John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Come, Holy Spirit

The Day of Pentecost B

May 24, 2015

Isn’t it strange that Jesus says, “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for it I do not go away the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you.” How can He say such a thing, that it is for our good that He goes away from us?  We know He is talking about His ascension and Pentecost, but it is still strange to hear to our ears. And yet, the Holy Spirit could not begin His work of applying Christ’s redemption until Jesus has accomplished His work on earth. 

  Consider the Apostles.  After Jesus’ ascension, they rejoiced and returned to Jerusalem to wait for the Holy Spirit.  They waited, as the Church always does, in prayer.  And wonder of wonders, their fears and timidity are conquered by the resurrected Jesus and His promises to them.  They were changed, embolded by the Holy Spirit for this purpose: to preach! We hear today of how St. Peter was inspired to preach the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and he was bold in his office.  Why?  Because the Holy Spirit delivered the truth to him, and used him to bear witness about Jesus.  And miracles abound, people believed in the Lord Jesus Christ!

Here is the beginning of the end. The flames of the living Spirit upon the apostles signal the fulfillment of the Prophet Joel’s word: “In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Acts 2:17). This is the grand miracle of Pentecost – The Spirit of the Lord declares the truth, taking what belongs to Jesus and delivering it to the Church. Among what belongs to Jesus is His resurrected life and His victory over sin, sinners, death, Satan, and hell, all celebrated in the Easter feast. Until the Day of the resurrected Lord, God’s Church is not left alone. The Lord pours out the Easter gift: the resurrection Spirit fills the lives of the apostles.

Today is often called the birthday of the Church. And so it is.  Because the Spirit gives birth to the Church by giving people the life of Christ, the life that has overcome death, the life eternal.  In the anointing of the Spirit there is the life of the resurrected Jesus. God places His Spirit within His apostolic church on the day of Pentecost delivering the life of Christ, receiving by faith. Because Christ lives, the church lives (Ez 37:14), “an exceedingly great army” of dry bones brought to life (Ez 37:10).

But there’s more.  The Lord is risen and ascended.  This same witness, this same boldness, this same Spirit working through the preached Word to bring dead sinners to life, delivers the truth of Christ, and call, gather, and enlighten the whole Christian Church on earth still happens!  In the waters of Holy Baptism, God the Father sent the Holy Spirit to you.  He speaks in His Word, and you hear His voice, for the Spirit still bears witness concerning the Son.  And this He has done, even warning you of the persecutions and trials and temptations that you will face.  Through this life, His Spirit will guide you into all the truth, to the glory of the Father. 

This is the Spirit’s main job, His purpose, His goal-to deliver Jesus, to bring people to Jesus, and to keep people with Jesus.  He brings us to Jesus, guides us into all truth, glorifies Jesus by declaring Jesus’ words to the world.  Sometimes we Lutherans are challenged about ignoring the Holy Spirit.  We don’t talk about Him much, we don’t pray in the Holy Spirit’s name. Why? Because the Spirit doesn’t want the limelight, He doesn’t want the attention.  What He wants is to bring Jesus to you, and to bring you to Jesus.He doesn’t speak on His own, but God the Holy Spirit speaks on behalf of the God the Father and God the Son.  Through the Word of God, the Holy Spirit convicts people of the truth of their sin so that they will no longer be a part of the world but one with Christ, sanctified in the truth of His Word.  The Spirit takes what is Jesus’ and delivers the goods.

And this is why it is to our advantage that Christ ascends into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father.  God has not abandoned humanity on earth to muddle our way through life.  Abandonment is one of the great fears that we all share.  We dread losing our family and our friends. We are terrified of being left alone in this life with no one to talk to, no one to share with, no one to care.  We cling to our relationships, as healthy or unhealthy as they might be. 

