Easter Year B

The Resurrection of Our Lord, Year B

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed - hallelujah!)

As we’ve been getting closer to this day, social media has been filled with examples of good Easter humor. One of my personal favorites is a cartoon that depicts a couple shaking hands with their pastor on the way out of the church after worship on Easter morning. The husband looks at the pastor and says “You're in a rut, Reverend. Every time I come here, you preach about the Resurrection." It’s fairly obvious that what’s implied here is that this fellow only comes to church on Easter.

The funny thing is, that wasn’t my first thought. My first thought was that the pastor is preaching about the Resurrection every Sunday. Which, if you think about it in those terms, makes the cartoon not really amusing at all. After all, as Christians, we believe that every Sunday *is* a celebration of Christ’s resurrection. We say it every week when we recite the Creed. Every Sunday, the preaching SHOULD talk about the resurrection in some fashion. So yeah…not really funny anymore.

I don’t want you to get the impression that it’s just my job to take the fun out of things. I enjoy a good laugh as much as the next person. But this is what happens when you go to seminary - you think through things at a deeper level…often to a fault. (Just ask my wife and children.)

What concerns me about this is that if we really celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord every single week, has it started to become routine? Is it now monotonous or mundane? “Gee pastor, we’ve heard all this before” *yawn* or “Don’t you have anything new to preach about?” So I want to make sure that we do NOT let this become monotonous.

It’s perfectly reasonable for us to start getting tired of hearing the same message over and over again. I certainly understand that. Christ died for our sins. Christ rose again to show us that death is not the end. You hear this from me all the time. You heard this same message from, I’m sure, all the pastors who have been here before me. And I hate to break it to you, but you’re going to keep hearing this message from me.

Luther said that preachers need to keep repeating this Gospel message because we forget it and we NEED to hear it often. I know that’s true…at least for me. I need that reassurance just as much as anyone else. I need to keep hearing that Jesus did this for me. I need to hear that he went through the agony of Friday for me. I need to hear that he rose again on Sunday to show us his victory…to show us that he kept his promise.

What really bothers me about this repetition becoming boring is that we might not find it interesting enough to really think about what this all means. What does it mean that Christ died for our sins and rose again on the third day? Let me share with you some of Luther’s own words, as he describes what we believe about Christ in the words of the Creed:

If you are asked, “What do you believe in the Second Article [of the Creed], concerning Jesus Christ?” answer briefly, “I believe that Jesus Christ, true Son of God, has become my Lord.” What is it to “become a Lord”? It means that he has redeemed me from sin, from the devil, from death, and from all evil. Before this I had no Lord and King but was captive under the power of the devil. I was condemned to death and entangled in sin and blindness.

When we were created by God the Father, and had received from him all kinds of good things, the devil came and led us into disobedience, sin, death, and all evil. We lay under God’s wrath and displeasure, doomed to eternal damnation, as we had deserved.

There was no counsel, no help, no comfort for us until this only and eternal Son of God, in his unfathomable goodness, had mercy on our misery and wretchedness and came from heaven to help us.

Those tyrants and jailers now have been routed, and their place has been taken by Jesus Christ, the Lord of life and righteousness and every good and blessing. He has snatched us, poor lost creatures, from the jaws of hell, won us, made us free, and restored us to the Father’s favor and grace. He has taken us as his own, under his protection, in order that he may rule us by his righteousness, wisdom, power, life, and blessedness.

Let this be the summary of this article, that the little word “Lord” simply means the same as Redeemer, that is, he who has brought us back from the devil to God, from death to life, from sin to righteousness, and now keeps us safe there. The remaining parts of this article simply serve to clarify and express how and by what means this redemption was accomplished—that is, how much it cost Christ and what he paid and risked in order to win us and bring us under his dominion. That is to say, he became man, conceived and born without sin, of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin, that he might become Lord over sin; moreover, he suffered, died, and was buried that he might make satisfaction for me and pay what I owed, not with silver and gold but with his own precious blood. All this in order to become my Lord. For he did none of these things for himself, nor had he any need of them. Afterward he rose again from the dead, swallowed up and devoured death, and finally ascended into heaven and assumed dominion at the right hand of the Father. The devil and all powers, therefore, must be subject to him and lie beneath his feet until finally, at the last day, he will completely divide and separate us from the wicked world, the devil, death, sin, etc.

