"Remember How He Told You"

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

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

On the first day of the week, after the Passover had ended, the faithful women who had ministered to Jesus throughout His earthly ministry came to do their fallen Lord one last service. They came bringing spices to do for Him according to the custom of the Jews, that they might prepare His body properly, since there had not been time to do so on Friday, before the start of the Sabbath. They came with heavy hearts and downcast spirits.

No doubt, the events of the past weekend were a shock to the system. They had, in the course of one week, seen the crowds adoring the Lord Jesus Christ as the coming king who would sit on the throne of David. They had witnessed Jesus overturning the marketplace set up in the Temple precincts. They had heard His wondrous but perplexing preaching.

Then they had suffered through His betrayal, arrest, and kangaroo-court trials. They had witnessed His beatings, His mocking, and His crucifixion. They had stood by as the Mother of God was entrusted to the Beloved Disciple. They had stood in darkness as the earth shook, the curtain of the Temple was rent, and Jesus gave up the Spirit and died. They had mourned while the soldiers stabbed the body of the Lord with a spear, and while His body was taken down, wrapped by Nicodemus and Joseph, and placed into a stranger's tomb.

And now they had come, the Sabbath being fulfilled, to do this one final service before the one they had hoped was the Messiah was sealed into the earth forever.

But what did they find when they arrived at the tomb in the deep dawn of that first day of the week? “They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” They found the bare facts of the resurrection. There was a tomb and a stone, but not together. There was the place where the Lord had been laid, but no body there. They found the evidence, but did not find the significance. What was going on? What happened to the body of Jesus? Dead people do not get up and walk away.

But that is precisely the point. Dead people do not get up and walk, but the living do. The two men – the two news-bearers of the Lord – appeared and addressed the frightened and confused women. “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” There is no fanfare here. No choir of the heavenly host breaking out in the rosy-fingered dawn sky. No voice of the Father booming out of heaven. Just two men, in dazzling apparel, telling the women that Jesus is not dead.

What an earth-shattering surprise! They had not expected this, not in a million years. After all, who could rise again from the death that Jesus died? He was mangled, beaten, and destroyed in the flesh. It would take a miracle to undo that, and it was the miracle-worker Himself who had suffered it. Who could have seen this coming? Jesus – risen from the dead!

But the angels continue speaking. “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.” The angels are sent to declare the good news to the confused women, who do not understand what the facts before them mean.

Why do you seek the Living One among the dead? He has risen. God has raised Him from the dead. Do you not remember – He told you this would happen, even this last bit.

It is necessary that these things happen. It has been foretold from the foundation of the world. There could be no other course of human history than for this climax to take place. And it should come as no surprise to anyone, least of all to the followers of Him to whom these things happened.

Jesus did not go unawares to His death. Rather, He foretold the events of His passion several times, even as He set His face toward Jerusalem, and put one foot in front of the other toward the Cross. It was necessary for these things to happen, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. For, as St. Paul says, if the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ had not happened, then we, the whole people of God, would be accounted the worst sort of fools and lunatics. The saints of every age would have to be considered pitiful dupes who bought the worst scam in history. The Torah, the Prophets, the Psalms, and all the Scriptures would be worthless.

But how hard it is to believe this! Over and over, Jesus had predicted these things. He had told His disciples and the crowds that these things must happen. And yet, when they did happen, His people turned away in grief as though their faith and hope had been dashed.

How fickle is the human heart! The very Son of God appears to you and declares to you the things which are about to happen, the things which must happen according to thousands of years of prophesy, and you act surprised when God does what He says. Jesus says that He will rise from the dead, and yet you go looking for Him in the cemetery. Jesus says that He gives His true, physical Body and Blood to you in His Holy Supper, and yet you go looking for Him in the cockles of your heart. Jesus says that He is present wherever two or three are gathered in His Name, and yet you think to find Him on a mountaintop or in your bed.

Stop marvelling. Stop looking for Jesus where He is not to be found. Do not look for the Living One among the dead, but among His living ones. He is risen!

For it was necessary for the Son of Man to be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and on the third day rise again. It was necessary, just as He said, because His passion and resurrection are the sum-total and content of all of human history. All that came before pointed forward to this moment, and all that comes after looks back to it and flows from it.

It was necessary for the Son of Man to die to take away the sins of the world. It was necessary for the Son of God to die the death due to the sons of men, so that you might become the sons and daughters of God. And it was necessary for Him to rise again, to be raised in the glory of God the Father, in order that He might give to you His everlasting, undefeated life. It was necessary that He be raised from the dead to proclaim to as many as believe on His Name that He is the Author and Giver of Life. In Him is the life of the world.

Now, to the ignorant and unbelieving world, this glorious Gospel is merely the prattling of fools. It is as idle tales and silly superstition. But to us who are being saved, it is the very power of God unto salvation. The resurrection of Jesus is no mere fact, no bare datum for you to interpret and fill up with your own understanding. His death and resurrection interpret the Law and the Prophets for you. For the Scriptures, from Moses to Malachi, speak of Christ. The songs of the Psalmist ring forth with the tidings of the One who Is and who was and who is to come, the Lord of Hosts and Giver of Life. This day, this Paschal Feast is the key to history, the way to understand and interpret all that God is and does and says.

There is nothing else that the preacher of God can declare to you. There is no other word that I can proclaim. The mouths of God's messengers are filled with one Word – He is Risen! Seek the Lord among the living. And you are the living ones. For you are filled with Him. In Him you live and move and have your being. In you, in your hearing, in your being, the Scriptures are fulfilled. It is necessary that these things happen, for you and for your salvation.

Therefore, leave off weeping and mourning. Do not be downcast and heavy of heart. “But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.” (Isaiah 65:18). Rejoice, be glad, and sing! Break forth, O glorious Light! Lift up your hearts and hands and voices! Let the heavens and the earth ring with the praises of Him who died but now is raised to life immortal.

See the new creation which has stepped forth. Just as the Lord in six days created the world and rested on the seventh, so the Son of Man suffered six days on the earth, rested on the seventh, and now is the new day dawned. The first day of the new week is here. The first day of the new creation is begun. The first day of eternity has dawned upon you. See, the old has gone, and the new is here. You are a new creation, and you live among a people of new birth in water and the Word.

You are created anew to live in Christ. You are created to be the new Jerusalem, the new Israel, the people of God whom He will never leave nor forsake. Death, hell, and the grave could not keep the Lord from His people; neither will anything else in all creation. Death is swallowed up in life. The grave is broken. The dragon has lost his teeth. Remember how He told you that this would happen. And He has done it for you.

It was a strange and dreadful strife

When life and death contended;

The victory remained with life,

The reign of death was ended.

Holy Scripture plainly saith

That death is swallowed up by death,

Its sting is lost forever. Alleluia! (LSB 458.4)

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!