Easter (March 31, 2024)

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.

This past week, we have observed liturgical days that have a somber tone as we walked with Jesus into the Jerusalem for the Triumphal Entry; we went with him to the Upper Room where he washed the feet of his disciples and instituted the Sacrament Lord’s Supper; we went with him to the Garden of Gethsemane where he was betrayed; and on Good Friday, we went with him to the Cross. But this morning, we go with Mary Magdalene to the Tomb on that first Easter Day and we find that it’s empty and the stone rolled away. Seeing the signs of the empty tomb, she runs to tell the disciples Peter and John who run to see it for themselves. And of course, John, the beloved disciple makes sure to tell us two or three times that he was faster than Peter and got there first. But once they arrive, they see the evidence that Jesus was no longer dead and they believe. And so along with with them, we can say HE IS RISEN! On this day, we celebrate the fact that the grave could not hold Our Lord and Savior, that he has conquered Hell, Death, and the Devil. And in these cosmic-level events, we recognize that they have significance for each of us because it is in the events of these past three days that we find life.

Every single page of Scripture—Old and New Testaments—points us to Jesus Christ. And in the Old Testament, there is a palpable sense of hope, firm expectation, that death, sin, and the Devil cannot win. We see this in the very first messianic prophecy, immediately after Adam and Eve sin, God promises, in his condemnation of the serpent that, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” And so we are taught to look for a wounded victor, a bleeding Messiah. In the Isaiah passage that was read this morning, we see an echo of this expectation: “He will swallow up death in victory; And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; And the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth.” We even see this expectation from Job in the midst of his afflictions: “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.”

Today, on Easter Sunday, we stand with the firm confidence that the fulfillment of this longing for a Savior to liberate us from death, sin, and the devil, has arrived in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 2:14 tells us he has won the victory, “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” And this has an application for each and every one of us: “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.” Jesus’ death was God’s way of maintaining perfect justice and perfect mercy simultaneously, it was the greatest rescue mission of all time. And, as we profess in the Apostles’ Creed, Jesus descended to the dead, or descended into Hell. “He went and preached unto the spirits in prison.” He harrowed Hell, rescuing souls who had been trapped there. Perhaps you’ve seen the great picture of Jesus leading Adam and Eve followed by a throng out of hell.

But Jesus’ death, on its own, would be meaningless. If Jesus had stayed in the Tomb, we wouldn’t be here today. We would be the most “pitiable of men” as St. Paul says. If Jesus stayed in the Tomb, he would have been a political martyr, perhaps. But ultimately, his death would be meaningless, a reminder of the futility of the way things are. He would have been no different than Socrates who was killed by the Athenians for challenging the status quo, a reminder that the way things are is the way things will continue to be. But the Christian story is one imbued with resplendent hope. Jesus didn’t stay dead. He was resurrected. This was not a ploy by the disciples to try and legitimate their position in the burgeoning Church. That would have been unthinkable to them at the time. And we don’t mean Jesus was resurrected in a metaphorical sense, “Oh he was resurrected in the memory of his disciples” or “he lived on in their hearts.” No, Jesus’ human soul was reunited and reanimated his human body that had been lying lifeless in the Tomb. And so we can look at the resurrected Jesus and say with Thomas the Apostle, “My Lord and my God” because the fact that he was resurrected is proof that everything he said and did was true. “Truly this is the Son of God.”

And so on this day, we celebrate the ultimate victory. Jesus has won, and, as a result, we can taunt death like St. Paul does in 1 Corinthians 15: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The victory has been won.

And you know what? Our Lord has left us two ongoing rituals that allow us to benefit from and participate in his salvific work. The first is the Sacrament of Baptism where we are "baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” And what this means is that we have been translated from the genealogy of Adam, a genealogy of death, into the genealogy of Christ, a genealogy of life: “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for all have sinned…the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.” In Baptism, we are born again. The old dies and the new comes.

And once we are enlivened, we can participate in the other sacrament left by our Lord to enable our participation in his victory: the Eucharist, what we are about to do in a moment. As the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, Jesus is always offering his sacrifice on Calvary, the events of Good Friday, to the Father. And the Father pours on him gifts for his action. But Jesus, as God, has no need of any gifts so he freely gives them to us who receive his Body and Blood. The Eucharist is a means of grace because Jesus has won the victory of Easter.

It’s easy, this day and age, to become a CEO: a Christmas and Easter only Christian. The rate at which our culture is secularizing means it’s not “normal” to go to Church anymore. Many people think it’s weird to go to Church. Further, we get so caught up in our schedules, routines, and activities that we forget or ignore our weekly obligation. But this week, our remembrance of Jesus’ betrayal, his passion, death, resurrection reminds all of us of a fundamental truth: God loves you and he invites you, not to be a CEO kind of Christian but to be a sacramental disciple who follows him, the risen Savior who has saved and redeemed us. We walk in the newness of life that Christ has won for us as the author, pioneer, and perfecter of our faith.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.