Today, we are reminded that God clings to us because of His Son through the power of His Spirit.  God is not content is remain in heaven, separate from His creation.  He comes, and He comes to you.  When you are tempted beyond resistance. When you have fallen into sin and can’t get up.  By the power of His Holy Spirit, and for the sake of Christ, through Word, water, bread and wine, God comes and brings you forgiveness.  He lifts tired and weary bones up out of the dirt to stand on the solid foundation of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  So that you shall live, and you shall know that the Lord is God. God the Father has spoken it. God the Son has done it.  And God the Holy Spirit delivers it. So come, Holy Spirit, creator blest, and make our hearts Your places of rest. Amen.

What is truth?  This is an age old question.  We assume that there is a truth.  We assume we can know the truth. We know that 1+1=2.  1+1 =/ orange.  The world in which we live is moving farther away from these assumptions.  Red light means stop. Green light means go. But what about yellow? For some it means slam on the brakes.  For others it means push to the pedal to the metal.  Still others contend it all depends on your situation, how many cars there are around, is there a cop nearby,  can I get away with running a red light or beating the car next to me?

We live in world that, intentional or not, denies an objective truth and treats everything like a yellow light.  It all depends on the circumstance, on the person, in the context.  You can’t know anything for certain.  Something only has meaning when experienced in the context of community.  Small groups where people go around and say, “What does this mean to you?” And there’s a different answer from every person.  When there is an infinite possibility of meanings then there really is no meaning at all.

Today in our Gospel reading, we hear part of Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer for His disciples.  Part of that prayer includes these very important words, “Sanctify them in the truth, Your word is truth.”  Here in Jesus’ words there is no assumption, but a prayer from God the Son to God the Father that His disciples would be made and kept holy according to the truth of God’s Word.  In a world and a culture that is moving away from Christianity and the Christian worldview, Jesus’ prayer for us will become more apparent.  There will be a bigger difference between being one of Jesus’ disciples living in the world but not of the world. 

Less than a day after this prayer, when Jesus is on trial, Pontius Pilate asks this question of Him, “What is truth?”  Jesus response with “The Truth” — not with a true statement, subject to evaluation, but with the truth. Actually, with a story about Himself, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”  Jesus does not say that He came to fill our heads with true statements –oh, He does some of that throughout the Gospels, but He tells us true things so that we can understand something about the truth.

You see, truth is not simply a collection of true statements, like scientific facts and multiplication tables. The truth is that upon which everything rests, “in whom we live and move and have our being.” This is where some previous generations also got mixed up.  Truth is not something you figure out by yourself.  It’s not something that if you just try hard enough, spend enough time and energy and brain power, you will discover.  Truth is knowable because Truth has been communicated through the Word of God-the Word written, the Word declared, the Word incarnate.

Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, hung on a cross, died in our place, rose from the dead, and is coming again to restore us, body and soul, to God. That is the truth. You cannot measure it, you cannot test it, you are only baptized into it.

Do not be surprised when the truth stares the world in the face and it is not understood.  The Bible makes is clear, it’s not because they can’t see the truth, it’s because they hate God.  It’s because they are separated from God because of their sin.

But you and I, who have been baptized into Christ and live by faith, we see it, because we are of the truth. And this changes everything. You see, it is a true statement to say that you and I do not live up to the standards of God’s law. We can measure ourselves, evaluate ourselves, but we will fall short. It is a true statement to say that every one of us has, at one time or another, put our trust and confidence in something other than God our Father‑whether that is our wealth, or our reputation, or our power. It is a true statement to say that we have faltered in our worship, that we have failed to love one another, that we have not cared for others as we ought. Those are all true statements.  They can all be observed and measured. And it is a true statement to say that as a result, we are all worthy of death and separation from God.

But that is not the truth. The truth is that because Jesus died on the cross for you and rose from the dead that you are holy, sanctified by the Word. The truth is that because of Jesus Christ you are forgiven. The truth is that because of the work of the Son of God you are righteous in God’s sight, you are His dearly loved child. Jesus Christ has come into the world to make known the Father to a people who were lost, separated from their God, by sin and a rejection of the truth. The truth is that the Father answers the prayer of His Son that we might be one in unity for Christ’s sake.

The unity of the Disciples, in particular, and of all the followers of Jesus rests solely upon God’s Word and the Sacraments. The unity experienced by those in our reading from Acts described of being of “one accord” is the same unity that is shared by us, who together confess our sins, receive Christ’s Holy Absolution and His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. That is the truth that Jesus pray for, but also by His work and the sending of His Spirit, calls you by the Gospel, enlightened you with his gifts, sanctified and kept you in the true faith.

What is truth? It is Jesus Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins, raised on the third day, ascended into heaven to sit at the hand of God the Father Almighty. Because he is the way, and the truth, and the life.

Parts of this sermon are based off of “What is Truth? Good Friday Reflections on John 18:33-38” by Dr. Jeff Kloha, April 18, 2014. http://concordiatheology.org/2014/04/what-is-truth-good-friday-reflections-on-john-1833-38

John 15:9-17

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 10, 2015

That classic Christian hymn from the 1800s begins as such, “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.”  What a wonderfully comforting song this is, especially in those times when your lonely or worn out because of the sinfulness of the world.  We still have the comfort to know that Jesus is our friend, even when all our other friends might abandon us, Jesus is that friend who is always there when you need Him. 

Jesus says “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”  What a strange thing for someone to say.  Can you imagine going up to someone and telling them that they could be your friend if they do what you tell them?  Someone try that this week and tell me how successful you are.  Maybe it’s time to rethink what it means to be friends with Jesus.

Jesus says “you are my friends if you do what I command you.”  What an incredibly strange and powerful claim by Jesus, especially in light of what Paul says in Romans 5:10 “¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”  Each and every one of us were enemies of God Himself simply by being born and carrying on the Original Sin passed on down from generation to generation beginning with Adam. Here we are born sinful in the sight of God, enemies to Him because of our sinfulness and yet through the waters of Baptism and the abiding power of the Word, Jesus came to each and every one of us making us His friend.  John 15:16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.”

The image here is that Jesus, the Lord, very God of very God, has chosen His disciples to be His friends, and gives them commands.  He chooses us to be His friend, we don’t and can’t choose Him.  All we can do now is acknowledge that Jesus has made us His friend, and so now I can be friendly toward Him.  He is the big guy, and there is a little guy.  This really makes it important when Jesus says “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his [inferiors].” If I can say it that way.  In the ancient context in which Jesus was speaking this is a big deal.  It would be like Caesar laying down his life for Pilate.  That just wouldn’t happen, even though Pilate was a friend of Caesar.  This sharpens the Gospel, the love that isn’t deserved or even expected really, but it still freely given.  The Lord, the master, is willing to lay down his life for those that He chose to be His friends, even though His friends don’t deserve it.  This isn’t the way it works, except in God’s kingdom. 

John 15:15 “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what His master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”  Christ has chosen you to be friends, not slaves, the difference being a friend knows who the Lord is and what He is like because it is revealed to Him.  This is how Jesus can say, “you are my friends if you do what I command you.”  We don’t see the heavy hand of the Law of God, but the life giving Gospel, a Lord who has called you “friend” by His mercy and who has given His life up for you, His friend, so that you may live and that you may bear fruit, that the love He shows us we might show others by following His commands.  The greatest of which is to love the Lord with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.

And now because Jesus has made you His friend, He can now say to you John 15:16b “so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give it to you.”  It’s not just about talking to a friend.  This is not a general theology of prayer, but asking for fruit, that fruit of the Spirit that flows from a relationship with Christ of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Jesus invites you His friend, not just to pray for anything, but to ask the Father for these fruits of faith, for the power to follow to His commands and the forgiveness when we don’t, to “make me a better husband, or wife, make me a better colleague, make me a better friend, help me to bear with that unbearable person.”  And God will give it.  He wants you to love each other better because He loves you.  He wants to forgive you when you fail.  This is why you were chosen and appointed and why Jesus commanded these things, so that you will, that you can, love one another.  And He does everything He can to make that happen, even showing you His love, and mercy, and forgiveness and life through His death and resurrection.

