The Vigil of Easter:
“Behold the Man! God Buried”[1]
April 20, 2019
Text: John 19:38-42 (ESV): 38 sAfter these things Joseph of Arimathea, who
was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly tfor fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take
away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took
away his body. 39 uNicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus5 by night, came vbringing a mixture of wmyrrh and aloes, about
seventy-five pounds6 in weight. 40 So they took
the body of Jesus and xbound it in ylinen cloths with the spices, as is the
burial custom of the Jews. 41 Now in the place where he was
crucified there was a zgarden, and ain the garden a new tomb bin which no one had yet been laid. 42 So
because of the Jewish cday of Preparation, dsince the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
He is
risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
But
first He was buried. That is the other
object of our meditation on Holy Saturday, and first chronologically. And it is no mere side detail in the
recounting of our Lord’s Passion, death, and resurrection. Jesus’ death and burial go hand in hand, and
they are both proof positive of the incarnation, that our God has a Body. For His death necessitates His burial in the
tomb. You can’t have a corpse lying
around. And His burial proves His death. You don’t bury a body that is still living.
So it
is that Jesus takes His rest in the tomb, and becomes Himself our Sabbath. Jesus is the end of the Old Testament
Law. He is the goal. He is the fulfillment. The Last Supper is the final Passover
Seder. Now the greater Passover will be
accomplished as the Lamb of God is slaughtered once and for all, and we eat His
Body and drink His Blood in the Sacrament.
His blood marks, not our doors, but our hearts, our bodies and souls,
and death cannot harm us. Jesus is the
final Sacrifice, the Lamb to which all the blood of sheep and bulls and goats
has pointed all along. He is the
atonement for our sin. And now, this
Holy Saturday Jesus spends in the tomb is the last Sabbath, for He Himself is
our rest, not on one day of the week, but every day, as we rest from
desperately trying save ourselves by our works, and simply trust in the
salvation He has accomplished. As on the
Seventh Day God rested from His work of Creation in that primal week, so on the
Seventh Day of Holy Week God rests in the flesh, in the tomb, having completed
the work of redemption and New Creation.
All that is left is for Him to arise from His slumber and live, the
Firstfruit of the New Creation, in His resurrection from the dead on the Eighth
Day.
The
Eighth Day, the New Day, the eternal Day in which we live and move and rest and
rejoice. Because the old has passed away
in the death of Jesus, and the New has come in His bodily resurrection from the
dead. He goes into the tomb to bury the
old forever. Hear now Dr. Luther: “Just
as He took all our sins with Him to the cross and bore them in His body on the
tree (1 Peter 2[:24]), so also He took all our sins with Him into the tomb;
indeed, we are buried with Him through Baptism (Romans 6[:4]; Colossians
2[:12]). He took into the tomb with Him
not only the cloths and linen shroud in which His body was wrapped but also the
whole world’s sin, damnation, misery, fear, affliction, and peril, and He
covered and buried it all so that it might not harm those who believe in Him.”[2] Jesus is our Sabbath rest from all of
that. The Sabbath is for us no longer a
day of the week, but a Man, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, into whom we are
baptized.
The
details are important. Joseph of
Arimathea and Nicodemus, two members of the Council who had not consented to
the injustice carried out against Jesus, take our Lord down from the cross and
lay Him in Joseph’s own tomb. As it is
written in the Prophet Isaiah, “they
made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death” (Is.
53:9).
They
take great care of His Body. This we
should note well. The Body is holy, because
it is Jesus’ Body. And your body is
holy, because Jesus gave His Body into death to redeem you, body and soul. And the water of Baptism was poured on your
body, now wrapped up into His Body. And
He feeds your body with His very Body.
His Body is now in you. And
because of all of this, He will raise your body from the dead on the Last
Day.
The
definition of physical death is the separation of body and soul. This separation is unnatural and is always
tragic. This is never how it was meant
to be. Death is the wages of sin. So the body is buried and the soul of the
believer is immediately with Jesus in heaven, and the soul of the unbeliever is
immediately in hell. When you die, your
body sleeps in the ground and your soul rests with Jesus. On the Last Day Jesus will raise all the dead
and give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ. He puts your body and soul back together
again, to live with Him eternally in the New Creation.
Since
this is true, it matters what we do with the body, both in life and in
death. In life, we should treat our
bodies as sacred. We should not abuse
them. We should take care of them. We should not put substances into ourselves
that harm our bodies or cause our bodies to suffer addiction. We should not unite our bodies sexually to
anyone who is not our spouse, united to us in Holy Marriage. We should not be reckless with the safety of
our bodies, thus tempting the Lord our God.
Yes, we should exercise, and even eat our vegetables. And though ice cream is good, and to be
received with thanksgiving as God’s holy gift to us, we should not be
gluttons. We should not be
drunkards. We must not murder
others. We must not murder ourselves,
whether intentionally and quickly in suicide, or unintentionally and slowly by
neglect and abuse. God help us in
this. Clearly I have my challenges here,
as we all do in one way or another. But
life is sacred. And that means the body
is sacred. For the believer, it is a
Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19).
It is that for which Jesus died and that which Jesus will raise from the
dead. It is the gift of the Father who
created you and loves you, body and soul.
And
that also means we should treat our bodies as sacred in death. Our burial practice should confess the
resurrection of the dead. We should not
scatter our ashes. We should not speak
of the body as some sort of husk that concealed the real person, as though the
soul is more you than your body. Though
we are speaking of the body as though it is a separate “thing” even now, we
must not misunderstand. The body is not
a separate “thing” than you. It is you.
You are your body, even as you
are your soul. Remember, the whole you
is body and soul. It is telling that our text doesn’t only say
they laid Jesus’ Body in the tomb,
but that they laid Jesus there (John
19:42). Even in death, the Body is Jesus. So no more saying things like, “That isn’t
really Grandpa. It’s just a shell,” when
you’re standing before the open casket.
That’s false doctrine. It is
Grandpa. But instead, say this:
Grandpa’s soul is with Jesus, even as we lay his body in the grave. But Jesus will wake Him up on the Day of
Resurrection, when He reunites Grandpa’s body and soul to live forever with him. And so we will see Grandpa again, and even
hug him again.
And
stop saying it doesn’t matter what you do with your body when you die, because
you won’t need it anymore. That is false
doctrine. Put your hand now to your
flesh, and hear this: The body you are
touching will rise from the dead.
Sure, it will be glorified.
Probably no wrinkles or acne.
Certainly no heart disease or cancer.
Or glasses. But the body you now
have, which is you, will be raised. It
will live forever. You will live forever. So
what we do with your body when you die matters, not because God can’t raise it
if we do the wrong thing. He will. But because of the confession we make by what
we do. The body matters. Jesus redeemed the body. The body is you. This body will rise from the dead.
So
Joseph and Nicodemus bring this ridiculous amount of myrrh and aloes, a hundred
litras, about 75 pounds, to anoint the Body of Jesus. Think how much that is! Make no mistake, it is to cover the stench of
death. Joseph and Nicodemus are not
expecting Jesus to rise. At least not
any time soon. They want to cover up the
smell of rot. But they also spare no
expense. The body is important, and
especially this One, worth every
penny. This is to fulfill the Psalm
which praises the King: “your robes are
all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia” (Ps. 45:8). It was only six days prior that Mary, the
sister of Lazarus, had anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. Jesus said it was for His burial (John
12:1-8). Among the gifts of the wise men
was myrrh (Matt. 2:11), a prophecy of the Lord’s death and burial. From all eternity it has mattered what we do
with this Body, for this Body is the Body of God.
So
they lay Jesus in Joseph’s brand new tomb, in which no one has ever yet been
laid. From virgin womb, to virgin
tomb. But He won’t need this burial plot
for long. He’s just borrowing it. For we know the sun has set, and it is now
the Third Day, and we know what Jesus said would happen on this Day. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.
And
so you. We speak of the grave as our
“final resting place,” and what a silly thing for a Christian to say! You won’t need your grave for long. On that Day, Jesus will raise you from the
dead. In the flesh. In your body.
As we confess in the funeral service, by His rest in the tomb our Lord
Jesus has hallowed the graves of all who believe in Him, promising resurrection
to our mortal bodies. So we need not
fear death. We know the end. We rest in that. We rest in the sure and certain hope of
resurrection. We rest in the Promise,
holding the Word of God sacred and gladly hearing and learning it, which is the
whole point of the Sabbath for New Testament Christians. We rest in Jesus, who rested in the tomb for
us. Jesus is our Sabbath.
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.
“Behold the Man! A
God Who Rises”[1]
April 21, 2019
Text: Luke 24:1-12
He is
risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
The
contrast is simple, yet unimaginably profound.
There are two ways: The way of life, and the way of death.
God
had given life to Adam and Eve, and provided them with the Tree of Life in the
midst of the Garden, the Tree from which they could eat and live forever. But there was also the Tree of the Knowledge
of Good and Evil. The Tree itself was
good. But God had forbidden to eat its fruit. To eat its fruit was, for Adam and Eve, and
for us all, the way of death: “in the
day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17; ESV). For the taking and eating of what is
forbidden is rejection of God. It is the
way of rebellion, and the way of rebellion is the way of death. The culture of death in which we find
ourselves began in that moment. Forevermore,
man has been inclined toward death. Our
lives are hurtling toward death, do what we may to avoid it. We “kill, fight, and destroy both the Creator
and His creation” (Hemmer) in an effort to save ourselves, but it never
works. Death boasts that it has the last
word. It is coming for every one of
us. You will die.
The Didache, a word that means “teaching,”
was a very early Christian Catechism, also known as The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. Whoever wrote it, it may well have been in
circulation while some of the Apostles were still alive and the New Testament
was still being written. The Didache speaks of the way of death in
words that describe our own time and place: “And the way of death is this:
First of all it is evil and accursed: murders, adultery, lust, fornication,
thefts, idolatries, magic arts, witchcrafts, rape, false witness, hypocrisy,
double-heartedness, deceit, haughtiness, depravity, self-will, greediness,
filthy talking, jealousy, over-confidence, loftiness, boastfulness; persecutors
of the good, hating truth, loving a lie, not knowing a reward for
righteousness, not cleaving to good nor to righteous judgment, watching not for
that which is good, but for that which is evil; from whom meekness and
endurance are far, loving vanities, pursuing revenge, not pitying a poor man,
not laboring for the afflicted, not knowing Him Who made them, murderers of
children, destroyers of the handiwork of God, turning away from him who is in
want, afflicting him who is distressed, advocates of the rich, lawless judges
of the poor, utter sinners.” Such are
the results of our first parents’ careening off the path of life onto the
highway of death. The Didache simply admonishes us, “Be
delivered, children, from all these.”[2]
But
you can’t be delivered by fleeing from God and hiding from Him, like Adam and
Eve tried to do, and man has been doing ever since. Man, who is spiritually dead, is forever
fleeing from God, who is Life. No, since
man took the exit from the way of life in the Garden, there is no getting off
the way of death. Unless God comes to
you where you are. God came seeking Adam
and Eve immediately after the fall. God
comes seeking you in your sin and death.
He comes in the flesh of Jesus Christ.
Jesus
is the Way of Life. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,”
He says (John 14:6). The first Christian
Church was known simply as “The Way” (Acts 9:2). And here is what our Lord does to transfer us
from the way of death to the Way of Life.
He goes down into death Himself. He dies the gruesome death of the cross. It is the only way. It is why He became Man and took on
flesh. To undo all that Adam has done
and all that we have done ever since by dying for our sins, our death, in our
place. The wood. The spikes.
The bitter pain. The struggle for
every breath. The bleeding. The sighing.
The praying. The dying. All for us in the way of death. To commend His spirit to the Father. To breathe His last. To take up residence in our tomb. To burst forth again, triumphant and alive,
on Easter morn.
Jesus
is the Way of Life because He is the Living One. He is the new Adam, the faithful Man. He went the way of death to rescue us from
it. And now He stands, risen from the
dead, never to die again. His lungs are
filled air again. The blood pumps from
His heart and courses through His veins again.
His eyes take in the sights, His ears, the sounds. His senses are heightened, for they are
glorified in His resurrection. His
fingers spread and bend to neatly fold His grave-cloths. He still bears the mortal wounds in His
hands, His feet, His side, but they no longer hurt Him. They are trophies of victory from His one-Man
war against sin, death, and the devil.
His skin, once cold with death, now radiates warmth. He no longer hungers, but He’s ready to eat. His brain is alive with electrical
impulses. His very real, flesh and blood
human body, once dead, is alive! Jesus
Christ is risen from the dead.
And
He takes us with Him. That is the good
news of Easter. The Living One who was
dead imparts Himself to the dead, that we might live! That is what He does in Holy Baptism. “Do
you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death? We were buried
therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was
raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness
of life. For if we have been united with
him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a
resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:3-5).
His death and life are preached into your ears. His sin-atoning blood cleanses you in
Absolution. You eat and drink His Body
and Blood, His death and His life, in the Holy Supper, which enlivens you. He is in you.
You are in Him. All that is death
is buried forever in His tomb. All that
is life is yours in Christ Jesus, who lives.
So
wherever the way of death touches you in your life in this world, repent. And rejoice.
That’s not you anymore. That is
the old way, which is passing away. You
are in Jesus. And Jesus is the Way of
Life. The Didache describes it this way: “The way of life, then, is this:
First, you shall love God who made you; second, love your neighbor as yourself.”[3] This is simply a repetition of the Two Great
Commands given by our Lord (Matt. 22:37-39).
On these depend all the Law and the Prophets (v. 40). Jesus frees you from the way of death, to do
this very thing. He puts you on the Way
of Life by grace, that you may begin to do the works of the Way of Life, which
is love toward God and neighbor.
And
in the end, He will raise you, bodily, from the dead. He will reunite your body and soul, pull you
up out of the grave, and your lungs, too, will be filled with air. Your heart will beat, the blood will course
through your veins. Your eyes will
see. Your ears will hear. Your hands will grasp and you’ll stand on
your own two feet. You’ll be really
alive. And though you will not hunger,
you’ll be ready to eat. Ready to Feast
with Jesus. You get a little foretaste
of it right here at the Altar. Your
brain will be alive with electrical impulses.
It will be your body, the one you have now, only glorified, made into
what it was always meant to be, in the image of the risen Lord Jesus. You will raised from the dead, alive, with
vim and vigor. That is the Promise and
the reality in the risen Christ.
And
it all hinges on that early dawn when the women brought spices to the tomb to
finish giving Jesus a proper burial. Him
they did not find, but two men in dazzling apparel, angels, standing before the
open tomb. And the angels preach the
message that breathes life into the women and into us. There is no rotting corpse to anoint. “Why
do you seek the living among the dead?
He is not here, but has 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 and on the
third day rise” (Luke 24:5-7).
Remember? This has always been
God’s plan. To transfer you from death
to life by dying and rising. God comes
in the flesh, Jesus, to bring you out of hiding and restore you to Himself.
There
are two ways: The way of death, and the Way of Life. The Way of Life is Jesus. He is yours and you are His. Death does not have the last word, and
indeed, you will not surely die. For He
is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
And so that is the verdict. You
live. Because He lives. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son
(+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Based on Jeffrey Hemmer, Behold the Man! (St. Louis: Concordia,
2018).
[2] The Didache, Roberts-Donaldson English Translation, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-roberts.html
.
[3] Ibid.
Second Sunday of
Easter (C)
April 28, 2019
Text: John 20:19-31
He is risen! He
is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
And
that is precisely why you can believe Him when He says your sins are forgiven
and you have eternal life. The
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the evidence and substance of His
authority to give you these gifts. For
if Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, then He is who He says He is; namely,
the Son of God, God in human flesh, your Savior, who died for your sins, and
who has won the victory over death by His resurrection on the third day. And if Jesus Christ is risen from the dead,
then all that He says is true. You can
believe His Word. If He’s right about
this, that after being crucified, He would be raised, then He’s right about
everything else. And we know on the
basis of eyewitness testimony, and more importantly, on the basis of the Holy
Spirit’s testimony recorded in Holy Scripture by these same eyewitnesses, that
it is absolutely true: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.
It is
the night of His resurrection. The
disciples are confused and afraid. The
Lord Jesus has been crucified. But now
some claim to have seen Him, risen and alive.
There are the women. There are
the disciples from Emmaus. And even
Peter claims to have seen the risen Christ.
Now the Ten are together. Judas
has departed to go to his own place (Acts 1:25). Thomas also is not present. And they are afraid. They are afraid of the Jews. They are afraid of the Romans. They are afraid of imprisonment and
persecution. They are afraid of God’s
judgment. They are afraid of death. Most of all, they are afraid because they had
placed all their trust in their Teacher, Jesus, and now He’s dead. Or is He?
It’s all so confusing. But one
thing is for sure: Their world has been turned upside down.
Suddenly,
Jesus is standing among them. The doors
are still locked. He didn’t sneak in
through an open window. He didn’t make a
hole in the ceiling and repel down the wall.
He just appears in their midst.
He appears out of thin air, because (and note this very carefully) He’s been with them the whole time! They couldn’t see Him to begin with. But now they can. Either way, seen or unseen, He is with them. The risen Lord Jesus Christ now always and
fully uses His divine powers. He is
present everywhere as God and as Man. He
is with His people at all times, wherever they go, as God and as Man. He is hidden most of the time, but now in our
text He is visible, and can be so whenever and wherever He wills. But the fact never changes, He is with them.
And
where Jesus is, there He speaks. “Peace be with you” (John 20:19;
ESV). And when He speaks, it is so. It’s not just a sentimental wish that the
disciples would enjoy peace. He speaks
the reality into their midst to address their fear. Jesus’ peace dispels fear because it imparts
forgiveness of sins and life. This is
Absolution! This is the Hebrew idea of
Shalom, peace with God, wellness, life, on the grand scale of Jesus’
resurrection victory over death. Sin is
done. Death is done. No more need for fear. And so that this Shalom, this peace, doesn’t
stay locked up with the disciples, Jesus ordains them to go and proclaim it in
the forgiveness of sins. He creates an
office, the Office of the Holy Ministry, the preaching office. Look at your bulletin cover as I read you
this next verse: Jesus “breathed on them
and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold
forgiveness from any, it is withheld’” (vv. 22-23). Now, understand what is happening here. Jesus breathes on His disciples. We use breath to speak. Jesus opens His mouth and breathes out His
Words upon the apostles. But this isn’t
just any breath. These aren’t just any
words. This is the Holy Spirit. In Hebrew and Greek, the same word can mean
spirit, wind, or breath. We have this
somewhat in English, too; for example, you can hear the word “spirit” in
“respiration.” Jesus respires, spirates,
spirits upon the Ten as He speaks, and in this way, through His breathing, in
His Word, He imparts the Holy Spirit.
It’s the same thing He did, by the way, in the Garden of Eden when He
breathed the breath of life into Adam.
Here He is accomplishing the New Creation as He breathes His Spirit into
the disciples. And He gives them a
charge. Go forgive sins. Go pronounce Absolution. Go spread the peace that I have pronounced
upon you in this room. This is something
all Christians are to do as you confess the risen Lord Jesus in your daily
vocation. But here the Lord charges the
disciples to do this in a special sense, as holders of a divinely instituted
office, the Office of the Holy Ministry.
The
apostles, literally the “sent ones,” are sent to go and preach the peace of
Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life won by His death and
resurrection, what we call the Gospel.
And as they do so, Jesus is with them the whole time. They don’t speak their own words, they speak
Jesus’ Word. Whether it be in
Absolution, or in preaching, the apostles as the first Christian pastors are
sent to speak the peace of Jesus Christ in the forgiveness of sins to all
people. Now, the apostles themselves
have died. They are with Christ, in
heaven, awaiting their own resurrection of the dead. But their office lives on. God sends you pastors to continue His
speaking of the peace. Look again at
your bulletin cover. When your pastor
pronounces Absolution or preaches God’s Word, what is happening? Remember, it’s not my words that I am to
preach. It is the Word of the risen Lord
Jesus Christ. So what happens in
preaching is that Jesus Christ really speaks to you in His own Word. And in that speaking He breathes out upon you
the Holy Spirit to create and sustain in you saving faith in Jesus Christ. The pastor absolves you: “I forgive you all
your sins,” but it’s not really the pastor absolving you, it’s Jesus, and as He
speaks you receive the Spirit who proceeds from the mouth of your Savior so
that you believe the forgiveness He gives to you. The pastor preaches, expounding Holy
Scripture, and the content is Jesus Christ Himself. He is really the One preaching to you. He opens His mouth and imparts His Spirit so
that you believe the preaching, so that you believe in Him. Your sins are forgiven. You have eternal life. We often talk about the real presence of
Jesus in the Sacrament of the Altar, His true body and blood under the bread
and wine. We need to talk more about His
real presence in the preaching of His Word, His true voice under the weak
speaking of His called and ordained servants.
When the pastor preaches God’s Word, it is really Christ, your Savior,
who speaks to you. Or, as you learned in
the Catechism: “I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us
by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant
sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their
sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven,
as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.”[1]
But
maybe you still have your doubts. After
all, you know me, and you know my sins and weaknesses. How could God use a loser like that to do
such majestic things as forgive sins and speak forth the reality of eternal
life? Thomas had his doubts, too. He wasn’t with the Ten the first time Jesus
appeared in their midst. Now, a week
later, they are together again behind locked doors, and this time Thomas is
with them. And once again, Jesus is with
them, and He proves it by appearing again in their midst. Again, the same words, “Peace be with you” (v. 26), Absolution, forgiveness. And now the casting out of doubt. How can these things be true? What is the authority for this proclamation
of resurrection and forgiveness? Jesus
says, “Poke around in my wounds. Thrust
your fingers in my hands. Thrust your
hand into my side. It’s really me. I was crucified for you. I died.
But behold, I live.” The
authority for this proclamation doesn’t rest with me, a weak and sinful human
being. The authority is the risen Lord
Jesus. He’s the One speaking. “The
one who hears you hears me,” Jesus says (Luke 10:16). He’s hidden in the Words, and in the water,
and in the bread and wine. He’s hidden,
but He’s with you the whole time! As God and as Man, Jesus Christ, the
crucified and risen Savior is with you,
speaking His peace in Absolution and preaching.
And as He speaks His peace, you receive His Spirit so that you believe
Him. Look again at the picture. As a matter of fact, all of Holy Scripture is
written for this purpose, that Jesus might speak His Spirit into you: “these are written so that you may believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have
life in his name” (John 20:31). So
receiving the Spirit in the Word of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, you are led to
confess with Thomas, “My Lord and my
God!” (v. 28). And you are led to
confess with the whole Christian Church on earth and in heaven, “He is
risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!”
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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