Easter
Sunrise!
Christ is
Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
To the honor and
praise of our merciful, eternal God, we wish to preach today about the
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It
is proper that we do so. This festival
enables us to focus on the Gospel’s account of Christ’s resurrection and to
learn from it. It is incumbent upon us
therefore, to speak of these happenings, since so much depends upon them for
our good, not only in this present life but also in the life to come. Moreover, when we dwell upon these events, we
do so not only because it is useful and good, but also because there with God
is praised and glorified. At least a few
on earth may listen to it earnestly and then to come to thank our Lord Jesus
Christ for his suffering and resurrection.
Accordingly, it pleases God when we thus pay attention to and preach
about the story.
In fact, the times
never comes when we have preached and heard enough concerning the significance
of Christ’s resurrection. We are not
preaching anything new, but always, without ceasing about that man who is
called Jesus Christ, true God and true man, who died for our sins and rose for
our justification. Yet even if we were
again and again to preach about and dwell upon these events, we could never
really exhaust their meaning. We would
remain like infants and young children, just learning to speak, scarcely able
to form half words!
That is why we
wish to speak about it now, because our highest good depends upon it. So, it is my greatest concern to sustain your
interest in this article so that when I’m dead and gone, I might have left you
with this treasure. A treasure that
lasts forever, where rust and mold do not destroy. A treasure of eternal life found in the
resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.
Yes, today is
about him. He is the one who has won the
victory for us. Death attacked him, who
should not die, and was defeated. For
death had to be swallowed up! The devil
must have trembled in fear along with our enemy death. For they were felled and laid prostrate under
Christ’s feet.
Christ tore open
the belly of the devil and the muzzle of death on this day! Sin death, do you hear? Shameful devil, why are you accusing us? What right have you against us? Sin death and the devil must now be silent as
far as Christ is concerned, for he triumphed as Lord over sin death and the
devil, not only because he was true God, but also because he was innocent as
concerns his human nature.
And now we esteem
him as highest. Christ is Lord of
all. For if he is mighty, so too must be
the resurrection which he experienced – and which we will one day experience as
well. Yes, you will raise because Christ
has raised. Death is powerless, in fact
it has been reduced, as Christ says himself, to a sleep.
Hear it
again! Today we rejoice because our Lord
Jesus Christ by his triumph overwhelmed and felled death and the devil; the
devil he strangled in his own body, death he drowned in his own blood; sin he
erased with his martyrdom and suffering.
All this Christ personally accomplished, but not for himself. He did not require such a victory for himself
after all, he accomplished it for you and for your forgiveness. Because of his work, you, I and everyone
else, all of us are benefited. That is
the power and the fruit of Christ’s suffering and resurrection.
If a person does
not wish to believe this, let him be. We
preach to those who gladly hear and who have need of this message. These are the ones who live in mortal fear
and despair of death and say, “I have sinned I have neither peace nor
rest. I will one day die for my
guilt.”
Against such an
enemy it is necessary and needful that we arm and compose ourselves with a
correct understanding of the power and fruit of Christ’s Resurrection. He did not come for his own sake to
earth. He did not permit himself to be
killed for his own sake. He had no need
of this, but instead he bore your sin, and by his death he swallowed up your
death (and mine) forever. Hell, which we
deserved, he has destroyed, as Hosea writes, “I will ransom them from the power
of the grave. I will redeem them from
death.”
And so it is that
we must remember this day, this Easter, every day of our life. If the devil approaches us and says, “Look
here, see how great your sin is; see too how bitter, how terrible is the death
you must suffer;” then you must counter with “Devil, don’t you know the power
of my Lord Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection? In him there is eternal righteousness and
eternal life; his resurrection from the dead is mightier than my sin, death,
and hell, greater than heaven and earth.
My death and sin are minute drops, but my Lord Jesus’ death and
resurrection is a vast ocean.
Dear friends, Christ
is risen today! We should be confident
that through Christ’s resurrection and victory we have the firm assurance that
no sin, not even death, may frighten us.
If sin and death frighten us, it is unjustly so, or because we don’t
believe, for Christ has set us free. He
has surmounted all excruciating suffering, and wishes to be our comfort,
greater than our sin and death, yes greater than heaven and earth. But how does our human nature react? Since this treasure is not in dollars or gold
pieces, which we can see and our fists grab hold of, we despise it when it is
preached to us through the Word. I
admonish each of you that you learn and comprehend these facts well. Whoever is not well-grounded and practiced in
these articles of faith will find when attacked what a master the devil
is. May our Dear Lord Jesus Christ, who
wishes to be our comfort, give us his grace and Spirit, so that we may well
remember and retain this lesson.
For Christ is
Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
