Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Big
Surprises don’t happen very often in life and when they do, they’re (hopefully)
a great joy. Reuniting with family or
friends that you haven’t seen in a long time.
A marriage proposal. Pedro Quezada, a New Jersey man, just got the surprise of his
life as he recently won the 338 million dollar Powerball. Surprises don’t happen very often, but when
they do, there’s unspeakable joy.
Well, today, this joyous day, God gives His people a big wonderful
surprise.
But first, let’s
go back to the beginning, as Paul does, where the surprise first was promised. When God told Adam and Eve that when they ate
of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would surely
die. They ate and, though God created
them to last forever, our bodies now wear out.
Death is now our enemy, and it would have been our end. But God has something else to say to Adam and
Eve; a surprise that they surely didn’t expect.
Instead of squishing them like bugs for their sinful rebellion, He gives
them a promise that there would one to crush the serpent’s head, that the curse
of the fall would be undone. And today, this
joyous day, God makes good on that promise.
Can you imagine
those women who went to Jesus’ tomb that Easter morning? They saw it all happen right in front of
them. They saw the nails pierce through
Jesus’ hands and feet. They saw Jesus
lifted upon the cross. They heard Jesus
cry out, “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.” They saw Jesus taken down from the cross and
laid it in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb.
They may have even witnessed as the large stone rolled into place with a
great bang. If there was anyone who
could testify to the fact that Jesus was dead it would be these women.
But,
three days later, they go to the tomb of Jesus, with spices in hand expecting
to anoint a dead body but finding everything has changed. A big surprise. A surprise that changes everything. A surprise that even changes the way we view
death itself. The great stone has been
rolled away, the tomb is empty and Jesus is nowhere to be found. What’s more, two men with dazzling white
garments tell them something they wouldn’t in a million years expect, “Why do you seek the living among the
dead? 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.”
That’s what Jesus
said, isn’t it? It shouldn't have been a surprise. Time and time again He
preached that it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up and on the
third day rise? That’s Jesus mission,
His task, to be the sacrificial lamb who is to be roasted on the cross and
raised again. And He does it. He fulfills everything that the Father sent
Him to do. For the world, for you, He
goes to the cross and then to life.
He,
Himself, undergoes Adam’s curse of death.
Death sank its teeth into Jesus and sank them in deep. Its icy breath overshadowed Him and for three
days Jesus was devoured whole. But death
couldn’t hold Him. To death’s great
surprise, the Passover Lamb was poison in His mouth. Death has lost forever. Death has forever lost its grip on our Lord
and on you.
And, like Adam and
Eve, what a surprise for those women that morning that brings unspeakable
joy. The Jesus who the women saw placed
in the tomb is there no longer. The
women who came to anoint the body of Jesus have no one to lay their spices on. The Jesus who those women saw give up His
Spirit in death is alive! His body is
forever risen from the grave. He is
Risen!
And, dear friends,
do you know what that means? It means
that you’re forgiven. For
everything. It means that the Father has
fully accepted the sacrifice of His Son on your behalf. It means that death has also lost its grip on
you. That’s the reason Jesus died and
was raised again, not for Himself, but for you!
All for you! To fulfill the
promise to Adam and Eve; to be the One to crush the Serpent’s head and undo the
curse of the fall. To bring to you
eternal life.
The resurrection
of Jesus changes everything. It changes
the way we view death. It’s been made
into a pathetic joke. It changes the way
we walk through a graveyard. For the
grave is no longer a “final resting place” but a bedroom where we and our loved
ones rest for a time. It changes the way
we view our loved ones who have departed in the Faith. For their souls are today with the Lord, but
their bodies sleep in their earthen bedroom to be awakened to new life. Death had been undone! It’s been been defeated. He can snarl and scowl all it wants but its
teeth have been removed.
That’s
the good news of Easter. That because
Jesus lives, death’s dark grave has been made a temporary resting place, just
like Jesus’ tomb that was occupied and them empty. For those who are in Christ, death no longer
has dominion. It lost.
And
God has one more surprise, a surprise that’s sheer joy for you. At the right time, in God’s good and gracious
time, like a thief in the night, when we least expect it, the living Jesus, who
still bears the scars of the cross, shall come again and, since death has been
undone, will call His faithful from the bedrooms in which they now sleep. With a great cry of command, “Wake up and
arise, my dear people, it’s time to come home!”
The ones sleeping in the ground will breathe once more. Blood will pump through their veins. Souls will be reunited to their bodies and
the people of God, that’s you, shall live in the New Jerusalem forever with the
Lord forever.
That’s what He’s
done for you. He’s won for you
forgiveness and eternal life. Believe
it, it’s yours, it’s for you. Jesus
thought you worth it to suffer, to die, and to rise again. This, the day of resurrection, is our
triumphant day, when God gives to us a surprise, something that we don’t
deserve or expect. But since He loves
you with a love that sends Jesus into and out of death for you, He gives His
salvation to you. He defeats death for
you. He opens heaven’s gates wide open
for you. What a surprise. What joy.
A most blessed Eastertide to all of you.
Amen.
