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[00:00:00] Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia. This is the Sunday drive to church for Easter. Sunday, April 20, the year of our Lord 2025, the 1992nd anniversary of the Lord's resurrection from the dead being the first fruits of them that sleep, but certainly not the last fruits of them that sleep. This is our joy and our confidence as we consider how Jesus has conquered the last enemy. We'll hear about that in the Epistle. He's conquered the last enemy, death, which faces us all. And he's done it not for Himself. He's done it for us. He didn't need to rise from the dead to live forever. He's the eternal Son of God, but he takes upon himself our sin and our corruption and our condemnation and our guilt and our shame and our suffering and our dying, so that he can be our life and joy and peace and righteousness and forgiveness and life and light and eternal joy. And that's our confidence today. And I'll have to tell you, I am especially excited today this Easter to preach about the Lord's victory over death because it gives us confidence not only as we face death, but as we also consider the death of those that we love. On a quick personal note, thank you.
[00:01:28] You all dear saints, have been so kind to extend your condolences and your prayers. I know you've been praying for and my family, as we've been with dad, especially in his last days. He passed from death to life this last Tuesday. We found out. I was working on his obituary on Friday and found out that April 15, the day that he died, was also the same day he was confirmed. Back in 1960, Zion Lutheran Church in Kerrville, Texas, had the custom of doing confirmation on Good Friday evening so that all the Confirmans are ready for confirmation on Easter. And that's when it was back then. So God be praised that he is rejoicing in the Lord's gifts of life. One of the conversations that dad and I had two weeks ago was we were talking about if in heaven there's a special celebration of Easter or if it's just basically Easter all the time, and I don't know the answer, but, dad, does God be prayed. So thank you again for your prayers and thoughts.
[00:02:43] It's been a great comfort to know that we're surrounded by such a beautiful Christian family that we're all rejoicing in the resurrection. Let's pray the collect for Easter Sunday, if I can find. Here it is. Look at this. The collect, which is pretty close to the beginning is not until page 13 of this marvelous bulletin that Jonathan has put together this year.
[00:03:08] The art is phenomenal. But you are all required, by the way, to take the bulletin home and to read the quotations that are there, especially Ambrose and the Luther and the Chemnitz. But all of them, this is a way to extend our meditation on the Lord's joy and the Lord's peace this Easter. So those are all. Those are all there for you to meditate on. God be praised. Okay, enough of this. Let's pray. Almighty God, through your only begotten son, Jesus Christ, you overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life. We humbly pray that we may live before you in righteousness and purity forever through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:04:05] Let's talk about what you are going to encounter in the service today. We are Divine service setting three. So in some ways, the service itself, the liturgy is pretty normal. It is adorned with lots of music and the lilies. I saw them yesterday. They are ready to go. It's beautiful. Compared to the Easter vigil, which was last night, this crazy service with fires and candles and all sorts of other stuff, the liturgy for Easter Sunday is pretty normal. In fact, it's back to normal. And it's not that. In fact, let's think about it a little bit. It's not that the liturgy on Easter Sunday is normal. It's that in some ways, every Sunday in the church year is Easter Sunday. And so this is the Easter liturgy. It's just what we do every Sunday, because every Sunday, the first day of the week, we're remembering the Lord's victory over death. But there's a few things that we can point out. The first is you'll notice that the Introit, it's all printed in the bulletin, by the way. Don't even need a hymnal if you're crammed into the transepts where there are barely no hymnals. It's all right, because it's all in the bulletin. But the Introit is not from a psalm like it normally is, but from Exodus 15.
[00:05:20] And you'll remember Exodus 15 if you look in your Bible. It's subtitled the Song of the Sea. This is after the Lord has rescued his people from the pharaohs, from the pharaoh through the Red Sea and brought them out onto the other side. And the horse and the rider have been thrown into the sea, and they have made it safely on the other side and they take up this song. Moses, Miriam, all the people. I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider is thrown into the sea.
[00:05:54] The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. That comes up later in the Psalms, in Isaiah. Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power. Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed. You have guided them by your strength to your holy abode. You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain. The place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode. The sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. The Lord will reign forever. We might think, by the way, that when they're singing that song in, in Exodus 15, that the holy mountain might be the mountain, Mount Sinai, where the Lord appeared to them. But we know from the history of the Old Testament that the Lord's going to establish his habitation on Mount Zion, which is underneath Jerusalem.
