Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, amen.
Alleluia, Christ is risen! Yes, that is victory cry of the Church on this day as we remember and celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. It is a day full of unparalleled hope and joy, a day when we finally get to open up the floodgates and sing resounding “Alleluias” once again after a long period of abstinence, the day that the Lord’s Bride lives for, around which her life revolves! But, for all of that, did you notice a few key things missing in the Gospel lesson appointed for this day? First, St. Mark’s Gospel lesson appointed for this momentous and joyous occasion does not have much happiness, hope, or joy in it. It begins with the women heading toward Jesus’ tomb to embalm His body in spices, as was the custom of the day, which was not a very hope-filled task. The second thing that is missing is Jesus Himself! Now, I don’t just mean from the tomb, but literally, Jesus is nowhere to be found in this morning’s Gospel.
So, first things being first, we’ll start with the fairly obvious lack of joy in St. Mark’s account of the resurrection of our Lord. There isn’t very much at all by the way of hope and joy we, in fact, see their very opposite emotions. The first emotion we are introduced to is worry or concern, the polar opposite of hope, for exactly how it was that the stone would be rolled away. It was a large stone set in an inclined groove so the worry of the women here, you might say, is warranted. Perhaps they thought that somehow, between the three of them, they could roll the massive covering away from the entrance to the tomb. But I also get a sense of doubt on their part every time I read this lesson. Because it was a massive undertaking, and would be incredibly difficult, if it were even possible at all, to move such a thing as the stone covering.
The second emotion we see in this morning’s reading is not joy, but rather fear. Translated here as “alarmed”, the Greek word “ἐκθαμβέω” (ek-tham-BEY-oh) more accurately means “terrified”. And that is not altogether unexpected now, is it? After all these women were going to a tomb, the place where one might rightly expected to find nothing but a dead body, and instead they found a living, breathing person sitting inside the burial chamber, in the very place where Jesus’ lifeless body had so recently been laid to rest! What a bummer of a lesson this Gospel reading is for such a wonderfully celebratory day, isn’t it?
Perhaps we might be able to look at it that way, but I think that St. Mark was inspired to write about the resurrection in such a way for a good reason. As one pastor put it; the women are, at first, worried about something that they didn’t need to worry about at all. And I think that is something every one of us can relate to, can’t we? How often have we fretted and been filled up with concern over things in our lives that never transpired? As the women go to the tomb of the Lord on that first Easter morning they worry about who will move the stone, but I wonder; as you came to church this Easter morning what were you worried about? What concerns were weighing heavily on your minds as you prepared for this wonderful and glorious celebration of the resurrection of your Lord? Finances? Health? Family issues? A loved one struggling with an unnamed or unknown trial or temptation? And unlike the women going toward Jesus’ tomb, we know that it will be empty! Yet, even so, how often do we let the concerns of the world take away the joy of that empty tomb? How often are we worried that the God who leaves the tomb barren will not do for us the things that we ask or need? How many times, in that worry, have we attempted to take matters into our own hands to “right the wrongs”, “correct the course”, or “manage the issues” in our lives in our own way and on our own timeline?
But isn’t that empty tomb the cornerstone of our faith? If the women had gone there that morning and Jesus’ lifeless body had still lain in that burial chamber, what hope would there be for any of us? Yet how often do we let the worries of this life overshadow the joy of our Lord’s resurrection? I think, like the women in this morning’s lesson, we often get too preoccupied with other things to really consider what it means for us in our lives. I believe that St. Mark was inspired to write his account of the resurrection of our Lord in such a way so that each of us might more easily read ourselves into it. For while we might think that we would be neither surprised nor worried, more often than not like the women, we are often worried about things in our own lives of which we need not worry, and surprised when things work out far better for us than we ever could have imagined!
The other glaringly absent figure in today’s Gospel reading for the resurrection of our Lord is the Lord Himself! It seems as though we have the least Easter-y of all readings for this Easter Sunday, doesn’t it? And so not seeing Jesus, but rather a stranger who inexplicably knows details of what the Lord had said to His disciples in private, the women flee from the tomb and say nothing about their experience! Yet again, I think that there are some beautiful parallels between this Gospel and our lives today. Because, you see, just like the women you don’t see Jesus either. No, as one brother pastor put it; like them you have a man, dressed in white, standing before you telling you the good news that Jesus is risen, but still there is no body to prove what is said. And so, like the women, oftentimes you will leave this place and not say anything to anyone about what took place here because it is a frightening thing to live out your faith in a world that hates the One in whom that faith is placed. In fact, the devil, the world, and the sinful flesh hate it so much that they nailed Him to a cross and crucified Him!
But the implicit promise for those women on that first Easter morning is the promise that you have today as well; the things that Jesus said are all promises that are fulfilled by Him perfectly. He told His disciples that these things would happen, He promised them that they would see Him again, and He did just what He said He would do. He suffered and died on the cross in order to win back His people from the power that sin, death, and the devil held over them ever since the Fall. He died so that those who believe in Him might live! And He rose from the dead to prove His authority over all things, even death itself, just as He told and promised His disciples all along!
Similarly, you too have heard the promise of forgiveness proclaimed to you in the blessed words of Holy Absolution, the declaration that the sins forgiven have been removed from you and will be remembered no more, that the crucified and risen Christ has made complete and total satisfaction for each and every one of them! So in the witness of His empty tomb, while you will not find the body of Christ, you can find rest and hope that the promises He proclaims to you, through His servant, are just as sure and certain as if Christ Himself spoke those very words into your ears and hearts. You can rest assured that forgiveness is yours because when God speaks, things happen. As the angel told the women where the disciples might find Jesus, so too you are told today where you will find Him; for them it was in Galilee, for you it is right here in His Word and Sacrament which are given for the edification of your spirits and the uplifting of your souls.
So, while we may not see Jesus physically, He is here among us in His Word and Sacrament, sealing His promises to you with the means of grace He gives to His church to uplift, sustain, and support her in her doubts, worries, and fears. Since we have such wonderful and beautiful gifts given us here this Lord’s Day we proclaim today with the whole Church of God, redeemed by Christ Jesus by His death and resurrection, the promise that is our great and unending hope; Alleluia, Christ is risen! And because He is risen, we have a hope that can never be taken away, for all the enemies who would try to take that hope from us have been shown to be liars and weak in the face of the promises and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Because He is risen, we have a joy that can never be extinguished, for that joy is found in the One who suffered and died for each and every one of our sins and, as Luther once said, because He has done so and made satisfaction for them all “where He is, there I will be also!” Or, to put it another way:
“I know that my Redeemer lives;
What comfort this sweet sentence gives!
He lives, He lives, who once was dead;
He lives, my ever-living Head.”
What a beautiful proclamation we have put upon our lips this morning! For in those three little words the fullness of God’s glory, honor, power, dominion, and might are proclaimed in their fullness. So I pray, this day and always, that you would find ceaseless hope, comfort, and joy in this Eastertide proclamation of Christ’s forgiveness of all of your sins, His defeat of all of your enemies, and His promise of eternal and everlasting life and salvation won for you in His death and resurrection. For indeed, this truth remains; Christ is risen!
Amen.