The Resurrection of Our Lord (C)
Sunday/Monday, April 20/21, 2025
Trinity Lutheran Church-Columbia, MO
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Psalm 118:27 via Luke 24:8
A blessed Easter to you dear Christian friends. The Lord is God, and He has made His light shine upon us. We who were dead in our sins are no longer because Christ is arisen. We now live with Him through Holy Baptism. We were under the wrath of God but not any longer. Christ Jesus has borne God’s wrath upon the Cross in our place; and now through faith, God looks at us only with His pleasure and favor. Death’s sting has now been taken away. Death is, in a way of speaking, no longer our enemy; the Lord Jesus has co-opted death for His good purposes, death is now used by our Lord as a portal for us to enter eternal life. Death, if I may be so bold is now even a thing to even be welcomed because it is life unto Christ Jesus, because He has made it the way that we meet our blessed Redeemer, who lives and reigns to all eternity (Phil. 1:21). Through the Second Creation of Christ’s resurrection, true life comes to the sons of the First Adam, that’s us!, to us flow spiritual and everlasting life. Amen.
Our task this hour is rousing our hearts to consider and remember gladly our Lord’s resurrection. If we are to meditate on these glorious things, we ought to turn our attention the Holy Scripture. That’s the way Jesus does it and they way should do it, too.
How does the light of Christ’s resurrection shine upon us? How does this glorious promise come to be our own? How should we apply the Easter victory? The short answer, which would make the sermon much shorter, is that we simply applaud the mighty deeds of God for they are all good. We simply hear what God has in done in His Scripture and marvel that He has done everything for the blessing of His people. The mightiest thing God has done is raise His Child Jesus from the dead. Yet, we don’t praise the awesome deeds of God without meditating upon the deeper meaning and being enriched in our Christian faith; our desire and our longing and our hope must finally rest upon the precious person of the living Christ. Yet, the reason this sermon requires a bit more of your attention is that we heard in the appointed Gospel just how complicated and difficult this task is this on account of our fallen state.
The women who went to the tomb were taking spices, which can only indicate they expected to find a dead Jesus. They were fully expecting to find a body to care for and properly prepare for burial. And I submit to you, that this brought them a sense of relief. They were relieved that it was all over; that the astonishing events of Thursday evening and Friday morning, even though they played out as horribly and incredibly as they did; was now a done deal that they could move on with their lives. even though things had panned out as they did Mary, Joanna, and Mary were hoping in the goodness and honorability in properly caring for His body. Doing their duty was where their sense of comfort was. When Luke says they were perplexed by the absence of His body there is more to it than that. Surely there was shock, confusion, not knowing what to do or think, but I think it was worse than that: there was hopelessness. When the two men in dazzling apparel appeared to them and tell them He is living, He is not here, they were moved from perplexity to fear.
Why fear the good news of the messengers? Very likely, the messengers have the glory of the Lord was shining around them, this dazzling apparel. The glory of the Lord shone around these women just as it did the shepherds on the night of our Lord’s birth. And when God’s glory comes to us and sin hasn’t been dealt with we see the natural response: the women were acutely aware of their sinful condition, they know something is deeply wrong down to their innermost being, that something is wrong between them and a holy God. So what do they do? They bow down and hide their faces. They quickly become aware that their conclusions about the Lord’s death and probably about the meaning of life itself were erroneous. They realize most terrifying the weight of their doubt, they know something about their planning to prepare a body for burial is wrong.
This is hard for us because the announcement of the men to the women is indeed pure Gospel, “He is not here, he is risen!” And yet it also contains a rebuke, a gentle correction. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Now, it’s not a “you should know better, tsk tsk” or “how could you be so dull after three years?” The messengers are indeed confirming the Lord’s resurrection, His glorified existence, but they are correcting the women. We, who worship psychology and talk therapy, do not think it is a good idea to rebuke people when they’re upset and confused, when they’re at a low point, that it’s mean and unhelpful. But what do Jesus’ messengers do? They find it helpful to rebuke them, to remind them. If they hadn’t, what might the women have done? Packed up and went home? Sold their spices to another funeral party? The Lord, who loves these women and loves you very much, is not just trying to give us a hard time, finds it helpful for His messengers to offer a rebuke for the strengthening of faith.
The question of the messengers is meant to bring to remembrance what these women had heard and learned from the Lord’s own lips, from the same man they thought dead. but it is teaching them again that Jesus had indeed spoken to them how all of what they had just lived through was going to go down. The messengers say: “Remember how he told you…” This shows that even Christians need to be corrected, need to hear the Gospel again and again; however often we have heard that Christ must suffer, die, and be raised, our hearts quickly forget what the Lord teaches and we find ourselves taken unawares by fear and weakness. We put our own reason and emotion in charge of our life. And probably what we Christians need most, is to receive a rebuke, to wake us up, to be reminded of what God has done: that He has died and rose, that His Word is trustworthy, and because of that we ought to stop living like Jesus is dead, stop bowing down and obeying the reasoning and expectations of the world, and we ought to put a whole lot less stock in the thoughts of our own head. Having heard the Law, the messengers continue with the glorious Easter proclamation: “He is not here, but has risen. Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” The angels are intending to remind, to teach these women, who are Christians, who did indeed believe, that they have heard Jesus teach Holy Scripture to them, that He had taught them about His suffering and death.
Then, St. Luke explains the work the Holy Spirit on the women, and this is the main point for today: “And the women remembered His words.” What does this remembering mean? It means that the Holy Spirit was working faith in them with the words that Jesus Himself had taught and spoken to them during His ministry, and that in recalling these words spoken by the risen Lord, they actually hear the voice of the living, resurrected Christ as the Holy Spirit preaches Law and Gospel to them. What has happened is the messengers open the Bible, not literally, to the women so that it is heard in faith.
And what happens, what’s their response? The excited response of the women can only come by the Word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. The women, either out of astonishment, “you’ll never believe what happened to me at the cemetery…” or more likely, true faith laying ahold of the word of God preached to them, “went and told all these things to the apostles.” What had to have happened here through the messengers is that they opened the Scripture and explained it to the women, much like Jesus will do later on Easter afternoon to the Emmaus disciples on a three hour walk where He teaches the whole of salvation history. What seems to me is that all Jesus had said about His suffering, death, and resurrection was brought to remembrance by the Holy Spirit, because this is what the Spirit does. He enlivens in us the Word of the Lord Jesus and changes us. He really and truly enlightens us with the Word of Christ. And what does this word do? It moves us from doubt, fear, perplexity and unbelief to faith through Word in Holy Baptism. Then as we learn more of God’s word and the awful consequences of sin, and gain knowledge of holy living, He moves us from wanting to sin to avoid sin and hating it, and when we do sin, He moves us to flee to Christ’s cross for forgiveness, and to seek out encouragement and correction from other Christians. So, it seems entirely plausible that these women were listening to the messengers for at least a little while. This may not have been a quick reminder where the women see the angels and think, “oh, right, sorry, yep, or oh, ok, got it, sorry I forgot, turn around and off we go,” this being brought to remembrance took a little bit of listening.
So it was the messenger’s preaching, their use of Holy Scripture which is Jesus Himself, that made them remember that Jesus Himself is the trustworthy Word of God; and that as a result of this preaching they could believe His victory to be true, that the Lord had in fact risen from the dead; that all the Old Testament Law and Prophets pointed to and were fulfilled by the Son of Man who they thought was dead This Word can only received by faith, God has to be behind it for us actually believe in the resurrection and trust that the Gospel is a real and living hope. The messengers showed that the voice the women needed to be listening to was the living and present voice of the same man whom they feared was dead.
By the end, the women were given divine trust and confidence that Jesus must out of necessity, by Scriptural and eternal necessity, “be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” They repented of their hopelessness. And because Jesus is the content and source of all Scripture everything the messengers proclaim points to Him, and because of and through this, the women hear the voice of their Savior, of their Redeemer and are moved to renewed faith. Through the Word of Christ they are joyful, assured the light of God shines upon them.
This is an interesting point to consider because we tend to think that it would be so easy to believe and have peace if we could just see Jesus in His flesh then life and Christianity would be so much easier or fulfilling or what have you. Jesus, for His part, could just appear to the women and to the disciples and say, “See, here I am! Christ is Risen! So happy!” Initially, He doesn’t do that. He appears in a way that Mary is unable to recognize Him: she thinks Him to be the gardener. Similarly, the disciples on the road to Emmaus have their eyes restricted so that they are unable to recognize Him by sight. And in both of these it is not that Jesus has changed, it is that our weakness prevents us from seeing Him, from behold the glorified resurrected body fully. And this is where people get so mixed up about hearing and identifying the voice of Jesus. To hear Jesus you don’t have to think past my voice; you don’t have to try and listen for the voice in your heart. If you want to hear Jesus, if you want your heart to burn, then you need the Bible; you need His living Word of Holy Scripture. This is what the messengers did for the women-they showed Jesus from the Bible. And hearing the word of Scripture, the Holy Spirit latched on in faith through the word of Scripture and the women trusted. This is how faith is nourished, this is how your living hope is brought to remembrance when you begin to doubt, this is how the glorious resurrected Son reveals Himself and comes to you, again and again, really and truly. This is why we can say the Word of God is living and active, because it is Jesus Himself speaking. Think of St. Paul’s conversion: what does Jesus do? He appears briefly, then strikes Him blind, but then He talks to Him, Jesus shows how all Scripture points to Him. He makes Paul blind then speaks His word into His ears down to his heart, and Paul is brought to faith in the crucified and risen Lord; and this speaking is what the messengers do for the women, and what the Lord will do as He begins his resurrection appearances.
We then learn that the disciples did not believe the women’s words. They thought their report was idle talk. In their ears, all nonsense, not even worth their time, psychobabble, totally devoid of anything worthwhile. Why? Again, they were, as Jesus would say later on the road, foolish and slow of heart, or worse, denying everything that they had been brought to believe. The disciples are not rejoicing in victory and faith; they are profoundly confused, weak in their faith, and maybe even rejecting the Lord’s clear proclamation of the Gospel.
I think they’re skeptical, thinking, why would anyone bother stealing the body; or perhaps they’re ashamed, feeling they had wasted three years of their life. They very much seem to have lost hope. They were not believing or hoping for God’s light anymore. And this is important because the disciples, like the women, are Christians. They had been taught that Jesus would pay for them, that He would rescue them, that He would make payment for their sins and for their death and destroy their enemy the devil. This was not an easy task, but the Lord had persuaded them in the course of His ministry to the conviction that they are desperately sinful men. Without a redemption they and we are without the favor of God in the world if there is no payment for sin. That not only is death their enemy, now, is their enemy forever and ever under condemnation and hell. But by the Spirit and hearing the living Word of Scripture, Jesus Himself, they came to the conviction that though this terrible condition was their state, nevertheless, Jesus came to save them; to rescue them from their sins and to save them. And by doing that, He had given them hope for their future in heaven, given them joy, assured them of God’s favor. They had come to believe that they were saved through Christ Jesus. And on Easter morning even with the report of the women it appeared as though that had all been lost, that none of it was true. That’s what they’re saying to the women, “we have lost our hope of salvation.” This is worse than an ordinary unbeliever. An ordinary unbeliever has usually not come to any awakening of their guilt of sin and their dire condition. Unbelievers that you know, usually think they don’t actually need a redeemer. And that’s because they think in their pride that they are just fine without God, “I do not need a Savior, I don’t need blood, I don’t need substitution, I do not need a payment.” They generally believe that God, if He exists, is just waiting to give them a high-five and compliment them when they get to heaven for all of their good works and all the good things they’ve done. And I’ll tell you this is true from experience. If I go out in public with the collar on and people come up to me, what do you think they say? “Oh you’re a pastor, let me confess my sins so I hear of salvation for Jesus’ sake.” No! It’s always advertising good works: “here’s how faithful I’ve been; here’s why I don’t need to go to church, here’s why my explanation against organized religion is the best one; here’s why Jesus is a communist; here’s why God is a chauvinistic genocidal maniac, here’s how many people I’ve fed, or where I’ve volunteered, on and on.” It always come down to a showcase of charitable works or intellectual prowess. And the trust, the hope is nearly always is that their works, that their eyes and reason, are going to save them, that those are proof of God’s favor, and God is just rooting for that. That they can do all things apart from actually hearing the Bible.
Christians on the other hand, have been totally emptied of that, we are without any hope in our own works in themselves; we know we were walking in darkness, but now have the light of God shining upon us through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. We know we have been enlightened and regenerated by the Holy Spirit, that we need not depend on our eyes or our reason, to believe on the Lord Jesus and His salvation, that it is a good and godly thing to confess our sins. The disciples were terribly mistaken, they thought they didn’t have this hope anymore. They were mistaken because they didn’t realize the payment Jesus had to offer; they thought it would have to be silver or gold, they didn’t expect him to redeem them with his holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. The problem is they mistakenly believed that His death made their redemption impossible, when in fact it is that His death and suffering are their redemption. His suffering and now His resurrection is their salvation. There cannot be the light of God, you cannot know that the Lord is God, without the Word of God pointing to the crucified and risen Christ.
If it’s not often that you have come here, to this place, to hear Jesus which He speaks from His Word, you cannot expect to have the Lord’s strength, or the Lord’s comfort if you come infrequently. You cannot be blessed by the living Christ if you won’t let Him preach to you. For it is here, only in grace and mercy, that He has promised to be so present for us. So I say to you the same thing that the messengers said the women, and that caused the disciples to dismiss the women’s witness as an idle tale, “remember how he told you…” And I say this not for you to say, “oh, Pastor really got after us, on Easter of all days, and he really put the hammer down about coming to church.” No, it’s not me, it’s Scripture itself. The Lord’s messengers say, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Which is really to say why do you seek life among your dead works? Why do you seek Jesus on your own terms? In order to seek the living you have to look in Scripture, you have to look to the fount and source of life, to the living and active Word. If you are listening to false teachers, or worse, those who deny the living and resurrected Lord in His Body and Blood, run away. Run here, just like Peter, to here, where the living and present Lord gives Himself most fully, here were you can worship in Spirit and in Truth. No longer put the Divine Service aside, or wake up or go to sleep without considering the promises of the Lord God from Jesus. And no longer when Sunday morning comes, should you find yourself arriving at a fresh excuse to avoid hearing the Lord Jesus speak through His word, here. And if you think the angels are tough on the women, the disciples on the road to Emmaus really get it from the Lord himself: to them he says, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” But the rebuke and warning is similar, you need your Bible. You can’t have Jesus and the light of God apart from His Word and most fully, here in Divine Service. Why deprive yourself any longer of the living, ever-forgiving, ever present, ever-blessed, always-comforting resurrected Lord?
Now Peter’s response is a little different; Peter shows us what the response of faith is. Peter hears the account of the women, hears the lessons from Scripture, hears the living and present Christ preach to Him by the Word and in so doing, responds in faith. Peter goes not to the tomb to gawk upon where Jesus’ body should be laying, but rather hoping to see the risen Lord in the most reasonable place to expect him. This is what it means to hear and believe, to be confident of God’s favor to run to Jesus, to be enlightened with the hope of the Lord’s resurrection. Peter desires to have the light of God shine upon him. And Peter’s reaction is proof of why we are here this morning; to gaze upon the risen Lord, by faith through His Word who is really and truly with us in the means of grace.
The Lord Jesus is risen and wants you to know, believe, and be confident that He is risen, that He desires for you to see Him alive, and that you will see Him now in His word by faith. The message of Easter morning is: don’t trust your eyes, but instead hear and trust the Word of God proclaimed to you and permit the Holy Spirit to do His Holy Work, and in this way the risen Christ will reveal Himself to you, He will bring to remembrance and understanding all that Jesus said and does. Now I want to make sure you don’t think I’m spiritualizing Easter, that if you squint hard enough you’ll see Jesus—you’re not going to, not in the way you’ll see Him on the Last Day. I am saying that you come here today and do see Him truly, risen by, in, and through His Word and Sacrament and in this way He graciously reveals God’s favor and brings to remembrance all that God had done. And there will be a day when the trumpet will sound and the dead will rise first; even after your skin is destroyed, yet in your flesh shall you see God. Your eyes shall see him and not the eyes of another, will see him your Lord and Redeemer, as He truly is, in whom you place your hope.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
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