“What a friend we have in Jesus.”  When considering our friendship with Jesus, we see how in His love He chooses us to be His friends and how His love empowers us to now follow His commands, to love Him, and to love each other.  He comes down to our level so that we may be raised to His level in eternal life.  Truly, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!  Amen.

Jesus said, ‘I am the vine; you are the branches.  Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”  This is our text.

            The language that Jesus uses is good here. We all understand the meaning and know what this looks like.  As branches cannot live if cut off from the vine, so too a person cannot live if He is not connected to Jesus.

Basically, this is what we’ve been doing in Confirmation. Abiding in Jesus.  Equipping our children with an understanding of God’s Word, how to stand upon Christ in the midst of a world that wants to knock you down, that wants to cut you off from Jesus and from the life we have in Him.

It is a confirmation of what God has done for us in Baptism, what He will continue to do for us through His body and blood.   It is not some sort of completion. It is not a kind of graduation from church.  It is simply a time of learning more about Christ and His Word, and how it applies in our lives.  It is recognition that we are branches on the vine who is Jesus, and that the only way to stay alive is to abide in Him. It’s a continuous confession of what we just sang before the Gospel reading, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Kids, you will be making promises that you have learned more about your faith, you believe this, and you wish to continue in this faith, growing and learning and abiding in Jesus.  Wear robes as a reminder that in Baptism, they were robed with Christ’s righteousness that covered all their sin. You have a better understanding of what God has already done for you, of the good work He has started in your life at your baptism and continues to do through the Holy Sacrament. Knowledge of the faith is always remembering what has already been given by God and is always ours.  This is why the first promise you will make at your confirmation is that you acknowledge the gifts that God has given in your baptism.  Our confession of faith, by God’s grace, is steadfast.  Our knowledge is not.  Abraham had trouble remembering who God was and God’s promises to Him. So did David.  And Elijah. And so do we.  We need to be reminded, more than that, we need God to reveal those promises to us over and over again, and act upon them.  We need Jesus to abide with us in order for us to abide with Him.  Those gifts are already yours in Christ and are meant to be used by you in faithfulness to God and for the benefit of your neighbor.

But make no mistake.  You think some of Confirmation was hard.  The world wants nothing else than to separate you from Jesus.  You will hear it in your school.  You will hear it from the tv and movies and books and online.   The devil will not leave you alone.  This is why you qualify your pledges, “by the grace of God.”  By the grace of God, you intend to hear the Word of God and receive the Lord’s Supper faithfully.  By the grace of God, you intend to live free from sin, remaining in this confession of faith, preferring death over living a sinful life.   If and when you fail, throw yourselves once again upon Christ’s mercy, because He will not fail you.

Parents, your children will need help.  They cannot drive themselves to church.  They are at an age where they still need a lot of guidance from you, but where they won’t always want it or appreciate it.  They still don’t have everything figured out. Your time of parenting them is not over, but spiritually, maybe even more is now required of you. You need to be there for your kids, continue to model the Christian faith to them and for them, and encourage them to hear the Word of God regularly, to receive His body and blood as often as possible. Don’t stop being their parent, not just in the world, but in Christ. The devil wants nothing else than for you to stop being diligent in your faith and in your children’s.

Zion Lutheran Church, these children and their parents will need help. They won’t always want to do what they are supposed to.  They will be tired, frazzled, pulled in so many directions at once. Help these parents to stay focused on Christ.  Don’t let them off the hook. 

Jesus has given His life for ours and now lives and reigns present among us in His Word, in the water, in His body and blood to bestow that new life and joy.  Here is God’s grace for you confirmands to abide with Christ: the bodily presence of the risen Christ, for you, in Holy Communion. By the grace of God, which we all confess, may we all do the same, trusting in God’s promises of forgiveness, life, and salvation.

