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+ + + 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!)
That ancient greeting is so appropriate, especially on this day of the Lord’s Resurrection! For nearly two millennia the greatest news of the whole Gospel has been proclaimed on days such as this one, and I have had the privilege of proclaiming it on such days, a few times elsewhere and now four times here. In fact, the sermon title I put in the bulletin for this Easter Matins service today, “I have seen the Lord”, is the exact same title I used for the Easter Matins service three years ago, but I assure you this is a different sermon! Certainly there is enough in today’s Third Reading, if not even in its final verse, for a lifetime of preaching at Easter Matins sermons, perhaps even sermons all with the same title, “I have seen the Lord”.
The Third Reading certainly contains a lot of “seeing”. Mary Magdalene saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Outside looking in, the disciple usually thought to be John saw the linen cloths lying in the tomb, and likewise Peter inside. John inside also saw and believed. Mary saw two angels. Mary saw Jesus but did not know that it was Jesus. But, in the end, Mary announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”. The Third Reading certainly contains a lot of “seeing”. Although, where the English Standard Version that was read, as well as other versions use the same English verb in each case, the original New Testament uses three different Greek verbs. Two of those seem to be used as synonyms, but a third strikingly is used in the Reading only in the two times when the “seeing” seems to include the person’s mind’s discerning the reality of the Resurrection.
The Third Reading tells us both that inside the tomb at least John saw and believed and that Mary announced “I have seen the Lord”. The Third Reading does not tell us what John believed. St. Augústine—and Martin Luther apparently following him—said John believed only that the tomb was empty (for examples, see brown Brown, ad loc John 20:8, 987; Luther, ad loc John 20:3‑10, AE 69:297). Jesus had raised other people from the dead, but the Third Reading tells us that “as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that [Jesus] must rise from the dead”. Certainly the Old Testament and Jesus Himself had told them that His death would be followed by His resurrection, but who knows what they were thinking, as at least in this case we are not told.
We can somewhat more easily excuse them, as they were still living in that time between Jesus’s death and resurrection. We are not. What is our excuse? We are living in the time after Jesus’s death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit brought to the disciples’ minds the things Jesus said, recorded them in Holy Scripture, and so has taught even us all things we need to know (for example, John 2:22; 12:26; 14:26). Why do we not pay more attention to what God says than to what our fallen human eyes see and to the ideas and feelings such sights bring to our minds? (Confer Kretzmann, ad loc John 20:1-2, 521.) Decline, decay, and death are all around us and even affect us. We see our sinful natures, our actual sin, and their consequences seem to hold sway, even over us who believe, but God’s Word puts forth a different understanding. God’s Word points us to the greatest news of the whole Gospel: the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and its revealing His triumph for us on the cross, over sin, death, and the power of the devil. God’s Word calls us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. God forgives our sinful natures and our actual sin, including our sin of letting what our fallen human eyes see take precedence over what His Word says. God forgives all our sin, whatever it might be, for Jesus’s sake.
For us and for our salvation, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, was made man in the person of Jesus Christ, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered, was buried, rose again, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come again with glory—all for us and for our salvation. Jesus was crucified at the time of—if not on the actual day of—Passover. And Jesus as the true Passover Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world accomplished a greater exodus from our slavery to sin than God through Moses with the first Passover lambs accomplished in the Old Testament Israelites’ exodus from slavery in Egypt. Nevertheless, there is that connection of prophetic type to its fulfillment, and so that connection of the first Passover and Exodus to the greater Passover and Exodus is made with the use of our First Reading (Exodus 15:1-11), in our Second Reading (1 Corinthians 5:6b-8), in our ancient Hymn of Invocation (Lutheran Service Book 487), and in our ancient Closing Hymn (LSB 478). With Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, God truly has brought us, His true Israel of all who believe, into joy from sadness.
In the Third Reading, John and Peter saw the linen cloths lying there undisturbed from Jesus’s body passing through them, and they saw the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. God used those “signs” that met their fallen human eyes to produce some sort of faith, at least in John. Our fallen eyes see Holy Baptism’s water with the Word, and God uses it to create faith in us. Our fallen eyes see a sinful man proclaiming individual Holy Absolution, and we believe by it our sins are forgiven before God in heaven. Our fallen eyes see bread and wine in Holy Communion, but our minds discern the body and blood of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ giving us the forgiveness of sins and nourishing the life and salvation God gave us in our baptisms. Thus we live in relation to Jesus’s Father and our Father, His God and our God.
As children of God, our fallen human eyes see decline, decay, and death; water, bread, and wine, but our redeemed spiritual eyes, faith in our sanctified minds, discern so much more. And, we will live our entire earthly lives with the conflict between what our eyes see and what our faith knows to be true. As we wrestle with that conflict, we also at least try to “cleanse out the old leaven”, as it were, that which remains in us of the fleshly world, not only sexual immorality but also all sins. We recognize the Lord’s hand in the afflictions we face that lead us continually to repent and believe. As we sang in this morning’s Psalm (118:15-29), “The Lord has disciplined me severely, but He has not given me over to death … I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord” (vv.18, 17). Indeed, like Mary Magdalene, we, with our eyes of faith, can announce to those, with whom God brings us into contact through our vocations, “I have seen the Lord”. And, that sight and announcement despite our afflictions provides others with hope!
For example, hymn‑writer Paul Gerhardt suffered a great deal of afflictions in his life but nevertheless wrote hymns of tremendous comfort and hope. Admittedly, some of his most difficult afflictions came after he had written most of his hymns that we still have and use, but, even before those hymns were written, Gerhardt had suffered such things as the loss of his father when he was a boy and difficult living conditions as a result of the Thirty Years War that raged through the first decade of his life. Still, Gerhardt had seen the resurrected Lord with his eyes of faith and announced it and its implications, an Easter sermon of its own, worth hearing verbatim over and over again. With him, we sang in the Office Hymn and now close with these sure words of faith (LSB 467:3):
This is a sight that gladdens— / What peace it doth impart!
Now nothing ever saddens / The joy within my heart.
No gloom shall ever shake, / No foe shall ever take
The hope which God’s own Son / In love for me has won.
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 + + +