The Lutheran Hour
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"The Same Old Good News"
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Text: Mark 16:8
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Christ has risen. He has risen, Hallelujah! The angel’s words first spoken at Jesus’ empty tomb is the announcement that we celebrate today. For all who believe on the risen Christ as their Savior, these words transform this day, every day, eternity. This Sunday of Resurrection God grant we believe. Amen.
When I was in the parish, I always enjoyed doing short, special sermons for the children who were at worship. I enjoyed doing them, but they didn’t always work out the way I intended. All too often I wanted to go one way and the children decided we should go another. It has been more than 30 years since the Sunday I brought them to the front of the church and started talking about Jesus’ resurrection. I started with an Easter egg and asked, “Who colored this egg?”. A five-year-old boy replied: “The Easter bunny.” I asked, “Who bought the egg?” the same very pleased little boy gave the same answer: “The Easter bunny.” Realizing the Easter Bunny, and not the Savior, was becoming the focus, I went another direction. Later, when I was sure the bunny had been forgotten, I asked one more question: “When the women came to Jesus’ tomb, who rolled away the stone?” You know the answer I received. The congregation laughed for five minutes and now, decades later, when I see some of those old friends, they remind me of the Sunday when the Easter Bunny rolled the stone from Jesus’ grave.
Today, Resurrection Sunday, let there be no doubt that the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and not the Easter Bunny, is the focus of our worship. And while I am saddened how, at Christmas, the secular world has demanded teachers, store clerks, and public service personnel greet those they meet with the non-descript “Happy Holiday” rather than “Have a Blessed Christmas”, I am more frustrated our Christian churches have, all on their own, abandoned the traditional words of witness that mark the day the Savior defeated death. How sad that on this Resurrection Sunday many believers will greet each other with the pathetic and pitiful ‘Happy Easter.’ ‘Happy Easter?’ Why on this Lord’s Day would we mention Easter, the ancient and abandoned Anglo-Saxon goddess of springtime when we could proclaim the Christ’s conquest over the grave? Far better for all believers to bear witness to the event that has saved their souls and changed their eternal destinies. God grant every Christian cry out: “Christ is risen!” and let all who hear, respond: “He is risen, indeed. Hallelujah” And lest anyone think too much is being made of the defeat of death, we need to remember the Redeemer’s rising is not a questionable addition to the Christian faith; the resurrection is the foundation of the Christian faith.” As St. Paul reminds: (1 Corinthians 15:14) “… if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is (also) in vain.”
Today there are many contemporary pseudo-scholars who maintain the story of the Christ’s resurrection was made up and manufactured by disciples who wished to pull the wool over the eyes of the world, and at the same time become prominent leaders of a new religion. Sadly, this Resurrection Sunday there are millions who have been hoodwinked and hornswaggled by such foolishness. Which is why, if you are not certain of the Resurrection, or you do not understand its importance for you, I invite you to come and see the tomb of Jesus.
If we get up early, we will not be alone in our walk. Four women who were close to Jesus are committed to getting to His grave shortly after sunrise. They are Mary, the mother of James and Joses, Joanna, wife of Chusa, the steward of Herod, Mary Magdalene, whom Jesus freed from seven devils, and Salome, the wife of Zebedee, the mother of James and John. They are going early because the task of preparing a dead body is always unpleasant work; but when that body has been lying in the Judean heat for three days, the work is unbearable. Let us follow them as they make the heartbreaking trip to Jesus’ grave. For the most part Scripture is silent concerning their conversation, but it doesn’t take much imagination to reconstruct what they might have said. Salome, living in Capernaum, would have remembered the day her boys spoke of Jesus’ miraculous catch of fish. Maybe she could have related how Jesus had cast out a demon, healed a paralytic, or raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead. Mary Magdalene, whom history has maligned and misinterpreted, could have spoken of how Jesus had saved her and sent packing the seven demons who had possessed and plagued her. Joanna, with her husband’s contacts in Herod’s court, might have shared how Jesus had fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy (53:7) and refused to defend Himself. It had been so unfair. ‘Why,’ they could have asked, “did He allow Himself to be taken like a Lamb to be offered?” That is the way it looked: Jesus had been slaughtered like a Sacrifice.
