Easter Sermon 2024

Last week we talked about how God’s outrageous plan for the salvation of mankind centered on the cross of Jesus Christ. God’s outrageous plan required the atoning death of His only begotten Son, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.    

God’s outrageous plan included Jesus entering Jerusalem as a conquering king. His plan also included Jesus not behaving like a conquering king. Instead, by the end of the week after Palm Sunday, he had angered the authorities so much that they intensified and finalized their plot to have him killed. He had also alienated many of his disciples, and confused the rest with the way He was speaking about his own death and resurrection. This all seemed so outrageous to them. Jesus was not acting the part of a political messiah or savior. In fact, at the time, He seemed to be more of an anti-Messiah. Still, up until his arrest most of them stood by him.

God’s outrageous plan that Jesus would die for the sins of the whole world was going to happen, no matter what. But one of the disciples, Judas, felt the need to make sure it happened. He must not have really heard what Jesus had said earlier, The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” None of Jesus’ disciples understood God’s outrageous plan, but eleven of them seemed content, or at least willing, to wait and see what would happen. Judas was not content or willing to wait and see the glory of God in the suffering and death of His Son. Judas has his own plan for Jesus. The plan of a man is never, ever better than the outrageous plan of God.

Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, Jesus’ aunt, were wondering who would move the stone from Jesus’ tomb that first day of the week. They were going to anoint his body with the burial spices, probably Myrrh and frankincense. But when they arrived, the very large stone had already been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb. Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. 

He has risen; He is not here. We are aware that the cross is a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. The cross is an outrage to human sensibilities. As some prominent atheists will say; How dare God kill his own Son, its outrageous!

He has risen; He is not here. Outrageous! Impossible! People do not rise from the dead. Except, of course, when they do. But they only rise from the dead in connection with the one man, Jesus. We think of the son of the widow at Nain, Jairus daughter, and Lazarus. Also at the moment of Jesus’ death, Matthew 27 tells us this; The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. That’s pretty outrageous.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has written eternity into the hearts of mankind. All people have some type of idea of a better place, or something beyond, or after this life. Along with eternity being written on our hearts, the desire to worship something is also written upon our hearts. The question becomes then, who, or what do you worship? Judas worshiped a plan that was against God’s plan. In a sense, Judas worshiped himself. The eleven others waited to see if Jesus was the one who deserved worship. Their waiting paid off. Jesus rose from the dead.

We know that the wages of sin is death. Death is the curse upon all sinful mankind. No one escapes death. Death, being the end of life, tends to cause us to reflect more deeply, especially, perhaps over one’s own death. This reflection may bring about a deeper appreciation for the life that we have right now, even though we know that it will end.

The fact that eternity is written on our hearts causes us to look outside of ourselves for the mechanism of eternal life. In looking for that mechanism, some will get all the way up to Jesus, and stop there and say, No, that cant be it, or No, I don’t want that to be it. And they end up worshiping something or someone other than God’s Son. St. Paul tells is right: 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 

Do you long for eternity, your heavenly home? Baptized, you died with him and rose again already. You are already a citizen of eternity, one foot here, one foot there. Jesus is your risen Savior.

   The peace that surpasses all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Amen.