Crockett, Texas, to be ordained and installed later in the summer. It was an exciting time with lots of things to look forward to in the months ahead.

Our dean of students had challenged us fourth-year men to preach in chapel. I accepted the challenge and was scheduled to preach the Tuesday after Easter, April 25. I was assigned the Old Testament lesson for that day, from Isaiah, where he writes, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who proclaim Good News, who proclaim peace, who says unto Zion, ‘Behold, your God reigns.’” I connected Easter with Isaiah and with the future message that we would be proclaiming to our churches in just a few months. It was an experience that I hope I never forget, getting to preach in that magnificent Seminary chapel building to fellow students and teachers and mentors whom I admired and with whom I had spent years learning, growing, and struggling to learn this blessed vocation. After chapel, as I walked away, several friends and profs thanked me and complemented my sermon.

I was feeling quite good as I walked across campus when a friend came towards me, crying, tears running down his cheeks. His wife had recently had some health issues, and I was afraid he had just gotten bad news. In my mind, I was trying to figure out what to say to him when he blurted out, “Jon…I don’t know how to tell you this…Laura just called…your Dad died this morning.” I remember how time both stopped and sped up at the same time. Somewhere in there, Laura arrived. After hugging and crying together, we walked over to the Dean of Students office. As we sat down, he began to complement my sermon I had just preached, but then he noticed our faces. As he sat down, I told him about Dad. Truthfully, I remember almost nothing about the rest of our conversation. As we were wrapping up, he looked at me and said, “You preached a wonderful Easter message this morning and the hope we have because of Jesus’ death and resurrection.” He paused. Then, he said, “Now, you get to live out that Easter hope that you preached.”

I have thought about Dean Rockemann’s words more than once the last few weeks. I don’t need to tell you why. But it’s not just me. It’s us, as God’s people. It’s us, as the church. It’s us, the communion of saints, this side of heaven. We live in Easter hope every day, not just on high holy days like Easter, or at hard, difficult days like the death of a loved one. Even then, as we stand at the closed grave of our loved one, we do so with the promise of the day when that grave will be opened, and ours, too, when Jesus returns and voids all vault and casket warranties by raising us from the dead.

That day in his office, Dean Rockemann told me that I was to live out the hope that I preached. Now you, you, God’s people, you get to live out the hope that you have heard, living in Easter hope, today and every day as Baptized children of God.

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