Was it only last Thursday when Judas had betrayed Jesus with a kiss? Things had moved so quickly after that. Jesus had been taken to trial. Yes, a nighttime trial was illegal, but it had happened, hadn’t it? They were certain the witnesses against their Rabbi had been bribed, but no one had voiced a complaint. Even the charges against Jesus had been changed, but nobody had spoken on His behalf — nobody except for the Roman procurator’s wife who spoke of a warning she had received in a dream. Yes, their hearts had been torn when Pilate had put Jesus, whipped and crowned with thorns, on public display.
They had stood at the foot of the cross — an honor guard of love committed to keeping watch. If those whom Jesus had healed; those whom He had fed; those whom He had raised from the dead, and most of His disciples were not there, they would stay.
Keeping watch, as they were, they would have noted the moment of Jesus’ death. As long as He lived, His body, like all who were crucified, would have writhed, would have gasped for air, would have struggled, and strained. But when death came, so did stillness and silence. When they saw one of the Roman guards thrust a spear into His side, it was an unnecessary anticlimax. These women didn’t need to see the separation of blood and water which flowed from His side for them to know Jesus of Nazareth was dead. They watched as He was taken down; went to see where He was buried; noted the preparation of His body for burial was richly, but incompletely done. That was when they would have pledged: “After the Sabbath Day we will make sure Jesus’ body is set right.
With that resolution they had gathered the spices necessary to finish Jesus’ burial, and that was the resolution which brought these ladies together before the break of dawn on Resurrection Sunday. Do you see anything in the demeanor of these women which demonstrates they are planning on doing anything other than cleaning up a three-day-old corpse? Everything they do, even the things they are saying, indicates they are on a distasteful, but necessary mission.
Here’s another question. In the 21st century, many so-called “learned” people will say Christianity was manufactured, borne out of wishful thinking and the disciples’ overactive imaginations. If that is so, where are those disciples? Why are they not part of this procession? Do you know where they were? Read the Gospels. The Bible will tell you the disciples were hiding. Hiding is only the most recent of their sad and serious shortcomings that Scripture records. When Jesus had wanted a peaceful Last Supper with His friends, they had argued about which of them was the greatest. The next hours had shown none of them was worthy of the title, greatest. In the Garden, when Jesus had asked them to stay awake with Him as He prayed, they had fallen asleep. They had snoozed as their sins, your sins, all sins of humanity were laid upon the Savior. When He fell with His face into the dirt, they had slept; when Jesus sweat great drops of blood, they had slept; when the crowd came to arrest Him, they slept. After a brief skirmish, wishing to save themselves, they had run away.
True, Peter and John had gone to the High Priest’s home to see what was happening to the Lord, but, with Peter denying He had ever met or heard about Jesus, that hadn’t turned out so well. John alone had stood at the foot of the cross, but He was unable to do anything other than promise he would take care of the Savior’s mother. Then, fearing they might be on the Sanhedrin’s 11-most-wanted list, the disciples had hidden out. With doors locked and windows shut they had laid low. They had not been there when Jesus’ body was taken down; they had not watched to see where He was buried and they certainly hadn’t ventured out with the women on Sunday morning. These confessions of cowardice contained in Scripture are not what you might expect from he-men on an ego trip. Which is why I believe the only conclusion you can draw from the Bible’s narrative is this: what the Bible records happened on Resurrection Sunday is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but God’s inspired, inerrant truth.
But we are approaching the tomb. You see, there is no guard on duty. No, you don’t have to tell the ladies. Up to this point they’ve only been concerned about moving the stone. I don’t think they’ve heard how the Jewish leaders went to Pilate and got permission to put a guard and a seal at the grave’s door to discourage Body-snatchers. Look, the ladies have noticed the grave is open. They’ve noticed and, right now their minds are probably going a million miles an minute. They’re wondering: “Is it possible the tomb’s owner has had second thoughts about giving Jesus his grave? Has somebody moved Jesus’ body? If so, where has it been placed? Has someone stolen it? Should we report the loss to the authorities? If we do, will these leaders, who were key in Jesus’ death, show any willingness to help find His body? Is it possible His enemies wish to desecrate and destroy the body of the Man they have murdered?”
It is understandable if none of these women suggest Jesus had risen from the dead. They didn’t suggest it because people don’t rise from the dead. Yes, I know there are people who say they were revived by a medical team after they were dead for two minutes, five minutes, and under the right conditions, ten minutes. I don’t know about that, but I do know of the hundreds of funerals at which I have officiated, every one of those dearly departed remains where they were put. The simple, unassailable truth is this: people who are dead for three days don’t come back to life. Dead is dead. You know it; I know it; these disciples knew it and these wonderful women on their mercy mission knew it, too.