[00:06:49] But really, that Mount Zion in Jerusalem is pointing to the throne of God in heaven, which is the true Jerusalem itself.
[00:06:59] Beautiful. So here we have the picture of the Lord triumphing over Pharaoh and all that enslaves us, and that becomes for us a type and a picture of the Lord's overcoming of sin and the devil, and especially of death and the grave. He has triumphed over them. And that's really the theme that we run with all Easter Sunday and the whole season of Easter. The Lord has triumphed. He has destroyed death. He has undone its power. I'm looking here at the Athanasius quotation on the very next page where it says, he has undone. Inasmuch as its power, death's power was fully spent on the Lord's body and had no longer holding ground against men, his peers. He's undone that power of death. It's great. We'll sing the glory in Excelsior. We've been holding back on our alleluias and on our glorias, and we bring it back full throated song. Glory to God in the highest peace to his people on earth.
[00:08:08] The Old Testament lesson from Isaiah 65. Remember, Isaiah has 66 chapters. And some old Bible teacher some years ago has said that if you look at the structure of Isaiah, it serves as a microcosm of the whole Bible. So Isaiah has 66 chapters. The Bible has 66 books. The last 27 chapters of Isaiah are really different than the first chapters. First 49, is that right? 49 chapters. And you see that's also the division. The Old Testament. No. 39 and 27. Yeah. So there's 39 Old Testament books and there's 27 New Testament books. You see that Isaiah 1:39 is Old Testament ish, and that Isaiah 40 to 66 is New Testament ish. And that you can even parallel it, even more detail. That's interesting to look at. But by the time you get to Isaiah 65, 64, 65, 66, you're deep into the new work that God has done through the death and resurrection of his Son. So we read in verse 17, which is the first verse, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. The former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem a joy, and her people a gladness. It goes on to talk about how they're not going to build and someone else live in it, they're not going to plant and someone else eat, which was always the curse, the threat of the curse in the Old Testament. No, you're going to. You're going to plant and eat. You're going to build and live in it. The children will live for a hundred years.
[00:09:55] How does it say it there? The young man shall die a hundred years old, and a sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed so that there's no death that's there. This is also where the. Remember how you hear this phrase, the lion lays down with the lamb. It's actually not in the Bible, but it gets close to it. And it's from this verse 25 that we'll hear today. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. Dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountains. Now, what is this talking about?
[00:10:32] It's a mysterious text. I don't have it pinned down. The best I can do with it is that this is a picture of.
[00:10:40] It's a picture of the resurrection that's seeping into this life by faith in the church.
[00:10:50] So if you could think of it like this. Remember how when Jesus comes out of the grave, he is the first fruits.
[00:10:57] And now we're waiting for the fullness of this work to be realized on the last day when Jesus will raise all the dead.
[00:11:07] But we have that resurrection and that new creation. But we have it now by faith. And on the last day, we'll have it by sight. And so this is a picture of this overlapping.
[00:11:24] How the kingdom of God is overlapping this mortal life.
[00:11:30] So that while it's true that if you live to 100, you've done really well, most people don't make it that far, certainly not the children. By the time you get to 100, you're an old man or an old lady.
[00:11:42] But we still have by faith this glorious promise that the Lord has brought to us peace.
[00:11:51] It's the difference between walking by faith and walking by sight. So that when we walk by sight, we see corruption and sin and dying and sickness and all this other horrible stuff.
[00:12:07] But when we are given the eyes of faith, when the Holy Spirit works in us through the Word to have the eyes of Jesus, then we see that there is peace and victory over death and the new heaven and the new earth. It starts to creep in. It's kind of like what Jesus says to Nicodemus. Remember, all those who believe in me have eternal life. It doesn't look like it yet. I mean, it looks like our lives come to an end, but in Christ, we have already eternal life.
[00:12:45] I'm going to read to you all of the epistle. This is 1 Corinthians 15, 19, 26, and you're required. By the way, your homework this week is to read all of First Corinthians chapter 15. That's always the Easter week homework assignment, the whole thing. It's a long chapter, and it's where Paul talks about how O death wears your sting. I can't wait to hear that on Saturday next week at the grave. O death, where is your sting? Oh, grave, where is your victory? The strength of sin is the law.
[00:13:19] Now I'm forgetting it. Just when I'm reading it or quoting it to you, I forget it. Okay, I've got a Bible here. Good thing. The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's 1 Corinthians 15:56 at the end. That's the proclamation at the at the graveside.
[00:13:42] And all those graveside promises come from 1 Corinthians 15, that Jesus is the one who overcomes death.
[00:13:51] Here's 1 Corinthians 15, 19, 26.
[00:13:55] Each one of these words is an absolute treasure.
[00:13:59] Paul says, if in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people, most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also. The resurrection of the dead.
[00:14:23] For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order. Christ, the firstfruits, then at his coming, those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
[00:14:56] So death has now lost its power. It's lost its sting. And it's being destroyed.
[00:15:02] And on the last day, it'll be no more.
[00:15:07] This is so good. So one man brought death. Adam, I remember Luella, who. She's in Colorado. She's in heaven now, waiting to meet you. And I would go and visit her, and she would always say, it's all Adam's fault, isn't it, Pastor? I had this feeling that when Luella got to heaven, she was going to be like, where's Adam? She was going to give him a talking to. Adam and Eve, they reached out their hand and grabbed that forbidden fruit and brought death into the world. And death reigned from Adam to Christ. But now Jesus has taken our humanity so that he can take our death and take our place and be the new Adam, the Father of the new creation, the one who brings life where there was death and forgiveness, where there's sin and freedom, where there is the devil's dominion and reign. That, by the way, when it says here that he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, this is an amazing kind of picture that Jesus wins the victory and then he brings this. The picture is that he's bringing this restored humanity and presenting it to the Father, and then the Father gives it back to the Son so that we are part of the gift exchange between the Father and the Son. It's so glorious. But it says, after destroying every rule and every authority and power. So those terms there, rule and authority and power are technical terms. They can be used for human rulers, but they are most often used by Paul to designate the ranks and the offices of the demons. So that when he says every rule and every authority and every power, he's talking about the spiritual tyranny of the demons that is overcome by the Lord's overcoming of death.
[00:16:58] And this is reflected also in Hebrews chapter two, where Paul or whoever wrote Hebrews is saying that he has, by his own death, has destroyed him. Who has the power of death, that is the devil. Now, this is maybe something that I'll be preaching about in a few minutes, but it's good for us to remember that sin, death and the dev. These three forces that are arrayed against God and his people, Sin, death and the devil are always found together, so that on the day you eat of it, you will surely die. So that sin is connected to death, and all of it is connected to the devil who's there tempting them. So you can't have one without the other. You can't have sin without the devil, you can't have sin without death, you can't have death without sin, you can't have the devil without death, and vice versa. They always are are bound up together. And that's true with Adam.
[00:17:53] So sin and death and devil all go together. You get one, you get all three. It's a three for one deal.
[00:17:59] But it's also true not only in their victory over humanity in the garden, it's also true in their defeat.
[00:18:09] So as soon as Jesus forgives sins on the cross, he is going to be raised on the third day. Because if sin is overcome, then death is overcome. And if death is overcome, then the devil is overcome. He's cast out of heaven.
[00:18:29] They stand together and they fall together so that the cross and the resurrection are all one piece of the Lord's victory over these three great enemies.
[00:18:44] This is why the greatest thing that you can hear when you're fighting the devil and the demons is that your sins are forgiven. Because if there's nothing to accuse, then the devil has no place. And this is why, when the devil is destroyed, that we're set free from the fear of death.
[00:19:01] And this becomes one of the marks of the Christians. There's one of these. There's a quote in here from one of the church fathers.
[00:19:09] Let me see if I can find it. And it talks about freedom from the fear of death.
[00:19:18] Oh, that's a good one. Ah, here. So this is St. John Chrysostom.
[00:19:25] He died 407. This is old, but listen to what this is. A quote. It's on page 34. You got a big bulletin to get ready for. Let no one fear death, for the Savior's death has set us free. He that was taken by death has annihilated it. He descended into Hades and took Hades captive. He angered it. Oh, this is so good. He talks about how mad death gets on Easter and how angry hell gets on Easter. He angered it when he tasted of his flesh. So death tastes Christ's flesh and says, raw. I hate the taste of it.
[00:20:01] Oh, Hades, you have been angered. And by encountering him in the netherworld, Hades is Angered because frustrated. It is angered because it has been mocked. It is angered because it has been destroyed. It is angered because it has been reduced to naught. It is angered because it is now captive. It seized a body and lo, it encountered heaven. It seized the visible and was overcome by the invisible. O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? Christ is risen and you are abolished. Christ is risen and the demons are cast down. Christ is risen and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen and life is freed. Christ is risen and the tomb is empty. To the dead. For Christ being risen from the dead, has become the leader and reviver of those who have fallen asleep. To him be glory and power for forever and ever. Amen.
[00:20:56] That's Chrysostom on the death of death.
[00:21:01] So that the death of Jesus means that we have nothing to fear in death. And in that lack of fearing death, the devil himself has overcome. He has no place, nothing to accuse us. He's got no leverage. You know, as long as we're afraid to die, the devil has some leverage to get in there and say, oh, well, look, I'm going to, I'm going to kill you if you don't do this, or I'm going to torture you if you don't do that. Whatever, whatever. But when we're free from that fear of death, now, now there's no place for the devil to get in there. Sin, death and devil, they stand together, they fall together. Here's the gospel, Luke 24. On the first day of the week, early at dawn, they went to the tomb. Oh, I should tell you this. If you go and look at the Gospel accounts of the resurrection, just read through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. At first glance, you say something is not right. Something's not matching up here. And in fact, this is one of the accusations that the atheists will bring to the Christian, at least they used to when they used to read the Bible and care about these things. And they'll say, the Bible is full of contradictions. You cannot get, you cannot harmonize all the accounts of the resurrection. You can, though, but there's a little bit of work that you have to do. And there's a beautiful article. I'll try to send it out in the See a Sunday email. It's a beautiful article that harmonizes the resurrection and I always go back to it because it does such a good job. Here's the main way. Here's the main thing that you have to do. You have to assume two things. Number one, that the disciples were staying in two different spots, that John and Peter are staying in John's place in Jerusalem and that the other nine are staying with Mary, Martha and Lazarus, together with Mary, the mother of Jesus in Bethany. Okay, the second assumption you have to make is that when the women come early to the tomb, they go into the garden. There's probably Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her sister Mary and Salome and Mary Magdalene. And Mary Magdalene sees the open tomb and she takes off to tell John and Peter. She doesn't wait to hear the voice of the angels. The other women come to the tomb and the angels encounter them and say, why are you looking for the living among the dead? He's not here. Go and tell his disciples. And they go and wander through Jerusalem, making their way back to Bethany kind of in a daze. In the meantime, Mary Magdalene has found John and Peter, and they come to the tomb.
[00:23:45] And remember, John gets there first, but Peter goes in and looks. They see the grave close, the angels are gone, and then they leave. And Mary Magdalene remains herself. So in that early morning encounter of Mary and Jesus, it's actually after the other women have visited the tomb and Peter and John have visited the tomb, but they didn't see the angels. In fact, the disciples never see the angels. The angels, as far as I can tell, only appear to the women.
[00:24:13] Someone can correct me on that, but I think that's the case.
[00:24:16] But then, while Mary is lingering in the garden, she appears to Jesus.
[00:24:22] Jesus appears to her and comforts her and says, go tell the disciples. And then Jesus appears to the women who are wandering through Jerusalem on their way back to Bethany. And then everybody is gathered back into Jerusalem. The women go tell the other disciples in Bethany. They come back into Jerusalem. They're all in the upper room. Maybe Jesus appears to Peter before that, but then he appears to all of them in the upper room, except for Thomas. So ten of the disciples and others in the upper room on the afternoon of Jesus, on the afternoon of Easter. And then Jesus appears to two disciples. Not those disciples that are on the way to Emmaus are not part of the 12, but two other disciples on the way to Emmaus. He appears to them also on the road. So in fact, it goes probably the opposite way. He appears first on the road, and then he appears to the others. But there's those two little things that Mary Magdalene leaves the garden before the angel talks and that Peter and John are staying in a different place than the other disciples. If you start with those two assumptions, then all of these resurrection accounts harmonize really quite beautifully. And in fact, then each one of them becomes a unique glimpse in those events from their perspective. So Matthew in Bethany sees Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus and her sister Mary and Salome sees them leaving and then sees them come back.
[00:25:55] John has the visit from Mary Magdalene, the run to the tomb and then Mary's appearance.
[00:26:03] Luke has the perspective from Mary, the mother of Jesus, who we know he interviewed to get a lot of the details for his own gospel. And who am I missing? Mark.
[00:26:15] Matthew? Did I say Mark already? Mark is probably seeing. So there's this thought that Mark's family is in fact the family that had the upper room where the Lord's Supper is celebrated and where all the disciples are then gathered when Jesus appears to them. So Mark has also his own unique eyewitness account of these things as people are coming and going. I'll try to send that article in the email. It's really quite amazing. So here we have it from Luke. On the first day of the week, early at dawn, they went to the tomb. They had taken the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away. But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead? He's not here. He's risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified on the third, and on the third day rise. And they remembered his words. It's amazing how the angels are always pointing back to the words of our Lord. And now they're saying, oh yeah, oh yeah. Of all people. I mean, it seems like they should have known this. How marvelous that the angels deliver this comfort. Our hymn of the week is. Oh, look at this big picture in the middle that has like the entirety of Holy Week pictured there.
[00:27:46] You should look at this picture in the middle of the bulletin. I have the black and white version, so I don't think it's as good as the one that you're going to be looking at. But it has like the. If you start on the left, it has the Lord's Supper and then it has the arrest in the garden on the bottom left. And then it has the trial and the beating of Jesus and the sinner, and then they take him out of the city on the bottom Right. He's carrying the cross. And then you see the crucifixion happening on the top kind of middle. His body being taken down on the top middle of the right page and laid in the tomb. And then on the right, there is Jesus ascending into heaven. And he's standing there with his staff, stabbing the devil.
[00:28:29] So it's. It's. One picture has like all of Holy Week in it. It's. It's pretty. It's pretty amazing. I wonder who. Where this painting is from.
[00:28:40] Hans Memling, 1430-1494 Galleria Sabadua in Turin, Italy.
[00:28:51] That's cool.
[00:28:53] Our hymn of the day is this Luther Easter hymn, which. It's in two parts, really. The first four verses are a ballad of the fight between Jesus and death.
[00:29:08] And it's this back and forth so no son of man could conquer death. Stanza 2. Such ruins and had wrought us no innocence was found on earth. And therefore death had brought us into bondage from of old and ever grew more strong and bold. So you have this idea that, hey, you know, death was on a pretty good run from Adam and Eve all the way until the person who died right before Jesus.
[00:29:38] Death was 100% accurate. Its stock was rising. But then, stanza three. Christ Jesus, God's own son, came down his people to deliver destroying sin. He took the crown from death's pale brow Forever stripped of its power no more. It reigns in empty form Alone it reigns. And then this is my favorite, Stanza 4. It was a strange and dreadful strife when life and death contended. The victory remained with life.
[00:30:10] The reign of death was ended. Holy Scripture plainly saith that death, Death is swallowed up by death. Its sting is lost forever. Hallelujah. God be praised. And then it taps into the paschal victory. That's from the old Easter Epistle. In the historic one year. The Easter Epistle is from Paul's text in 2 Corinthians 5, where he talks about Christ as our Paschal feast. And that's really the last three stanzas of the hymn is about how we're eating Christ, our Paschal lamb, here, our true Paschal lamb we see whom God so freely gave us. He died on the accursed tree, so strong his love to save us. His blood now marks our door. Faith points to it. Death passes over. Satan cannot harm us. So let us keep the festival. Let us feast this Easter day on Christ, the bread of heaven. Christ alone our souls will feed. He's our meat and drink Indeed faith lives upon no other. Hallelujah. It's A beautiful, beautiful hymn about the well, about. It combines the history, the theological history of what the Lord was accomplishing in his resurrection. And then it brings it right to what we're doing today. It's gathering to celebrate this victory, to taste and see that the Lord is, in fact, good, and he's good for us.
[00:31:38] We're all walking through this valley of the shadow of death.
[00:31:42] We're all mourning the death of those that we love. We're all looking at our own impending deaths. And it looks to us like our mortal eyes. It looks to us like death is still on a pretty good streak. But Jesus comes and interrupts all of that with his death and resurrection.
[00:32:02] And he opens this gate to eternal life that we.
[00:32:08] That we walk through when we die.
[00:32:12] So that death is now no longer the end, but the very beginning. In fact. In fact, in the Lord's view of things, all this life, we are dying until at last we breathe. We breathe our last breath, and we are at last finally alive.
[00:32:31] May God grant us this joy in this confidence and this peace.
[00:32:39] I just looked at the time. You guys are probably listening to half of this. When church is over. Well, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah. Let us keep the festival. God's peace be with you. See you soon.