The Vigil of Easter
“The Pit to the
Pit: The Pit of Lions to the Tomb”[1]
March 31, 2018
Text: Dan. 6:1-24; Mark 16:1-8
His is risen!
He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Who
will roll away the stone? Jesus had
descended into the pit of death as surely as Daniel had been cast into what was
believed to be certain death in the pit of lions. The Hebrew word translated as “den” in our
reading from Daniel is better translated as “pit.” And over both pits, the pit of the tomb, the
pit of lions, a great stone was rolled and sealed by the government
authorities, Pontius Pilate, King Darius.
That is what the State thinks of Christ and His Christians, so we might
as well get used to it. Notice that even
after Daniel knows about the King’s edict, which cannot be changed according to
the laws of the Medes and Persians, that no one is to make prayer or petition
to any god except King Darius, still Daniel opens the windows toward Jerusalem
and makes no secret of it. Three times a
day, he prays and gives thanks to his God as he had done previously. Times of persecution call for bold
confession. Daniel is confessing the one
true God. It’s like he’s begging to be
caught. It was a dream come true for his
persecutors, his colleagues and subordinates in the college of satraps, who, in
their jealousy, are out to get this Jew!
To
the lions with Daniel! To the cross with
Jesus! To death with you! Cast into the pit. And by now it should not surprise us that our
Sunday School teachers missed something big when they taught us about Daniel
and the Lions’ Den. Well, maybe your
Sunday School teachers didn’t miss it…
Maybe mine didn’t either, and I just wasn’t paying attention. But this beloved account of Daniel about
which we all learned as children and did color pages and crafts on, really
isn’t about Daniel’s heroic faith at all.
Nor is it about you making your heroic stand for Jesus, as much as we
pray you and I will do just that if the moment comes. No, it’s about Jesus. The whole thing is about Jesus. The pit.
The stone. The certain death… And
then the miracle at the crack of dawn.
Down
into the pit. Up and out in the
morning. Death and resurrection. This is all about Christ! And to make it all even more beautiful, how
is Daniel saved from the mouth of the lions?
God sends His Angel. There is the
Angel of the LORD! It’s Jesus! It’s just what King Darius had wished for as
he sealed Daniel in the pit: “May your
God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” (Dan. 6:16; ESV). (Now, we shouldn’t quibble, perhaps, but let
the record show that in this the King violated his own law, which cannot be
changed according to the law of the Medes and Persians… He makes a petition to
a God other than himself, yet no one tries to throw him in the lions’ den. The typical government double standard!) It’s not just a wish, it’s a prophecy! The God whom Daniel serves continually shows
up! The Son, the pre-incarnate Christ is
on the scene, shutting the mouths of the lions so that no harm comes to
Daniel. (Your Sunday School teacher may
have told you this was just some angel, but I think we know better than
that.) Now, it’s not that the lions
aren’t hungry. We’ll find out in the
morning just how hungry they are. The
satraps don’t even make it to the bottom of the pit before their bones are
shattered and the ravenous cats gobble them up.
But for Daniel, the Lord of heaven and earth shuts their mouths. The lions recognize what everyone else but Daniel
misses. Jesus is their God. He who would come in the flesh to descend into
the pit of death and the tomb for Daniel and for us all, and come out
triumphantly, alive, bodily on the Third Day, has the power of life and
death. With Jesus on the scene, Daniel
lives. No matter what the King, the
State, or the devil himself may have to say.
Daniel
gives all glory to God for his deliverance.
When, at the break of dawn, King Darius rushes to the tomb to learn
Daniel’s fate, what does Daniel say? “My God sent his angel and shut the lions’
mouths, and they have not harmed me” (v. 22). God did it.
Jesus did it. All glory be to God
and His Christ! And this divine
deliverance is God’s own testimony to Daniel’s innocence. Note that very carefully: Deliverance from death is a declaration of
innocence! Righteousness, even!
This
is important, because Daniel in the pit of lions is a type of Jesus in the pit
of death. A pit that cannot hold
Him! Make no mistake, Jesus was truly
dead when He was buried. The spear
evoking water and blood is proof of that.
The crucified Lord Jesus lays down His sweet head in the sepulcher. No crying or sound of breath He makes. He is as dead as dead can be, having
completed the sacrifice for your sins and mine and the sins of the world on the
cross. But at the crack of dawn… The
women rush to the tomb with spices to anoint His body. The first Altar Guild arrives early Sunday
morning to care for the body of Christ.
That’s no joke. That is the holy
work our Altar Guild does. It comes from
this text. But who will roll away the
stone? Who will open the sealed
pit?
The
women need not have worried. Jesus is
not in the grave, as if it could keep Him.
The stone is rolled away to reveal it.
He is not here. He is risen, as He said! The angels (this time they’re really just angels… Just angels! Listen to how
we talk in the face of the Easter miracle!)… The angels are there to preach the
first Easter sermon, to announce the Good News.
Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!
And what do we know about deliverance from death? It is God’s own declaration of innocence, of
righteousness. Jesus is the righteous
One! Of course, we know that. We knew it all along, that He was innocent. So did the Jews. So did Pilate. Everyone knew, just like everyone knew Daniel
was innocent and righteous. But we
killed Jesus anyway! In the end, though,
it is only God’s verdict that matters.
And the resurrection is that verdict.
Jesus is innocent. Jesus is
righteous.
But
more than that… Jesus gives us His
righteousness! That is
justification. God declares us righteous
for Jesus sake. And that is the Good
News of Easter. In raising His Son from
the dead, the Father declares that He has accepted Jesus’ saving work, His
payment for our sin. In declaring Jesus
righteous, justified, God declares us righteous, justified.
And
here is the kicker of it all. If you are
innocent, righteous before God, justified (and you are, in Christ, sins
forgiven, His righteousness given to you as a gift, received by faith)… God will raise you from the dead! Bodily.
On the Last Day, the risen Lord Jesus will come visibly and call you out
of the pit. Daniel is a type of the
resurrection of Christ. Daniel is a type
of your own resurrection. Our text from
Daniel isn’t just about being faithful in the face of lions, as important as
that may be. It is the Promise that the
Angel of the LORD, our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ will meet you in
the pit, and death cannot have you, indeed, death cannot harm you. He will bring you out, alive, at the crack of
dawn, at the sound of the trumpet of God.
And the angels (the just plain
angels) will be there, with all the saints.
Risen bodies, glorified bodies, new heavens, new earth, forever with
Christ. The Dawn is coming. The Daystar is rising. Jesus rolls away the stone. He brings us up from the pit. Sin and death, the devil and hell are thrown
to the lions in our place. We belong to
Jesus. And He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
[1] The theme and structure of
this sermon are from Jeffery Pulse, Return
from Exile: A Lenten Journey (St. Louis: Concordia, 2017).
The Resurrection of
Our Lord
“Welcome Home!”[1]
April 1, 2018
Text: Mark 16:1-8
His is risen!
He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
But
the women thought He was dead. Of
course, He was dead the last time
they saw Him, when Joseph and Nicodemus wrapped Him and placed Him in the
tomb. The women saw His
crucifixion. They saw His lifeless body. They saw His blood. They saw the linens and the spices and the
tomb. But there hadn’t been time before
the Sabbath to do it all, so here comes the Altar Guild, bright and early
Sunday morning, the Marys, Salome, maybe several others, to finish the job, to
care for the Lord’s body, to treat it properly, as something sacred, to honor
it as it should be. But their
expectation was a sealed tomb and a dead corpse. Not an empty tomb, stone rolled away, and an
angel announcing that Jesus is not dead!
He’s not in the grave! He is
risen, just as He said!
Easter
blows away our expectations. In this world,
there are two things that are certain: death and taxes. Well, tax day is coming up quick, so you
better get going on that. And death,
well, that could happen to us at any moment, much as we may try to deny
it. It will get us all in the end. Or so goes the conventional wisdom. There is one thing we know, though, beyond a
shadow of a doubt: The dead stay dead.
Dead men don’t rise. Nature takes
its course. Corpses rot and become
fodder for worms and fertilizer for plants.
The circle of life. In the end,
the only plot of land you own for keeps is six feet under. The grave is your home.
Jesus
breaks all the rules! By order of the
State, His tomb is sealed. No one is to
get in, and no one is to get out! Armed guards are there to make sure of it. But that is not what the women find when they
arrive with the spices. They are worried
along the way about who will roll the stone away. Will the soldiers even let us in? But when they arrive, the grave is wide
open. The angel preaches Good News, the
first Easter sermon: “Do not be
alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who
was crucified. He has risen; he is not
here. Se the place where they laid Him”
(Mark 16:6; ESV). Then the command. Go tell the disciples and Peter. (Incidentally, Peter is singled for a very
important reason. He had denied his
Lord. The angel wants Peter to make no
mistake. This Good News is for him, too,
and for every sinner who has ever denied Jesus by sins of thought, word, and
deed. So this is Good News for you, too,
beloved. The Lord Jesus, who died for
you, for the forgiveness of your sins, is risen for you, and lives for you,
that you may have eternal life.) In any
case, the women bear a marvelous privilege.
They are the first to hear the Easter message, and they are given to go
and tell the Good News to the Apostles, who are the first called and ordained
Christian preachers. There is something
beautiful, here, that merits further exploration sometime. I think of my
mother, who taught me the faith at her knees, and now here I am proclaiming to
you the risen Lord Christ as a called and ordained servant of the Word. But I digress.
We
live in this life as though ruled by death.
Think about this. We live for all
practical purposes as if there is only one life to live, and this is it, and
then we die. So our eyes are focused on
the things of this world. We have to
have all the experiences now. We have to
have all the stuff now. We have to stake
our claim to glory now, experience pleasure now, in the flesh, be rich and
powerful now. And then we die and the
grave is our forever home. That is
certainly how the unbelieving world lives.
More and more that is the direction of our culture and society. But it is also how Old Adam would have us
live. Materialism. Everything can be explained by natural
phenomena. No need for God. Eat, drink, and be merry now, because this is
all you get. Nothing came before. Nothing comes after. What a hopeless existence. This is the philosophy that gave rise to
Hitler and the Nazis and the Holocaust.
This is the philosophy behind Communism and nearly every form of statism
and tyranny. We call it totalitarianism,
because the State becomes god and makes its claim to you totally. Evolution is the apologetic for this
materialism, the creation myth of secularist or statist religion. Evolution depends on death, the death of the
unfit, and its end is death and meaninglessness, non-existence. This is the theology behind abortion. This is the theology behind so-called
euthanasia and assisted suicide. This is
why we divorce sexuality from procreation and do our utmost to make marriage
meaningless. Because all of life is
meaningless. It all ends in the
tomb. The end of all of this, beloved,
is hopelessness. Despair. Along with greed and exploitation to get as
much as you can, while you can, at the expense of everybody else. Which is just what the devil wants. The end of all of this is hell. And of course, it is all one big demonic lie.
Don’t
listen to it. Don’t follow the world. Don’t follow Old Adam. Don’t follow the devil. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and that
is precisely the opposite of materialism!
The one true God, the Creator of all that is, has defeated death. There is something that comes before. He does!
He is eternal. And there is
something that comes after. The
judgment. And for those who are in Christ,
eternal life and the resurrection of the body!
And that gives meaning to everything.
Life matters. It has value. It is sacred.
How you live matters. Loving and
serving your neighbor. Living faithfully
with your spouse, or in chastity if you’re single. Marriage as God designed it, man and woman,
father and mother raising their child in the faith of Christ. Promoting the welfare of others, not
yourself. Speaking up for the
defenseless, the lives of the unborn, the elderly, the terminally ill. Sacrificing your own resources to feed the
hungry, clothe the naked, give shelter to the homeless, and most of all, care
for those in your family and your Church and your community. There is only one thing that gives all of
this meaning, and it is not to do good works so that you can make yourself
right with God. Nor is it as a cog in
the wheel of the state, in service to the collective. No, it is this. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Death is not the end. The grave is not your home. God is your God. Christ has made you right with Him by His
sin-atoning death and triumphant resurrection.
This is not all there is. There
is more. So much more. Infinitely more. Stop living for this world. Repent of that. Kill that.
Live in Jesus. He is your life
and your salvation. Keep your eyes on
Him, for He is risen from the dead, and He will raise you.
Jesus
breaks us out of our slavery to death and the grave. By His resurrection, He has opened a highway
out of death, and He leads a host of captives in His train. He has prepared a new home for you, with Him,
a home of resurrection… bodily
resurrection… and life forevermore.
This is the new reality of Easter.
Life. Life is the end, or perhaps
we should say, the beginning and eternal continuation. Life with Christ. Life in Christ. And now, where Christ is, that is our
home. He is our home!
And
this isn’t just some ambiguous future reality, sometime, someday. It is now!
Understand this. This is why you
are here this morning. This is why we
come together here, in this place, gathered around pulpit, font, and
altar. Heaven breaks in here. The risen Lord Jesus is here. He is speaking to you now in His Word,
breathing the breath of life, the Spirit into you. And He is here in His crucified and risen
body and blood to feed it to you and nourish you and give you life in the
Supper. This is heaven on earth. This is your home. This is where angels and archangels and all
the company of heaven, the blessed saints who have gone before, meet us and
sing with us. Around Jesus. Around the Lamb on the altar. For the Feast. When you eat Jesus’ body and drink His blood,
that is heaven. And it is risen body and
risen blood that now becomes one with you and courses through your veins. It is the body and blood of God in communion
with you. And it unites you to your
neighbor at the altar. One body we are,
the Church, the body of Christ, made so by the body that we eat and the cup we
drink. Oh, that is life. That is real life. That is life full of meaning, full of
Christ. And nothing else matters. Not really.
Everything that belongs to this world of death is coming to an end. Finally, only one thing matters, and
everything hinges on that one thing, and that one thing is this: He is
risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
And He will raise you. In the
Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] The theme and structure of
this sermon are from Jeffery Pulse, Return
from Exile: A Lenten Journey (St. Louis: Concordia, 2017).
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