What do you think of when you think of a shepherd?  We often see the nice, warm shepherd looking Jesus who cuddles the sheep.  Maybe we have the picture in our mind of Jesus with the little lamb slung over His shoulders carrying them around.  And so He does. But is this really the full picture we have here in our Gospel reading?  Is this really how Jesus is describing Himself to the Pharisees who are questioning Jesus’ teaching and His actions?  Let’s take a closer look.

When we consider Jesus’ words here and look at what He says He does, it becomes very clear.  5 times Jesus mentions that He lays down His life for His sheep.  Twice He mentions He takes it up.  And twice He mentions knowing His sheep and His sheep knowing His voice.  And once He mentions bringing in sheep from another fold.  There you have it.  A shepherd who gives up His life so that they might live.  A shepherd who is truly “good.”

CS Lewis’ quote in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is quite appropriate.  The children have stepped through the wardrobe into Narnia and are hearing the details about Aslan, who represents Jesus, for the first time: “Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr. Beaver ..." Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

Jesus, is not safe. He is the very Son of God, the King and the Judge over the world.  He does not tolerate nor condone sin, of any kind or of any degree.  His judgement will come upon the earth and woe to those to whom it comes.  This is something that we often overlook, or downplay. Our God, our Savior, is not safe in the least.  He speaks a condemning word of the Law to each of us here today. We are sinners. We are not good. Our sin drove Jesus to the cross as surely as the sin of the High Priest, the Sadducees and all others involved with Jesus’ crucifixion.

But do not fear, for Jesus is good.  Not just in a moral sense, but in the sense that He does what a shepherd is supposed to do. He does not run away when trouble comes. He does not flee because wolves are on the prowl.  No, He cares for those who belong to Him.  He loves deeply. He is the shepherd who gives His life up, who sacrifices Himself for His sheep. His goodness is expressed in His love, as we heard about from St. John in our epistle for this morning.

This stands in stark contrast to the “shepherds” of Jesus’ day, and still today, who take from the sheep but do not give to them.  Those who try to sneak in by other means than Jesus are not good shepherds, but thieves and robbers, false prophets and teachers.  So how do you know?  How do you know that it is Jesus we are following and not someone, or something else?  How do we know who our shepherd is, and who is simply a hired hand that will turn and run at the first sign of trouble? How do we know that we are right, that Christianity is right, and everyone else is wrong? 

These sorts of questions are what St. Peter was addressing in our First Reading this morning from Acts 4.  These are questions that we all have at times, and the world bombards us with.  How can you know for sure?  The content, authority, and response to the questioning world and our doubts and concerns center among Christ who was crucified, raised, and in whom is the only source of our salvation.  Jesus is the only name by which we must be saved because He is the only Son of God who loved the world in the way of giving His life up to rescue us from sin, death, and the devil.  How do we know?  Because Jesus lives!  We believe the Bible is true and that it is God’s very Word because Christ is risen. 

It is through this wonderful news that people are called to be His sheep, part of His flock.  He calls, gathers, and enlightens the whole Christian Church and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith and He does this through His Word.  He still speaks to His people today. He still searches out and calls His sheep, gathering them from all over the world into His flock.  Sheep know the voice of their shepherd, and our shepherd is the One who calls us out of sin and death and into His abundant life.  So that you are now “good” as well.  Because our shepherd is good and shares that goodness with His flock purely out of His grace and received only by faith in Jesus.

