The Resurrection of Our Lord 2012

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: Mark 16:8
Theme: Deferred Joy

Dear friends in Christ Jesus,

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

The women fled from the tomb trembling and bewildered! An empty sepulcher hadn’t crossed their minds. An angelic greeting was not on their agenda. Their Lord was dead and though shock had perhaps not yet given way to acceptance and grief unplanned encounters only confused their thoughts. They saw where His limp body had been laid. They were certain to find Him there. They were visibly shaken and hurried off.

Jesus lives! But that was by no means the first conclusion reached on Easter morning. Christ eventually turned the despair of His followers into joy. He served notice that death no longer has the final say. Today is Easter Sunday, the Sunday of Christ’s Resurrection. It is the highpoint of the Church Year. Here our faith stands on God’s greatest intervention in the human demise. The anchor of hope, the bedrock of certainty, the foundation of joy all rest on Jesus’ triumph over death. Sin is disarmed. Satan is silenced. The Crucified One lives! Through your baptismal faith you live in Him. God has not come to visit but to dwell permanently with His people. The resurrection of Christ is the power and preview of God’s life among us.

What does the apostle say, “What I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”1 Appropriately, these truths are the heart and centre of our creed. To the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection He said, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive.”2 The living God, the truth of the resurrection confronts the same skeptical minds today. Only the message that the Crucified One lives can overcome the greatest sin: The sin of unbelief.

Of course we shouldn’t get the idea that at Easter the desires of the sinful nature simply cease even for the Christian. We are always looking for legal protection for our favourite sins. Then sinner is always happy when the law of the land affords protection for things deemed offensive to God. And the more sophisticated we become the more ‘spiritually legitimate’ our defense needs to be. What greater argument then that Easter gives us license to take liberty with God’s law? Suddenly too, the examples of the great figures of old are called on for justification. Moses permitted divorce. David committed adultery. Lot abandoned his daughters to homosexual offenders. Our indiscretions must surely be trivial in comparison? Soon we are putting far more effort into searching for vindication than we are for absolution. Repentance is much easier if we think we have already mounted a reasonable defence! But it is a game of vanity.

Easter doesn’t mean we’re no longer sinners. It means we have forgiveness and a new power to face temptation. Cycles of sin and selfishness are always in danger of controlling our behavior. We become filled with frustration and that leads to anger, then anger gains the upper hand and it ends in regret. We become filled with fear and that leads to anxiety, then anxiety gains the upper hand and it ends in depression. We become filled with doubt and that leads to skepticism, then skepticism gains the upper hand and it ends in unbelief. We become filled with selfishness and that leads to addiction, then addiction gets the upper hand and it ends in abuse. And the scenarios are as endless as our sinful natures are perverse.

How can things change? How will deaf ears be opened? How will hardened hearts be broken? How will selfishness be controlled and unrighteousness overthrown? Not by any power or persuasion of human cleverness or ingenuity. He doesn’t legitimize our ways. He says, “Go…and leave your life of sin.”3 How? His truth is not static information. It has surgical precision and divine power. The Holy Spirit conforms the believer to the living Christ. He is the pardon for abusers, the scapegoat for addicts, hope for the despairing and calm for the wrathful. He is peace in times of turmoil and certainty in times of doubt. In the security of His salvation we can live sacrificially for others.

During the Revolutionary War in America a young officer in the British army became engaged to a young lady in England before embarking with his regiment. In one of the battles of the Revolution the officer was badly wounded and lost a leg. He wrote to his fiancé telling her he was disfigured, maimed, and so changed from what he had been when she had last seen him he felt it was his duty to release her from all obligation to become his wife. Though heartbroken he was sincere. The young lady responded with no less a noble answer. She dismissed all thought of refusing to marry him because of what had happened in battle, and said she was willing to be his bride if there was enough of his body left to hold his soul!

Dear friends, life can be bruising. We accumulate wounds and scars. We may even tire of our own sinful ways. We may be weary of the burden of guilt and remorse. But God has hidden all of our infirmities in the wounds of Christ. Your guilt has been baptismally buried. You are fed with the food of immortality. Satan cannot overcome you. Christ’s resurrection prevents it. Sin cannot enslave you. You live in Christ’s freedom. You are His bride and He will resurrect your spent and battle-ravaged body to be like His glorious body. How short the time really is until the fever of life will cease!

There was a little girl whose home was near the cemetery and in order to go to the local store she had to follow a path that lead through the cemetery along the graves. But she never seemed to have any sense of fear even when she returned at dusk. Someone asked her “Aren’t you afraid to walk through the cemetery alone and in the dark?” “Oh, no,” she replied, “My home is just beyond and the light is always on.”

The Scripture says we have no enduring city here4. Yet we need not fear for our home is just beyond the cemetery. There beams the brilliant countenance of Christ. The dawn of Easter will never fade. The Father spreads His canopy as an eternal fortress. The Holy Spirit permeates the heart of every saint. St. John, who beheld it most clearly recorded what he heard; “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”5 Thanks be to the risen Christ who reigns eternally. Amen.

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!
+ in nomine Jesu +

The Resurrection of our Lord
Easter Sunday
8 April, 2012
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt

1 1 Corinthians 15:3-4
2 Luke 20:38
3 John 8:11
4 See Hebrews 13:14
5 Revelation 21:3-4
6 See John 1:29
7 Job 19:25-26