Which is why, fearing the worst, the ladies gathered their courage and respectfully, slowly, tentatively entered Jesus’ grave. The Gospel of Mark says what happened next. It tells us, “They saw a young man sitting on the right side (of the walk-in tomb. He was…) dressed in a white robe and they were alarmed.” Mark continues, ‘And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen.’ “Christ has risen!”
May I try to tell you, in small part, what those three words mean? For the women it meant their Friend, their Rabbi, their Master, their Teacher, their Lord was so much more than any and all those things. Jesus, according to prophecy, and completing His own prediction, had kept His promise. Before He had been arrested He had said, “I lay down my life that I may take it up again.” (John 10:17) It was an outrageous statement, one that no man would ever be able to keep. But Jesus was no mere man. Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, the world’s Savior. He had been born to fulfill the laws we have broken, to triumph over Satan’s temptation and to conquer death. Now, with His mission successfully completed, with His promises kept, people have been given reason to believe, they had proof that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that everything He had said to them was also true. Christ is risen! Because Jesus was alive, the disciples eventually, and by the Holy Spirit’s power, came to believe. That belief brought them out of hiding and a few weeks later, on Pentecost, they took the first steps in a parade of proclamation that continues to this very day.
Christ is risen. May I tell you what that means? A few minutes ago I spoke of how the hundreds of people I have buried have stayed where they were put. That is not entirely true. Because Jesus has risen, when those folks stopped breathing; when their hearts stopped pumping; when their brains stopped thinking; when their body’s organs stopped functioning; when all movement came to an end; when the best of doctors shook their heads in helplessness, a risen Christ came and took the souls of those believers to be with Him. Ay yes, I laid their bodies into the ground, but when I did so, because of a risen Christ I could assure those who mourned, “Because Jesus lives, your beloved also lives.” I could tell them the farewell they were saying was not final. I could promise them an eternal reunion with these forgiven, redeemed souls who, because of faith in Jesus Christ, had gone on before them.
Christ is risen. May I tell you what that means? Right now many of you are worried, frightened. You don’t know what tomorrow will bring. You’re not sure of your job, your family, your finances, or your future. Today things may look dark and the days ahead appear dismal. But because Christ has risen, and if He is your Savior, you need not face tomorrow’s unknowns alone. Are you one among the many millions who feel lost and lonely even though you are surrounded by multitudes and move through masses of bodies? Do you feel no one cares about you, that no one would miss you if you simply disappeared? If so, the risen Christ, the living Lord, offers this assurance: “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). Even more, Scripture assures us we can cast our cares upon Him because He cares for us. (1 Peter 5:7)
Christ is risen. May I tell you what that means? Are you troubled by sins you have done and the good you have left undone? Do you lose sleep; does your mind dwell on these evils? A risen Christ, the same Christ Who forgave the woman caught in adultery, the paralytic who was lowered down before Him, the woman who wept at His feet, the disciple who betrayed Him, and others who deserted Him, can also forgive you. Jesus can and will wipe away your sin cleaner and more completely than any bleach or detergent. The apostle John lists no exceptions to Scripture’s promise; he holds no reservations when he says to those who believe in the risen Redeemer, “the blood of Jesus (God’s) Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
Christ is risen. May I tell you what that means? Last year, from the basement of my home in St. Louis, I watched a great storm — some said it was a tornado. I don’t know about that. I do know it knocked down some very large trees in the back yard. Through my basement window I watched a sparrow cling to a tree limb, facing into the wind. The storm swept the branch back and forth, but the little bird stayed solid. As I watched, I thought, that bird is thinking, “Wind, blow hard as you want. If you dislodge me from this branch, I still have wings.” Because Christ is risen, all who believe can look at sin, death, devil, and the disasters of life and say, “Blow hard as you wish, you may dislodge me from where I am now, but I still have Jesus Christ. With faith in my living Lord, I shall ride out the storm and by His blood and through His resurrection, I will come through this, saved.” Christ is risen. That is what those words mean to me and God’s saints. If it doesn’t mean that to you, please, call us at The Lutheran Hour. Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for April 12, 2009
Topic: Forgiveness from a Dead Person?ANNOUNCER: Now, Pastor Ken Klaus talks about tying up loose ends. I’m Mark Eischer and we have here a rather poignant letter from a listener.
KLAUS: You normally don’t give that kind of introduction, Mark. I’m interested in seeing what is in front of us.
ANNOUNCER: Our listener writes: “Years ago, I had a falling out with my father. At the time, I thought I was right in doing what I did, and my actions weren’t his business. For years, there were hard feelings between us and we never communicated.”
She continues: “Then, one day I got a phone call from him. I listened for a bit and then told him we didn’t have anything to say. I hung up the phone. When he called again, I didn’t pick up. I did that because I was still hurt and didn’t want to hear anything — not even an apology — or his desire to reestablish a relationship.”
KLAUS: I think I know where this story is heading.
ANNOUNCER: The letter continues: “For three years we didn’t visit or talk. Then, one morning my brother called me … and told me that dad had had a stroke and died in the night. He asked me to come home for the funeral, which I did.”
KLAUS: That should have helped her mother, at least.
ANNOUNCER: The listener gets to the point of her letter. “Since then, I have met a man (who) reintroduced me to the Savior. Now, looking back at what I did to my father, I feel terrible. I failed to make amends; I failed to respond when he reached out to me; I failed to ask for forgiveness. I failed in a lot of ways. …Will the Lord let my father in heaven know that I’ve changed and second, does God forgive a sin that wasn’t corrected?”
KLAUS: You’re right, Mark. It is a sad letter.
ANNOUNCER: I’ve done most of the talking so far. What do you think? Will God let this lady’s father know about her change of heart?
KLAUS: That’s a tougher question than you might think. First, the listener needs to know that in the perfection of heaven her father has not been brooding over their broken relationship. Heaven is a place without tears, without pain. On the other hand, Jesus said (Luke 15:7; 15:10) that the angels in heaven rejoice when a sinner repents. Now, we need to make it clear that her father did not become an angel when he died, but I’d be inclined to guess good news gets around faster in heaven than it does here on earth. So, maybe her father is rejoicing over her change of heart and attitude.
ANNOUNCER: All of which boils down to: you really don’t know.
KLAUS: I really don’t know.
ANNOUNCER: How about the other question. The one about does the Bible offer any consolation for a sin that wasn’t corrected?
KLAUS: We can probably do better with this one, Mark. First, let me say this is not the first time I’ve heard of such a situation. Family battles can be nasty and cause lots of smoldering bitterness. Even so, as we have been forgiven by the Savior, we ought to forgive others, especially family members. This Q and A will do a lot of good today if it motivates people with broken relationships to mend them while they have time and opportunity to do so. Understand, I’m not saying someone should go back into an abusive situation. But, when sincere repentance is there, forgiveness ought to be there, too. As Ephesians (4:26) says, “We shouldn’t let the sun go down on our anger but be reconciled without delay.”
ANNOUNCER: I agree.
KLAUS: Having said that, the Apostle John tells us (1 John 1:7) “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
ANNOUNCER: That’s an important thought — “all sin.” Death can’t stop the Lord’s forgiveness, can it?
KLAUS: No, it can’t. Forgiveness is God’s gift to us through faith in Christ. We don’t earn it and it doesn’t require that we first correct all our mistakes. Jesus atoned for them all through His death and resurrection.
ANNOUNCER: Can you sum up what we’ve said to this lady for the benefit of our listeners — and for others who feel as she does?
KLAUS: Be glad to. To the listener, I would say: it is a sad thing that you and your father didn’t make peace while he was still alive. Even so, you need to know the Lord, because of His Son’s sacrifice, has forgiven you. You should also know that unhappy memories of the past are not ruining heaven for your father. Lastly, the time will come when you will be able to see him face to face, and in that place of joy, by the cleansing of Jesus’ blood, be reunited with him and all Christian saints.
ANNOUNCER: This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Music selection for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC
“Today Is Risen Christ the Lord” by Melchoir Vulpius. From Heirs of the Reformation (© 2008 Concordia Publishing House)
“Jesus Lives, the Victory’s Won” arr. John Behnke. From For All Seasons, vol. 3 by John Behnke (© 2004 John A. Behnke) Concordia Publishing House
“Heut’ triumphieret Gottes Sohn” by J.S. Bach. From Orgelbüchlein & More Works by J.S. Bach by Robert Clark and John Peterson (© 1997 Calcante Recordings, Ltd.)