As sheep, we follow where our shepherd goes, even though sometimes kicking and screaming.  We are led through the valley of the shadow of death. He leads us to and from the life giving waters of Baptism.  He abides in us through His promised Holy Spirit whom He has given us.  He abides in us through His Word, and so we live and abide in Him by faith.  Jesus travels to the cross and to the resurrection.  We follow Him through a life of self-sacrifice to others. Of serving others in their time, not running away when things get hard and trouble shows up.  Loving one another as Christ has loved us, not being safe, but goodness of the Lord.  Standing with our Shepherd.  So where should we expect Him to lead us?  Ultimately, through our death and to our resurrection with Him. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

 It was in the years following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. A Communist Party official went to a remote Russian Orthodox Church and spoke for an hour on why there is no God. At the end he asked if there were any questions. An old priest rose in the back and shuffled to the front. He stood before the people and said, "Christ is risen!" The people all responded, "He is risen, indeed!"

An empty tomb is not enough.  An empty tomb could mean that Jesus’ disciples had stolen the body, or that he had only seemed to die.  Worse, it could mean the empty tomb was just a hoax, a myth, a metaphor to say that Jesus rises when the hearts of His people come alive with faith.

The disciples were worried and uncertain.  We see this most clearly in Thomas with all his doubts and unbelief.  They had all heard the reports of the empty grave, from the women, from John and Peter who saw the empty tomb.  We are not unlike them in this way, sometimes not that unlike Thomas even.  We demand proof from God.  Proof that defies our doubts, that assails our worries, that comforts our fear.  The empty tomb is not enough. What we need is Jesus, the crucified One who is risen.  And it is the risen body of Jesus that the Lord provides.

The Lord came to His disciples despite all the fear and doubts and worry and unbelief.  He stood in their midst.  The stone covering the tomb could not keep Jesus in. Locked doors in an upper room could not keep Him out.  He comes to them in His resurrected body, flesh and blood, nail holes and all.

What the eyewitness accounts provide is proof of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Jesus shows them His scars in order to show that He really died, that He is the crucified One.  He was slain as a substitute, dying the death we deserve, so that we may receive the forgiveness He earned. But He has come through death. He is alive in His body.  Jesus, the Son of God, is still a man.  He has the scars to show it. We have an advocate with the Father, a high priest who has endured all our temptations and punishment for our sins, and has overcome them all.

Thus the corpse, the very body of Christ, that was born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, has been renewed.  Jesus is alive!  We praise God for the resurrection of Jesus. As glorious as His death is, His life is more glorious.  We preach Christ crucified. And yet the Church’s proclamation remains, “He is risen.” 

Still today you can visit Jerusalem and see the grave where many believe Jesus was buried within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  But it is just an empty hole in the ground.  Jesus is not there.  We do not see Jesus in the grave, but by faith, we see Him when He comes to us in His Word and in His Sacraments.  It is no accident that the Lord’s Supper is consecrated on an altar underneath the cross.  Here you eat with God.  He gives you His body risen out of death in, with and under the bread.  Here He gives you His blood that burst from His side from the spear thrust in, with, and under the wine.  It is not a corpse you receive.  It is the living, risen, glorified body, true man and true God, which God joins to bread and wine to satisfy your soul, to forgive your sins, to grant you His life and eternal salvation, to encourage and strengthen your faith in Him.

In our lives, here in America, things are not going well for Christianity.  It may not be too long before officials stand in our churches and teach that there is no God, or that God can simply be whatever you imagine Him to be, as long as it isn’t the God of the Bible.  May God preserve us from such evil.  But even if He does not, despite our fears of what has happened and what may happen, we are not left simply with an empty tomb.  For we have Jesus, Son of Man and Son of God, alive, the killer of death. The resurrected Christ still comes to His people, and may God preserve in us the faith to always believe and to confess that He is our Lord and our God, for “Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!”

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus. Amen.

*This sermon was adapted from a sermon by Pr. David Peterson, Thy Kingdom Come: Lent and Easter Sermons, “Easter Tuesday”, which was in turn reworked from the Rev. Dr. Burnell Eckeradt, http:gottesblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/empty-tomb-is-not-enough.html.