The last thing we heard Jesus say on Friday was “It is finished”. What Jesus was saying there is that he had done everything that he had been sent to do. Everything was completed, and he could go on to the next thing…which is what we just heard Luther describe in great detail. Jesus went from the cross to defeat sin, death, and the devil. We don’t know exactly how he did, but he did. And that changed EVERYTHING.

Now, even though death is a mystery that we don’t understand, it is no longer something we need to fear. Jesus has shown us that he has power over death. He has shown us the plan for us all - that we will all be resurrected on the Last Day. He has shown us that the cross is not the end.

Everything about our faith tradition comes down to this morning…to this celebration. Everything we believe is tied to this event. This event is the reason that Jesus took on flesh. This event is the fulfillment of the promise God made to save all of humanity - both Jews and Gentiles. This event is the foretaste of the feast to come.

We’ve talked all through the previous seasons about how in Baptism we are united with Christ, and so we died with him on the cross, and now we are raised with him in his resurrection. Because we were united with him on the cross, his death wiped clean the debt of our sins. Our slavery is over. The claim sin had on us is null and void. His death did that.

Once that was complete, then he conquered death itself. It’s no longer something we have to fear. He has swallowed up death forever. In the words of Martin Luther - “Jesus Christ has become my Lord.” It’s important to remember here that HE did this. It doesn’t say “I have made Jesus Christ my Lord.” No, Christ did this - HE is the actor.

That’s important because no matter how many times we hear this, there’s always a part of us that still thinks “if I’m a good person, I’ll go to heaven.” There’s always that little voice that tells us “I’m not such a bad person, so I know God loves me.” “I go to church, so I know God is pleased with me.” These are lies, and they don’t come from our conscience. They come from the prince of lies himself. It’s the devil doing what he does best - he twists the truth to make us think we don’t need God…just like he did to Adam & Eve in the garden.

If you think God loves you because you’re basically a good person, think again. If you think you’re going to heaven because you’re not so bad, or because you go to church regularly, I’m sorry; that’s just not true. None of us can earn God’s love because none of us is righteous enough on our own. But God doesn’t love us for how we behave. God loves us IN SPITE OF how we behave.

God’s love for us is only possible because of Christ. The Father loves us and sent His Son to fix what was broken between us. Christ fixed the relationship that we ruined. Christ made it possible for us to have that relationship with the Father again…the relationship the Father has always wanted to have with us. And remember: Christ did this…not us. We didn’t do it; we can’t do it. Nothing we could do would ever be enough. But THANKS BE TO GOD, we don’t have to worry about that. Christ took care of it, to ensure our eternity. Now, our behavior and our actions are simply our response to what Christ has done for us.

Our Lord Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. He did not stay in the tomb. He did not stay in hell. He rose again after his death on the cross, and that means so very much to us. It means that he keeps his promises. It means that we don’t have to listen to the lies of the devil and the world. It means that we don’t have to fear death. It means that we have the freedom to choose to follow Christ. It means that we are freed from the path of sin and destruction. It means that - no matter how bad we think we are - our sins can be forgiven, if we just ask and repent. It means that God loves us more than we can possibly imagine…and He loves us enough that He won’t leave us like we were.

The Resurrection of Our Lord is the most powerful event in all of human history. It changed the world forever, and it changed the fate of humanity from one of doom to one of hope. We now live in that hope, and no matter how awful the world gets, the battle has already been won, and Christ is the victor.

Let our lives be a living testimony to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed - hallelujah!)