Easter Sermon

Sermon # 1038
April 24, 2011
Mark 16:1-8
Dr. Ed Pettus

“He Has Been Raised!”
He has been raised! With those words the world was changed. At the time those words probably brought mixed feelings and thoughts of fear and wonder, awe and excitement, surprise and confusion. It would be difficult to imagine – one day Jesus is dead and laid in a borrowed tomb and on the third day his body is gone. He has been raised! Good news.

Today we celebrate and give thanks for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Imagine what it must have been like to expect death but receive life. Imagine what it must have been like to expect a body and receive a message… “he has been raised, he is not here”. The women had come to care for the body of Jesus because, to them, it still mattered. It was important that Jesus receive the burial preparation that could not be given before his placement in the tomb. The Sabbath was over now and they believed it important that proper respect and proper care be given to the dead. So they came to the tomb, but he was gone. “Look, there is the place they laid him”. It was a bare place, no body, only a young man dressed in white telling the women: “he is not here”.

Marks says that terror and amazement seized the women. I imagine we too would have been seized by the same feelings. Terror is not our emotion today as we celebrate the empty tomb. Hopefully we are still amazed. Hopefully the empty tomb leaves us so amazed that, in one respect, we become like those women who left the tomb speechless. That is one of the wonders of this story – the resurrection at first leaves us speechless, because words, mere words cannot do it justice. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is too big for words and all we are left with is the amazement and terror of the empty tomb.

When words are not enough we use symbols. The symbol of the empty tomb says more than words are able. The symbol of the empty cross says more than we can. Today we remember Jesus through the symbols of bread and wine (grape juice!), symbols which say something more to us than words might.

Today we will hear music to help us listen to the message. We will tell the story again in song. Music stirs us to hear in a different way. But there are many ways to hear and see: in music, in words, in springtime, in symbols, in Mark’s testimony of the women at the tomb, even in the women’s silence there is testimony.

Out of the silence we may hear God. From our symbols we might see anew. Our amazement this Easter morning might renew our faith. He is risen; he is not in the tomb and because he has been raised we are alive to God. Jesus lives and because he lives we live to God! Paul writes that all we have to do is confess and believe:

…if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved (Romans 10:9-10).

Today we gather around the table to be nurtured for new life in Christ. Today we listen for God’s word to us in scripture, in preaching, in the sacrament, and in song. It is a great day, a joyous day, an exciting day to celebrate Christ raised from the dead, Christ living today, and to delight in the glad news of the gospel: “Christ is risen!” He is not in the tomb but God has raised him from the dead. May we always be amazed for this is our very life: Jesus Christ – the risen Lord. Amen.