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!  Have you ever noticed how we say those words.  Christ IS risen.  St. Mark records the angel’s words to the women at the tomb.  He has risen; He is not here.”  He has risen, and He still is risen from the dead.  He is not in the grave. He is alive now and forevermore.

The Gospel of Mark ends without telling us the rest of the story.  We know that Jesus has risen and that He is not in the grave.  We know that Jesus will meet His disciples later on, just like He told them He would, though we don’t hear of that today. Today, we are left with a little bit of a cliff hanger.  What is Jesus going to do next?  Where is He going to go? 

This isn’t just a question for history, but it’s a question for us here. Where is Jesus now?  Where do we find this one was raised, and still is raised? We confess in the Nicene Creed that after His resurrection, He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father.  Did Jesus come out of grave just to turn around and abandon the world?

Just like those women, fear and trembling faces us in our lives and we are left to wonder where God is in the midst of it all.  Why does He allow the suffering, the sadness, the death in this world?  Why doesn’t He do anything about it, at least for me?  A Jesus who is left in heaven is as good for us as Jesus who is left in the grave.  What I mean is this: All that Christ did on the cross, His perfect and pleasing sacrifice, does no one any good unless it is delivered. 

Today we are truly blessed by our Giver and Provider of all good things.  For all that Jesus did on the cross is delivered to you today.  You can’t go back in time 2000 years to Golgotha. So Jesus comes to us, today, here and now.  This isn’t just in some spiritual, I feel Him in my heart kind of way.  But Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, comes to us today. He delivers Himself to us through, speaking to us through His Word. He delivers Himself to us, giving us His body and blood in the Sacrament.  As surely as He opened the tomb, He opens up heaven and comes.

Jesus’ victory over the grave is not only won, but it is now delivered to us, personally, substantially, freely through God’s Word and His Sacraments.  And all this is received solely by faith in Him who was crucified, died, was buried, and three days rose again.  The gifts are given through God’s Word and Sacraments, but these means of grace require all hearts to believe in the promises of God that they are for you, given freely by our Triune God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

When receiving a gift, we know what is good, right, and salutary for us to do—give thanks!  How can we react to Easter, to receiving the benefits of the cross and the empty tomb, in any other way than with joy and thanksgiving?  Of turning first to God in such a way, then turning to our neighbor to tell Him of this great news, these great gifsts, that are being handed out freely!  Rejoicing in the risen Redeemer, we cannot help but spread the news that all men have been reconciled to the Father in the death of Jesus Christ.  No one who believes in Him shall die forever.  Jesus has risen for our justification.  He has declared us righteous and holy.  So that we now live in the freedom that Christ has given to us through our words, though our good works, through giving of our time, our talents, and our treasures for the benefits of others so that they too might receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

All who believe in Jesus Christ, the good and the bad, whether honored or despised by men, whether rich or poor, whether having it all together in life or a complete mess, all who believe in Jesus Christ receive from Him eternal life.  Since the Head has risen, the members cannot remain in death.  All will come out of the grave in their bodies.  The resurrection is not just for Jesus, but He is the firstfruits of those who will be raised.  Just as in between Good Friday and Easter we waited for the resurrection of Christ, so we wait now for the resurrection of the dead.

But we do not wait alone, for the message given to the women at the tomb has reached us.  He has risen, He is not here.  In reaching us, the resurrected Christ still comes among us.  Easter is not a surprise ending for us but the ending we know and for which we hope. What comfort that brings in our sufferings.  As Jesus lay in the grave for three days and then rose again, so the time of our afflictions are short.  The clock is ticking for our suffering to end, our graves to open, for the day of deliverance is coming soon.

And so, beloved in the Lord, do not fear the grave.  Not the empty one where Jesus once rested, nor the one into which you will one day rest.  For Christ will provide while we live, sustain when we suffer, refresh in our dying hour, keep while in the grave, and finally receive us into glory to adorn His Church with the crown of everlasting life.   Alleluia, alleluia. Jesus lives. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia! In the Name of the Father and of the T Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.