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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!)
We each come to Easter Sunday with our own expectations. What kind of clothes we or others should wear. What foods should be served at breakfast. What kind of eggs should be hunted. What topic the Bible Class should focus on. What people should be at church. What hymns we should sing. What the sermon should be like. Right or wrong, realistic or not, such “Easter Expectations” are out there, and to some extent our joy this Easter Day may depend on how our expectations are met. We even find “Easter Expectations” in the Gospel Reading appointed for the Resurrection of Our Lord, Easter Day! The women had expectations that, and no doubt about how, Jesus should be anointed. They expected that the very large stone would be at the entrance of the tomb, and they expected that Jesus would be inside the tomb. And then our “Easter Expectations” might kick in again. We might expect that the Resurrected Jesus Himself should appear in the Gospel Reading on Easter Day. We might expect that the Gospel Reading should have a better ending then the women fleeing the tomb and saying nothing. And, we might expect that we would have done better than the women, both in remembering what Jesus had told them about being resurrected and going before them to Galilee, and in obeying the angel by telling Jesus’s disciples and Peter the message the angel gave the women for them.
Today’s Gospel Reading is described by one commentator as simple and dramatic, full of tension and excitement (Voelz, 1194, 1199). Whether or not we agree with those descriptions, at a minimum we can say that today’s Gospel Reading is one of the four Divinely‑inspired reports that the Holy Spirit has provided us of the events of that morning. Certainly by considering the four accounts together we have a more‑complete understanding of what transpired. For example, we realize that Jesus Himself did appear to some of the women that morning and to others later in the day. We realize that the women eventually did report what happened to Jesus’s disciples and Peter. And, we realize that even the women’s fleeing the tomb and saying nothing can be taken positively, indicating the Divine nature of their experience (Voelz, 1211).
To be sure, in none of the Gospel accounts does the women’s going to the tomb, much less the men’s cowering in various homes, come off very well for their lack of faith in Jesus’s reliable words repeatedly prophesying of His Passion and Resurrection (confer Voelz, 1194, 1200, 1210). Even though the Passion part had come true with a vengeance, and even though parts of three days had since passed, they still were seeking Jesus at the tomb, expecting to find a smelly, rotting corpse, that thanks to their spices would be more tolerable for Its mourners. The women’s alarm both at the open and empty tomb and at the appearance of the angel, and their trembling, astonishment, and fear after the angel’s message, all are understandable, humanly speaking, anyway.
Maybe instead of having higher expectations of the women, we like having lower expectations of the women, and we probably also like having lower expectations of ourselves. Even though they more understandably did not believe Jesus’s reliable word, maybe if their unbelief can be excused, then our unbelief can be excused, too. Maybe if we can understand their fleeing the tomb and saying nothing, then we can also understand our fearfully remaining silent, both about Jesus’s resurrection and our own resurrections.
In our time, society is very keen to at least tolerate, if not call “right”, things that God through His Word calls “wrong”. And, the lower society and we try to make God’s expectations of us, the less we think that we need His Savior, until we wrongly think that do not need that Savior at all. Corporations with such things as their earnings, politicians with such things as debate performance, sports teams with such things as playoff prospects, and others may try to manage expectations by lowering them so that expectations are not dashed, but that is not the way of God, Who meets expectations, if not arguably exceeds expectations. Consider the expectations of the women in the Gospel Reading: Jesus was anointed for burial beforehand (Mark 14:8); the very large stone was already rolled back; Jesus was not only not smelly and rotting, but He was not even there. God calls us to be holy as He is holy (Leviticus 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:7), and yet, when we are not holy, instead of the temporal and eternal punishment that we deserve, He calls and so enables us to turn from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to do better. And, when we do so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful natures, our unbelief, our silence, and all our sins, whatever our sins might be. God forgives us, for Jesus’s sake.
Out of His great love, the God-man Jesus was crucified for the sins of the world, including your sins and my sins. But, the Sun of Righteousness rose (Malachi 4:2; confer Voelz, 1198, 1206). As often in Holy Scripture, God’s salvation accomplished the previous night was evident the next morning (Voelz, 1204). Even though Jesus will always be the Crucified One, He lives (Voelz, 1195, 1200, 1208), showing that God the Father accepted His sacrifice on our behalf, and so we are reconciled to God and forgiven. Thus, the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul could write in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 15:1-11) that of first importance are Christ’s death for our sins and His resurrection on the third day, both in keeping with and reported by Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures, like today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 25:6-9) and Gospel Reading, which, he says, are preached and so believed.
We are baptized into Jesus’s death, and there at the Font we are buried with Him, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too may 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 (Romans 6:3-5; confer Colossians 2:12; 3:1). We live in and return to our baptismal grace, seeking out our pastors to privately confess the sins that particularly trouble us for the sake of individual absolution, authority that the resurrected Jesus gave to His apostles and to their successors, as we will hear again in next Sunday’s Gospel Reading (especially John 20:21-23). And, so absolved, we are admitted to the Sacrament of the Altar, to feast on bread that is Jesus’s Body given for us and wine that is Jesus’s Blood shed for us. The Divine and human Savior, Who can exit the tomb before the stone is removed from the door, can also be present in bread and wine. Today’s Old Testament Reading arguably likens this feast to rich food full of marrow and well‑aged wine well-refined, but, most-important, is this feast’s swallowing up forever the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations, namely death. For, from the Altar, we who repent and believe receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
So forgiven by God through His Means of Grace, we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). Like the women who ended up not anointing a dead Jesus but eventually telling about a resurrected Jesus, we also tell others about the forgiveness and so the hope, peace, and joy that we have in Christ. Especially as our world seems to become more and more anti-Christian, we might have more and more reason to be seized by trembling and astonishment and fearfully to say nothing to anyone, but, unlike the women at that point, we have experienced the presence of the Risen Lord’s dispensing His salvation and have no reason to fear. Jesus has defeated sin and death, and God gives us that same victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces!
Whatever “Easter Expectations” came with us this Easter Sunday—about such things as clothing, foods, eggs, topics, people, hymns, the sermon—God being willing, the wrong expectations have been lowered or eliminated and the right expectations have been met or exceeded. Our joy this Easter Day should not depend on how our wrong expectations are met but on God’s meeting and exceeding our right expectations. Ultimately, we expect nothing from God but the forgiveness that through faith He freely gives us for Christ’s sake. The words of today’s Introit are first and foremost about God’s deliverance of the Israelites from the Egyptian horses and riders at the Red Sea, but that deliverance points forward to the deliverance we have from sin and death, and so the Introit’s words properly find their place on our lips. We will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously. The Lord is our strength and our song, and He has become our salvation. He has led in His steadfast love the people whom He has redeemed, He has guided them by His strength to His holy abode. The Lord will reign forever and ever. (Exodus 15:2a, 6, 13, 17-18; antiphon: Exodus 15:1b.)
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 + + +