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This depiction of the events of Matthew 27:51b-53 was found uncredited here.
+ + + 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.
Today is April Fool’s Day, although, in light of the coronavirus, there were those who said that April Fool’s Day pranks were not funny and so called on people not to do them, to not, as one writer put it, “pluck at the few fragile little threads holding together our collective sanity” (CNN). In tonight’s conclusion to our Reading of St. Matthew’s Divinely-inspired account of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, we heard something that almost sounds like an April Fool’s Day joke, not that God’s Word would ever joke with us. In the fifth and final of St. Matthew’s seven unique contributions to the whole narrative of our Lord’s Passion for us that we are considering in our special Midweek Lenten Vespers Sermon Series, after Jesus’s death, the “Earth shook, rocks split, tombs were opened, and bodies were raised, went, and appeared”.
These miraculous events are perhaps St. Matthew’s most-intriguing unique contribution! And, depictions of the events, like that on the front of your service outline, with the resurrected saints inexplicably flying fully‑clothed into what appears to be the temple courts, only add to our wonderment. We may be okay with God’s shaking the earth, splitting rocks, opening tombs, and even raising many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep. But, having come out of the tombs, what did those saints do for parts of three days while waiting for Jesus’s resurrection before going into the holy city of Jerusalem and appearing to many? What happened to them afterwards? And, there are other similar questions that, as one commentator put it, remain both “unanswer-ed and unanswer-able” (Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 27:52-53, p.1581).
There is no sure textual indication that the Divinely‑inspired St. Matthew’s report is to be understood only figuratively, and none of these miraculous events are completely unprecedented historically. The earth shaking, rocks splitting, tombs opening, and bodies being raised, going, and appearing all to some extent arguably happened at various points in the Old Testament and in the New Testament’s report of the life of Jesus. Just this past Sunday, for example, we heard in the Old Testament Reading God’s prophecy through Ezekiel that He would open the people of Israel’s graves, raise them from their graves, and bring them into the land of Israel (Ezekiel 37:12-13), and we heard in the Gospel Reading Jesus’s calling His friend Lazarus from his grave (John 11:43-44). Presumably Lazarus himself, those whom Jesus and others “revivified” (that is, brought back to life) before Lazarus, and these saints “revivified” after Lazarus, again lived out “normal” lives before falling asleep and waiting to be raised “for good” when Jesus comes with glory to judge both the living and the dead.
To be sure, death—whether brought about by a virus or whatever other cause—is a consequence of sin. Conceived and born sinful, we live and die sinful. Even we—who repent and believe and are given new, redeemed natures—continue to sin by thoughts, words, and deeds, both o‑mitted and com-mitted. We may still experience temporal death, but Jesus on the cross experienced for us the eternal death that we deserve on account of our sinful nature and all of our sins. Earthquakes and such can be signs of the end that brings God’s judgment on all humanity (for example, Matthew 24:7): God’s righteous wrath on all un‑repentant un‑believers but His mercy and grace for all repentant believers (confer Lenski, ad loc Matthew 27:51, p.1128). As in tonight’s Psalm (Psalm 143; antiphon: v.1), we ask God to hear our prayer, to give ear to our pleas for mercy, in his faithfulness and righteousness to answer us, and He does: He does not let us go down to the pit of hell but brings our souls out of trouble, for Jesus’s sake.
As we sang in tonight’s Office Hymn, in His body on the tree, He carries all our ill (Lutheran Service Book 432:1). In the words of our Closing Hymn, it was for crimes that you and I had done that He groaned upon the tree; amazing pity, grace unknown, and love beyond degree (LSB 437:2)! The events St. Matthew uniquely reports happened after Jesus’s death on the cross for us, which we heard narrated again tonight, and in connection with His resurrection from the grave. Since the birth of God into human flesh was marked by a miraculous star in the sky (Matthew 2:1-12), we should hardly be surprised that His death, as also later His resurrection (Matthew 28:2), were marked by even more climactic, miraculous events (Brown, A Crucified Christ, 44). As the death of the prophet Elisha once was linked to the “revivification” of a dead man (2 Kings 13:20-21), so as Jesus passed from life to death, many saints passed from death to life (Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 27:52, III:633). Yet, theirs was not a “premature” or “mistaken” resurrection but a preview of what will happen in the end (Gundry, ad loc Matthew 27:51, pp.575, 577). Since only Jesus has been raised never to die again (Romans 6:9), He truly is the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18; Revelation 1:5; confer Acts 26:23; 1 Corinthians 15:20), though we also shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His (Romans 6:5).
In fact, the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul can even say that we have already been raised with Him in Holy Baptism (Colossians 2:12). At the Font, God forgives us our sins, rescues us from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe His promises. Tonight’s Opening Hymn called us to “Come to Calvary’s holy mountain” and find the healing fountain that opened when our Savior died. What would be an abstract spiritual trip is made concrete and physical here at the Font and at the Altar. The hymn’s mix of water and blood, and of washing and drinking, recalled also the Sacrament of the Altar, the bread that is Christ’s body given for us and the wine that is Christ’s blood shed for us, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. These holy things are for us holy ones, saints, who, so strengthened and preserved in body and soul, will in due time fully experience life everlasting.
We can imagine how the persecuted Christians among his first hearers were encouraged by this “revivification” uniquely reported by St. Matthew’s Gospel account, on account of the greater resurrection to which that “revivification” points (Gundry, ad loc Matthew 27:53, p.577). And, we can be similarly encouraged, in times of coronavirus-induced cabin fever, stir-craziness, and rational and irrational fear; in times of doubts, depression, and bordering on despair. God has fixed a limit to all such suffering and waiting. Unless Jesus returns first, the bodies of all of us who trust in Jesus (confer Kretzmann, ad loc Matthew 27:50‑53, p.158) will fall asleep in temporal death, and for a time our souls will wait in His presence in heaven (Revelation 6:9-11), but in God’s time our bodies will be raised and reunited with our souls. Ultimately death cannot possibly hold the bodies of those who fall asleep in Jesus (confer Kretzmann, ad loc Matthew 27:50-53, p.159).
Almost like but not an April Fool’s Day prank or joke, tonight we have considered the fifth and final of St. Matthew’s seven unique contributions to the whole narrative of our Lord’s Passion for us: that the “Earth shook, rocks split, tombs opened, and bodies were raised, went, and appeared”. The miraculous events demonstrate the purpose of Christ’s death: namely, to bring eternal life to those otherwise doomed to die, including us. By God’s mercy and grace, that purpose becomes a result, as we live each and every day with sorrow over sin and trust in God to forgive our sin for the sake of Jesus Christ, receiving that forgiveness in His Word and Sacraments, as we are able, until we come out of the tombs after our resurrection and go into the Holy City of the new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:9-27) and partake of the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom, which has no end (Revelation 19:6-10; confer LSB Prayer #401 p.178 and #404 p.183).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +