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[00:00:00] Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia Blessed resurrection Sunday Dear St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's April 5, 2026, the year of our Lord. 2026, the year of our lord's resurrection, 1993.
[00:00:16] I think I was wrong last week. I was one year ahead of myself.
[00:00:20] We are celebrating this anniversary of the Lord's resurrection today. Absolutely beautiful. His resurrection, which is also for us. Jesus could have lived forever without all the trouble of crucifixion. But he went through all of that for you, for me, for our sins.
[00:00:36] So that he was raised then for our justification. That's how St. Paul says it in Romans, chapter five.
[00:00:45] Raised for our justification, raised so that his righteousness could be brought to bear on our account. And in his death and resurrection he overthrows sin, death and the devil, those three ancient enemies of all that's good, including all humanity. He overthrows them all together with one.
[00:01:05] One battle, one victory. And they fall. So the grave is open. There's a way through the grave. It's no longer a one way street through the grave to the joys of life eternal. That's what we celebrate today on Easter Sunday. God be praised for the life and the hope that it gives to us. His death is our life. His resurrection is our hope.
[00:01:27] And so in the Bible, that resurrection is connected to our hope because we don't just have hope in this life.
[00:01:36] In fact, Paul says it in 1 Corinthians 15, which is your homework sometime this week.
[00:01:40] Make sure you sit down and read through 1 Corinthians 15, whole chapter in one sitting. It's a lot of verses, 53 or something verses. But it's all about the resurrection.
[00:01:50] And it's so good to think about.
[00:01:54] He talks about this. If Christ were not raised from the dead, our faith would be in vain.
[00:01:58] We would be the people to be most of all pitied. But Christ is risen from the dead and that's our hope. Because he's the firstfruits. That means we also will rise from the dead. So good we have our festive bulletin, maybe the most beautiful of all that Jonathan has put together all week, starting with Palm Sunday last week, and then Monday, Thursday, Good Friday last night with the vigil today. These festive bulletins are so good.
[00:02:23] This one, take a look on the. It's always on the COVID the bulletin. It might be one of the most beautiful depictions of the resurrection. And it's a picture of our own stained glass window. So when you look at the windows right above the altar, you have Christ in the center, the Alpha and the Omega. And then on the left side, you have the windows of his humiliation, so his birth and baptism and crucifixion. And then on the right side, you have the windows of his exaltation.
[00:02:55] So there's the transfiguration and his resurrection and his Ascension. But they're hard to see. I mean, they're. They're pretty big windows. When you get right up next to them, you realize how big they are. But.
[00:03:07] But they're. They're far away. So that it's really nice to actually look at the photo, the picture of it on the front of the bulletin and see all the details. You can see the details in the wounds in Jesus feet and the soldiers falling down and the angel there at his resurrection, and Jesus holding in his hand this banner and his hands raised with peace. You can even see the wound in his side where he was pierced with the spear is there.
[00:03:33] And it's those wounds that we hide ourselves in. It's great.
[00:03:38] I don't know if you get this sense. So the church is so decorated beautifully. The lilies are all there.
[00:03:45] If. If you don't get a strong enough whiff of the lilies, then just duck in the chapel. Who.
[00:03:51] Boy, if we have to overflow in the chapel today, I hope nobody has lily allergies. It is strong in there.
[00:04:00] So the church is beautifully decorated. White everywhere. Lilies are everywhere. The Gloria is back after the Kyrie, which is. Which is really good.
[00:04:11] All the Hallelujahs are back in place, also really good. But I always think after all of the Holy Week stuff, the Easter Sunday liturgy is a little. It's like. It's very normal.
[00:04:26] The liturgy itself. I mean, especially after last night and the vigil, where you're doing who knows what and lighting candles and. And walking around and. And doing all this wild stuff. And even with the Good Friday Tenebrae with the candles going out and the room going dark, and the Maundy Thursday remembrance of the Lord's Supper, and even Palm Sunday with the Palm Sunday procession. The Easter liturgy is really kind of liturgy back to normal, which is great. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. It really. In fact, maybe. You know what? I just realized something.
[00:05:02] I guess a good thing. I do this podcast.
[00:05:05] I don't think it's liturgy back to normal. I think that this is the Easter liturgy, and it reminds us that every Sunday is Easter.
[00:05:15] So every Sunday should be like this. Look at this. We got the Easter liturgy so good.
[00:05:21] The scriptures are pretty short.
[00:05:26] We covered A lot last night in the vigil. Do you know in the vigil, we didn't even get to two hours last night. Hour and 55 minutes, which I don't even know if that counts as a vigil. Some. Some liturgical guy would probably say if it didn't go three hours, at least two and a half. It doesn't count as a vigil.
[00:05:43] An hour 55 is pretty good, though. But you know that we read one half of the appointed reading readings for the Easter Vigil. I remember the first year that we did the vigil five years ago or whatever, and we read all of them. And I said to Jonathan, ay, ay, yai, that is a lot.
[00:06:00] At some point, you kind of lose the capacity even to pay attention. So we do. We have it now 50% each year.
[00:06:08] Don't tell the liturgy guys that.
[00:06:10] So what you heard last night, it's great.
[00:06:14] One half, okay.
[00:06:16] But I guess we make up for it by having short ones today. The first is from job 19.
[00:06:21] Oh, that my words were written, that they were inscribed in a book.
[00:06:26] Oh, that. With an iron pin and lead. They were engraved in a rock forever. Well, Job, you got it.
[00:06:33] Here we are 2000 years later reading it. No, 3000 years later, 4000 years later reading it.
[00:06:43] I know, he says, Job says, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he'll stand on the earth.
[00:06:51] And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself My eyes shall behold not another. My heart faints within me.
[00:07:00] This is the text that the great Easter hymn I know that My Redeemer Lives is based on. And this is so important not only because Job, who's this is either the first or the sixth written scripture. I mean, Job was either. We don't know exactly when Job was, but Job was either a contemporary of Abraham or of Moses sometime between there. So that's 18 BC 1800 BC to 1450 BC.
[00:07:30] Some people think that Job was living in the wilderness, and he joined the people of Israel with Moses, joined his family to the Israelites and went with them into the Promised Land. And that's when was brought in. So this is old. And it's so helpful because there's so many Bible scholars that talk about how the Old Testament doesn't confess the resurrection. Here it is in the very oldest of the Old Testament, the confession of the resurrection.
[00:07:56] After my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God. I shall see for myself. My eyes shall behold not another.
[00:08:05] My heart faints within me.
[00:08:09] So Job confesses the resurrection of his Redeemer, God in the flesh to save him raised from the dead, and that because of his resurrection, Job will be raised from the dead.
[00:08:27] First Corinthians 5 is the Epistle lesson also short. But this is why we have Christ the Pascha. And we'll sing about this in the hymn. Maybe I'll talk about the hymn next because the this little verse says your boasting isn't good. Don't you know a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you are really unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.
[00:08:51] Therefore let us celebrate the festival not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So Christ is our Passover lamb. Now remember, Jesus didn't die on the Passover, he died the day after the Passover. He died on the first day of the feast of unleavened bread. Did we talk about this last week I've been doing this Old Testament feast days studies, first for Wednesday and now for the ladies Bible study.
[00:09:18] And it's got me thinking about this so much. I'm talking about it all the time. I maybe did it last week. So if I did real quick.
[00:09:24] Remember the Passover is the 14th of Nisan and you kill the lamb in twilight and you have to eat it that next night, which is officially the 15th of Nisan. But the Lord extended the day, so you got all night. So that's why the Pharisees brought Jesus in the morning before the sun came up, because they still wanted to eat the Passover. They had till sunrise. They didn't do it well, probably because they didn't go in. It delayed things. Pilate had to go out to them and then he sent them to Herod and everything.
[00:09:52] And so the 15th of Nisan is the first day of the week long celebration of unleavened bread. So you have Passover on the 14th, then you have feast of unleavened bread that whole next week.
[00:10:05] And then you have the special feast of the first fruits, which falls on the day after the Sabbath in the middle of the week of unleavened bread. In other words, on Today, Easter Sunday, 1993 years ago, the priests were in the temple waving the first harvest of the year, probably a sheaf of barley.
[00:10:34] And that was the festival of the first fruits. When Jesus the first fruits of the resurrection was raised from the dead.
[00:10:41] But Paul is talking about here and he talks about that in First Corinthians 15. But he's talking about how Christ is the Passover lamb. So even though he wasn't sacrificed on the Passover, that Passover lamb is a picture of Jesus. Why?
[00:10:55] Because the Lord said, kill the lamb, put the blood on the doorposts, and when the angel of death sees the blood, he'll pass by.
[00:11:04] So that the blood of Jesus is our way through death to life eternal.
[00:11:11] And it's a feast.
[00:11:13] So Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the festival and not with the old leaven. Remember, on the feast, the week of unleavened bread meant that all week they couldn't have. It was all tortillas, no yeast in the bread for a whole week.
[00:11:31] And Paul says that's what the whole life of the Christian is. All that yeast of malice, of anger, of evil.
[00:11:38] A false doctrine. The leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, Jesus calls it. That's out.
[00:11:45] And it's replaced by the, the. The. The love that comes from God in Christ and the hope and faith that he delivers to us.
[00:11:58] I've always thought that this verse would be a good verse to name a Lutheran church after.
[00:12:05] New Lump Lutheran Church.
[00:12:08] You may be a new Lump, as you are really unleavened. So who knows, if we start a mission church, maybe that's what it can be. New Lump Lutheran Church. I'm for it. That's maybe the reason.
[00:12:22] I don't know. I'm a little bit still upset about this. But that might be the reason that I don't get to name our children.
[00:12:29] Some of times that my very creative A plus naming skills are not recognized by some people.
[00:12:40] But the people of New Lump Lutheran Church will appre.
[00:12:43] Appreciate it, I'm sure. Where do you go to church? Well, we don't like to talk about it.
[00:12:49] The gospel. Oh glory. Mark 16.
[00:12:53] It's really interesting that, that this is the ancient gospel because it, it kind of captures this confusion that. That is seeming to mark the disciples on, on Easter Sunday morning.
[00:13:10] And there's something amazing about this confusion. In fact, maybe we'll preach on this. So I don't want to say too much about it, but here's the point. The disciples, Peter, James, John, the women who followed Jesus, his mother, Mary Magdalene, Salome, all the other women, they did not expect to find an empty tomb.
[00:13:37] They, you know, the only people who are really thinking about the resurrection of Jesus is his enemies. Remember this? The Sadducees and the Pharisees go to Pilate and said. He said he would rise on the third day. We got to put a guard on the tomb. They're the only one even thinking about it, that everyone else is just, you know, dead is dead.
[00:13:59] And you get that in Mark 16, when the Sabbath was passed. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome.
[00:14:07] All the ladies are named Mary. They were like, hey, do you want to be a disciple, follower of Jesus? Is your name Mary? Sorry, out of luck.
[00:14:16] It's Mary Magdalene. Mary the mother of James, Salome, that's James and Salome are also, I think, the cousins of Jesus. This is this. Mary is the sister of Mary, the mother of our Lord.
[00:14:29] And maybe sister in law, but maybe sister.
[00:14:35] Two daughters named Mary.
[00:14:37] Mary the mother of Jerusalem. They brought spices. Why? That they might go and anoint him.
[00:14:42] They're carrying the spices over there. This is how little they were expecting to not find Jesus.
[00:14:50] Very early on the first day of the week. That was a really bad sentence. That was like a triple negative.
[00:14:56] Very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone from us? At the entrance of the tomb?
[00:15:05] And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back. It was very large.
[00:15:09] And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe. And they were alarmed. And he said to them, don't be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth who. Who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him. Go tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him just as he told you. And they went out and fled from the tomb. Trembling and astonishment had seized them. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
[00:15:39] Still, they don't know what's going on.
[00:15:44] Jesus has to prove over and over that he's really raised. Even after they see him once and again and again, even by time. You get to Matthew 28, and they go and they find this is up in galilee. This is 25 days after the resurrection. They've seen Jesus like three or four times. He's had fish with them.
[00:16:02] And still they go on this mountain and they fall down and worship him. But some are doubting still. They're like, what is going on? They had to. They had to be convinced. And that the apostles had to be convinced is important for us.
[00:16:19] Our Hymn of the Day is Christ Jesus lay in death. Strong bands. This great old Luther hymn, which is a ballad really of the resurrection and has this great line in it.
[00:16:31] 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 power no more. It reigns in empty form. Alone it reigns. Its sting is lost forever. Hallelujah. And then. Are you ready? This is one of these.
[00:16:48] Doo, doo, doo, doo.
[00:16:50] It was a strange and dreadful strife when life and death contended.
[00:16:58] The victory remained with life.
[00:17:02] The reign of death was ended.
[00:17:04] Holy Scripture plainly saith that death is swallowed up by death.
[00:17:10] Its sting is lost forever.
[00:17:13] Hallelujah. That's quoting.
[00:17:17] That's First Corinthians 15, quoting Hosea. Is that who Paul's quoting there? Death. I'm turning to it right now.
[00:17:28] O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?
[00:17:33] This mortal must put on immortality. So when the corruptible has put on incorruption and the mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
[00:17:49] That's Isaiah 25:8.
[00:17:51] And then, O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? Hosea 13:14.
[00:17:59] The sting of death. Sin.
[00:18:01] The strength of sin. Law.
[00:18:04] But thanks be to God, who gives the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:18:09] Hallelujah.
[00:18:12] So good.
[00:18:14] Make sure to take the bulletin home with you.
[00:18:17] It's got all this beautiful art to reflect on, and the vicar has populated this bulletin with a bunch of great theological reflections. The Venerable Bee has got one in there. I saw some Luther. John Chrysostom. John of Damascus made it.
[00:18:36] Another Luther. And this long piece. What is this hymn from?
[00:18:41] Oh, yeah, John Chrysostom's Easter sermon. Christ is risen. You, O death, are annihilated. Christ is risen. The evil ones are cast down. Christ is risen. The angels rejoice. Christ is risen. Life is liberated.
[00:18:54] St. Augustine's in here and I like this little. This is on page eight. This little painting has the Jesus being taken down and laid in the tomb and then boom, standing on top of the grave.
[00:19:07] I don't know, some guy is on a picnic with his girlfriend in the back. I don't know who those two are, but the soldiers are like, what is going on here?
[00:19:16] So good.
[00:19:18] Ah, great. Well, that's a Sunday drive to church podcast. God be praised. Dear saints, blessed Easter to you and your whole family. I hope it's filled with the Lord's life, which never ends, which means our life will never end. We'll see you soon. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah.