Easter Sunrise/Vigil 2018

Remembering Life and Eternity

April 1, 2018

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!

It may look as though death is final. Mary Magdalene coming early to the tomb certainly thought so. She wished to complete some of the funeral rituals after the rushed burial of Jesus just a few short days earlier. She didn’t quite know what to expect, and even though Jesus has repeatedly told His disciples that He would be raised from the dead, none of them really got it.  And so when Mary saw that the stone had been rolled away, she panicked and went to tell Simon Peter and John. 

They were all shocked at first. Seeing the empty tomb, the burial cloths folded up nicely in the tomb, they still did not understand the Scripture, that Jesus must rise from the dead.  But this was not a joke. 

As Mary stood outside the tomb, two angels reassured her of this. And if that were not enough, Jesus Himself appears to her.  She too, did not understand at first and did not recognize Him. She expected Jesus to be dead and everyone knows that death is permanent.

And there’s the punchline.  The joke is on death.  Jesus killed death dead. It cannot hold the Lord of Life, the Creator all. Christ is risen, death is defeated. St. John Chrysostom, the Golden Tongued, of the late 4^th century aptly preached, “O death, where is your sting? O death, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown! Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen! Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is risen, and life reigns! Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb! For Christ, being raised from the dead, has become the first-fruits of them that slept. To Him be the glory from ages unto ages.”

The voice of Jesus reaches the dead and wakes them more quickly than a parent can rouse a sleeping child. John 5 Jesus says, “²⁵ “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. ²⁶ For as the Father has life in Himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. ²⁷ And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. ²⁸ Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice ²⁹ and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” This resurrection is not just for Jesus, but is the future for all people.

The resurrected life of Jesus changes our life here and now. The salvation of the past, all those readings we heard this morning already, that same salvation God is working now. The same promises kept. The same deliverance. The same grace, forgiveness, and life.  Knowing that death is defeated, that the tomb of Christ is empty, that our tombs will one day be empty as well, we are truly set free to live a blessed and a joyful life here and now.

The Christian’s life is to be a daily celebration of Easter. We worship on Sundays not because it’s a new Sabbath, but because Christ is risen!  This carries over into every day of our life. Eternal life does not begin at our death, nor at our resurrection from the grave.  You have it now, by faith in Christ who has delivered that victorious life to you by means of His Word and Sacraments. That life to love others, to share the good news of Easter, to

Because Christ lives, we too have new life.  Because Christ lives, our death is defeated. Because Christ lives, deliverance from the valley of the shadow of death is a reality. Because Christ lives, we are truly free to live each day in joy and in a peace that passes all understanding. Because Christ lives we are not slaves to fear, to the panic that the Lord is absent, to a hope that is stolen, to weeping outside of tombs and death and evil. Because Christ lives, we too have life