Easter 2024

 

Mark 16: 1-8

Easter Sunday 2024

The tomb is still empty!

 

Opening Prayer: Almighty God, who through the resurrection of Your only begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life, replenish us, we humbly ask You, with Your heavenly grace, that, dying unto sin always and living unto righteousness, we may at last triumph over death and the grave, in the full image of our risen Lord, to whom, with You and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and forever.  Amen.

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

The women were rightly worried.   They discussed who would roll away the stone from the door of the tomb.  That stone sealed in death.   Stone is the stuff of the Law.   The tablets God gave to Moses   were tablets of stone.   And that Law accuses all men born of human father of sin. The just verdict for sin is death.    So, as the tombs are sealed in stone, the Law seals all men in SIN.

 

That stone, the stone of the Law, cannot be removed by any fallen man by a pious life, or good works or by making the right choices in life.   By nature, we are sin.   The Law is immovable and hard; it is unforgiving.   The Law convicts.   The Law shows you your sins.    The Law seals in every sinner to death.    The women were right to be concerned about the stone.    That stone, sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers, was there to keep death in; to keep Jesus in the grave permanently.

 

They traveled to the sealed tomb in the shadows of the morning, while darkness was still clinging to earth.     But the tomb was still darker.   The lifeless body of the Crucified One lay in darkness for three days.   The women came to find a lifeless body.   The women came to prepare that body for proper burial, to plant it again in the earth, to consign that body to the dust of the ground.

 

But when the women arrived at the tomb, the light of day just breaking through, it was the third day.    The Lord was crucified and hurriedly buried on Friday, the Day of Preparation, before sundown.   He lay silent in the tomb on the Sabbath.   But now, as the light broke, it was Sunday, the Third Day, the Day not of death but of life, the Day that broke that ancient seven-day pattern, the New Day, the eighth day, the Day of Resurrection.

 

When the women looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away.   Death could not contain Him.   The living need no tomb.   He is not there.   He is not dead.   He is risen as He said.   Christ is risen!  Your Lord lives!    Death is vanquished!    Life is victorious!          This Easter morning we are reminded of this eternal truth:

 

THE TOMB OF JESUS IS STILL EMPTY.

 

He died bearing your sins on the cross.    For that He took on flesh.     For that He came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary.    He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.    But to do so, to take away the sins of the world, to atone for the sins of all men of all time, He became the greatest sinner of all time, although He never sinned.         So, bearing your sins, He suffered wrongful arrest, lies, blasphemies, scourge, and crucifixion.

 

He died the required death.    He died sinless, but bearing your sins, paying the full price for your sins by rendering His life.   Thus, in the death of Christ all your sins are forgiven.    In the death of Christ all your sins are removed.

 

He died, but He is not dead.   In Christ, in Christ crucified and risen, believing in Him, believing that His death is for you, believing that He rose again to new life on the third day, you are declared righteous in Christ.    His miraculous, glorious resurrection brings your justification.    The Law has no mastery over a righteous man.     In Christ, the Law no longer has mastery over you.    The stone is removed.   In Christ for you there is only grace, forgiveness, peace, and life.

 

That stone was not rolled away to allow the Lord to rise.   He took up His life again.    He laid it down of Himself, He took it up Himself.    Stone cannot stop the One who spoke stone into being.    Stone cannot hold the God who made it.

 

As He commanded the wind and waves, as He healed and blessed and raised the dead, so He left that sealed stone tomb: miraculously, alive, and just as He would enter that locked upper room and bid His frightened disciples’ peace.

 

This means that by God’s grace, through faith in the crucified and risen Christ, your sins are removed.   The stone is rolled back.   He is not there.   That empty tomb that once held death and darkness is now a bright chamber that echoes the Gospel truth to the ends of the earth.    God took on flesh to defeat sin, death, and devil. God took on flesh to redeem you.

 

Hear then the angelic pronouncement that brought such joy to the mourning women, the announcement that brings life to the world: “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.   He is risen!  He is not here.    See the place where they laid Him.   But go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.”

 

That tomb is still empty.    See by faith the place where they laid Him.     See the grave cloths neatly folded, the stone removed, the bright angel attesting, the shroud and napkin resting.    Hear the testimony of the Marys as recorded by the Evangelist.

 

And rejoice, dear Christian.  For Christ is risen.  But His resurrection, while a historic fact, is more than that.  His resurrection benefits you now, today.    His resurrection is the center and hope of the Christian faith.   His resurrection is proof indisputable that the Son born of Mary is God’s Son, God the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

 

Believing in Him, by the faith worked through your hearing of the Gospel Word by the power of the Holy Spirit, He makes His death and resurrection your very own.    In the baptismal font you die to sin.  And you rise from those blessed waters to new life, life that cannot be taken away because that font is intimately wrapped up in the Resurrection of Christ.

 

And in His resurrection is the sure promise of your resurrection on the Last Day, on the Day He calls you forth to usher you into heaven.   On that Day you too will you rise.   His victory over sin and death He makes yours.   The tomb will not hold you.    He will call you forth, as He promises, to a transformed body and an eternal life that cannot be taken away.

 

For He has ascended.   He has gone before you into heaven.  So, the angel’s words are words for you.   While the angel directed the women to go to Galilee, in Christ, He is going before you into paradise, and there you will see Him, as He said to you.

 

Until that Day, the crucified and risen Christ comes to you in His Holy Mysteries.

 

• He comes to you in word and water and in bread and wine as He does in Holy Communion this morning.
• He comes to you for the forgiveness of your sins.
• He comes to you to make your salvation sure, that you have the Christian hope only His resurrection can give.

 

The stone is rolled away—not for Him, but for you.  The stone is rolled away that you see with the eyes of faith that He is not there.     The tomb of Jesus is still empty for you.   The stone is rolled away because the Law is fulfilled for you by Christ the Sinless One, Christ the Sin-Bearer, Christ the Crucified, Christ the Risen, Christ who lives.

 

The tomb is empty. Christ is risen!    A blessed Easter.

 

Soli Deo Gloria