Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
Have you ever had your initial expectations left unmet but received something better in the end? Maybe you expected to get one grade on an assignment but ended up getting a better one. Or, maybe you expected to spend time with one friend but ended up having a better time with another. Or, maybe you expected to eat at one restaurant but ended up eating at another with better food. You get the idea, and so in some sense you can relate to the women in today’s Gospel Reading, who bought spices and went to the tomb expecting to anoint Jesus’s dead body but instead got the greatest news that He was risen! This morning we reflect on the Gospel Reading relating their experience, and we do so under the theme “He is risen!”
Despite the Gospel Reading’s unusual abrupt ending, St. Mark’s inspired account of Jesus’s empty tomb agrees with the inspired accounts of Saints Matthew and Luke, especially in regards to the angels’ dramatic announcements “He is risen!” and “He is not here” (Matthew 28:6; Luke 24:6). Even the women’s going out and fleeing the tomb, trembling and astonished, in St. Mark’s account, is not inconsistent with the other accounts, nor is the women’s at least initially saying nothing to anyone because they were afraid. We also might tremble and be astonished and afraid, if we came to a grave expecting someone to be dead and had angels tell us that the person was risen!
What are your and my expectations in coming here this morning? Who or what did we expect to find? A larger crowd? Different music? A more engaging preacher? How are your and my initial expectations being unmet? How might we be receiving something better in the end? Of course, our unmet expectations related to God are not limited to our experiences here at Pilgrim this morning! We might expect Him to make us more successful in life. We might expect Him to give us a loving spouse and children. We might expect Him to heal a loved one or maybe even us ourselves. We might expect Him to save our loved ones or all people regardless of whether or not they believe. We might expect Him to relax His law or change it to go with our times. We might expect Him to overlook some of the sins we really like to commit. We might expect Him to deal with us when and where and how we want Him to deal with us, instead of the times and places and ways He has promised to deal with us.
Of course, in all those regards, any problem is not with God but with our expectations. Like the women who had forgotten, not understood, or doubted what Jesus had told them, we by nature are sinful. Like our first parents who were tempted to be like God (Genesis 2:5), we too often sinfully try to tell God what to do, judge Him by our standards, or ignore Him and His Word altogether. The death such and all sin deserves is what today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 25:6-9) described as “the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.” Yet, that same Reading describes how when we “wait for Him”—that is, when we turn away from our sin in sorrow and trust Him to forgive our sin—then He saves us, and we are glad and rejoice in His salvation. Thus St. Paul in writing to the Corinthians, as we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 15:1-11), could describe how Jesus Christ died for sins and rose on the third day both in keeping with Old Testament prophetic writings and as recorded in New Testament Gospel accounts.
Even if today’s Gospel Reading lacks an appearance of the risen Lord, St. Paul supplies more than 513! Such appearances attest to Jesus’s resurrection, which, in part, itself shows that God accepted the God-man Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross for us. Everything from Jesus’s betrayal to His resurrection (Romans 4:25)—more than that, from His conception to His return at the end of time—was on account of our sins and His desire to save us, because He loves you and loves me, unconditionally. The hymns we have already sung today put it so well. From the fourteenth century: He “endured the cross and grave … Sinners to redeem and save … But the pains which He endured, … Our salvation have procured” (Lutheran Service Book 457:2-3). From the eighteenth century: “He is arisen! Glorious Word! Now reconciled is God, my Lord; The gates of heav’n are open.” (LSB 488) And, dating even earlier than both of those: “Were Christ not arisen, Then death were still our prison. Now with Him to life restored, We praise the Father of our Lord. Alleluia!” (LSB 459)
As we heard in the Gospel Reading, the angel not only told the women that Jesus was risen and not there in the tomb, but the angel also told the women where they could find the risen Jesus, in Galilee, as He had told them (Mark 14:28). So also for us. We do not find the risen Jesus in the tomb, but we find Him with the benefits of His cross and tomb where He promises to be. We do not find the risen Jesus in the tomb, but we find Him in the preaching of His Word that, as St. Paul describes in the Epistle Reading, produces faith that receives salvation if its hearers hold fast to the word. We do not find the risen Jesus in the tomb, but we find Him in the water with the Word of Holy Baptism, where we are, as the Collect put it, raised from the death of sin by His life‑giving Spirit. We do not find the risen Jesus in the tomb, but we find Him forgiving our sins through the words of our pastor in individual Holy Absolution. We do not find the risen Jesus in the tomb, but we find Him with His body and blood in the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar, where, as we sang in the Hymn of the Day, “Christ alone our souls will feed; He is our meat and drink indeed; Faith lives upon no other! Alleluia!” (LSB 458:7)
Some of you know that I waited tables in a five‑star restaurant and at times have enjoyed and really still can enjoy good food and wine. So, today’s Old Testament Reading with its description of “a feast of rich food, a feast of well‑aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined” has a certain appeal to me, so much that I have planned for it to be read at my funeral, if and when it might be. Yet, despite the portion and the taste, already here and now in the Sacrament of the Altar we have a foretaste of that feast! “At the Lamb’s High Feast” we will eat and will sing: “Now no more can death appall, Now no more the grave enthrall; You have opened paradise, And Your saints in You shall rise. Alleluia!” (LSB 633:6) “Though the lowliest form now veil [Him] as of old in Bethlehem, Here as there [His] angels hail [Him] Branch and flow’r of Jesse’s stem” (LSB 534:2). Truly here and now we worship and feast on the risen Jesus “with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven”—including all those who have gone before us in the faith, whom we especially love and miss on holy days such as this.
We “know that [our] Redeemer lives”, we will sing at the close of this service, “What comfort [that] sweet sentence gives!” (LSB 461:1). He lives to save, to bless, to plead, to feed, to help, to grant, to guide, to comfort, to hear, to silence fears, to wipe away tears, to calm troubled hearts, to impart blessings, to prepare our mansions, and to bring us safely there. “He is risen!” As with the women in today’s Gospel Reading, His resurrection exceeds all expectations, sinful or otherwise! Concerned about measuring up? “He is risen!” and you have His righteousness. Concerned about friends? “He is risen!” and He is your “kind, wise, heavenly friend”. Concerned about what you eat? “He is risen!” and His body and blood are the best food you can ever have. “He is risen! Alleluia!
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +