“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 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 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.” And they remembered His words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.”

— Luke 24:1–12

April 17, 2022 | 10:45 a.m.

Easter Sunday | Resurrection Sunday

Why seek the living among the dead? It’s a good question. What were the women doing there, early in the morning on the first day of the week? What did they expect to find? They were going to finish Jesus’ hasty burial. They had come with burial spices and oils. They expected to find a tomb with stone door, and a corpse. They were sensible and rational. They may not have been as “sophisticated” as you and I, but these women knew that corpses do not rise from the dead.

What they found was an open, empty tomb and two men with clothes that shined like Jesus at His transfiguration. Heavenly brightness. You can assume angels here. That was unexpected, but their news was not: “He is not here, but has risen!” That wasn’t unexpected at all. Unusual, yes. Out of the ordinary, certainly. Not your everyday experience. But it wasn’t unexpected.

READINGS

Psalm 16
Isaiah 65:17-25
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
Luke 24:1–12

message presented by Rev. Frank C. Ruffatto

+Points to ponder

Does the fact that there were over 500 witnesses to the resurrected Jesus give you more confidence in Him? What do you make of the fact that many of these witnesses were martyred for their testimony about Him?
What words of Jesus encourage your faith? What can we do together to encourage each other in the faith?
How might you testify of your faith and the account of Christ to one who is a skeptic?

+Sermon Transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto each of you from God our Father and our Lord and King, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Let us pray: For Your resurrection, for Your appearances to eyewitnesses, for Your Word, Your Baptism, Your body and blood, Your forgiveness, life, and salvation, for the sure hope of eternal life and our resurrection, we give You thanks and praise, most holy Jesus. Amen.

“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.”

Why seek the living among the dead? It’s a good question. What were the women doing there, early in the morning on the first day of the week? What did they expect to find? They were going to finish Jesus’ hasty burial. They had come with burial spices and oils. They expected to find a tomb with stone door, and a corpse. They were sensible and rational. They may not have been as “sophisticated” as you and I are, but these women knew that corpses do not rise from the dead.

What they found was an open, empty tomb and two men with clothes that shined like Jesus at His transfiguration. Heavenly brightness. You can assume angels here. That was unexpected, but their news was not: “He is not here but has risen!” That wasn’t unexpected at all. Unusual, yes. Out of the ordinary, certainly. Not your everyday experience. But it wasn’t unexpected.

Jesus has told them at least three times in advance and hinted at it a few times more. “The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” He told you. He prepared you. He predicted it. Why didn’t you believe Him? For that matter, why don’t we?

Face it. If someone you knew told you that he was preparing to die and on the third day rise again, would you have believed him? Put yourself in the disciples’ sandals. They had left their lives and livelihood to follow Jesus. Peter, Andrew, James, and John left a family business high and dry to go off with this itinerant preacher from Nazareth who said to them little more than “Follow Me.” Matthew left a lucrative tax collection business to follow Jesus. Things are going along just fine – miracles, teaching, crowds, popularity – until Jesus starts talking what can only be called “crazy talk.” “The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” Wouldn’t you have some questions? A few doubts? Misgivings maybe?

When the women returned and told the Eleven, no one believed them. It seemed like nonsense. When Peter saw the empty tomb and the burial cloths, he wondered to himself what had happened. He had forgotten Jesus’ words; he did not believe Jesus had risen.

This gives Luke’s account an even greater ring of authenticity and truth. The disciples did not expect this despite what Jesus told them. The women did not expect this despite what Jesus told them. Remember the test of a prophet: if what he predicts comes to pass, he is reliable and true, but if not, he is false and deserves to die for lying in the name of God. Jesus predicted His death and resurrection three times before it happened.

St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Dizzy Dean predicted at the start of the season that his 1934 Cardinals would win the pennant and that he and his brother would win at least 40 games. “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it,” he said. As history records it, they did it. Dizzy won 30 games, his brother Paul won 19, and the Cardinals won the World Series in seven games. “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.”

Three times Jesus predicted His death and resurrection. It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it. He did it. He rose from the dead. The word from the tomb is this: “He is not here but has risen. Remember how He told you.” The Word of Jesus is vindicated. He is proven true. His Word is proven reliable. This is the linchpin of our faith, that He “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”

To the skeptical Greeks of Corinth, who were perfectly comfortable with an immortal soul but skeptical of a resurrection body, Paul wrote that magnificent fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians which begins this way:

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared also to me.”

Paul goes on to flesh out what the implications are if Christ is not raised from dead. If Christ is not raised, then Paul’s preaching and the preaching you are hearing here today is empty, it is, as Macbeth puts it:

… all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Hot air and wasted words. If Christ is not raised, then your faith is empty too. Your believing is for nothing; there is no point. If Christ is not raised, then Paul’s witness and all the eyewitnesses – all 500 plus – are liars in the name of God who have perpetrated the biggest hoax ever pulled in the religious world. If Christ is not raised, then your trust in Him is futile and misplaced, and worse, you are still in your sins. If Christ is not raised, then all the dead who have gone before us are lost and there is no hope of ever seeing them again.

The Apostle Paul says this: “If the only reason we have hope in Christ is in this life, that somehow Jesus will help us cope, make us feel good about ourselves, help us be healthy and wealthy, if that’s all there is to Jesus, then we are the most pitiful fools that have ever bought into a religious lie.”

If Christ is not raised from the dead, if there is some box of bones out there with Jesus’ name on it, then you would do well to find another religion or perhaps abandon religion altogether. That is how important the resurrection of Jesus is. If Christ is not raised, then He cannot be trusted, His Word cannot be trusted, His endorsement of the Old Testament and His guarantee of the apostolic word of the New Testament is nothing more than empty talk and wishful thinking.

The message of the angel rings out from the tomb, across the centuries, to your ears here today. “He is risen!” Mary Magdalene and the other women saw and heard and bear witness. Peter and John saw and bear witness. The Eleven and the two on the road to Emmaus. The five hundred. James and all the apostles. Paul. All of them testify, many bearing witness with their lives as martyrs to the fact of Jesus’ resurrection.

This word may seem like nonsense to you, to all who are skeptical. Suspend your skepticism and hang it on the cross. These people who testified did so with their lives. They could have saved themselves quite easily by simply denying that Jesus had risen. They could have saved their lives by taking the authorities to the body. The Romans and the religious authorities of Israel could have put down this Jesus movement in a heartbeat by parading a rotting corpse through the street. But they did not, because there was no corpse. Jesus was risen, just as He had said.

In 2007, a group of fifteen British sailors were held captive in Iran for twelve days for allegedly invading Iranian waters. They signed statements indicating that they indeed were in Iranian waters. They also signed statements apologizing for past British transgressions against Iran. After their release, they renounced everything they had signed. Under pressure, they were willing to lie, in order to save their lives. It happens all the time. But it did not happen with those eyewitnesses who saw Jesus alive after His death. They could have spared their lives by changing their story, but they did not. They stuck to their story, as unbelievable as it was.

You live in a privileged time. You live in the “last days” of the old creation, the time of the fulfillment. The work of saving this fallen cosmos is accomplished. The new creation has dawned. The dead are raised. “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” Christ has risen. His Word is vindicated. The apostolic Word is vindicated. The ministry of the Word and the Church gathered around His Word is vindicated. Your faith in Christ is vindicated. You can be as confident of your resurrection as Jesus is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity. Our preaching is not in vain. Your faith is not in vain. Your sins are forgiven. There is hope in this life, hope in your death, hope for eternal life with God, hope for a new creation. And it all hangs on this little sentence: He is risen.

We have come a long way in our Lenten pilgrimage through Holy Week to this bright and glorious day. We have heard the words of Christ to us: the pardoning Word of His forgiveness, the promising word of paradise, the faithful word spoken in abandonment, the compassionate word to His mother, the suffering word of His thirst, the dying word committing His spirit to the Father, the remembering word of the Lord’s Supper, the fulfilled word of His mission – “it is finished,” the restful word of His tomb. And here today, the vindicated and vindicating word of the resurrection.

Rejoice, dear baptized, believing child of God. Rejoice. He is risen! Remember what He told you. Amen.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

ABOUT THE SERIES

This series features words of Christ He spoke from the cross as He offered up His life for the life of the world. Each word imparts a blessing and is a word of Gospel. The sermons and devotions in this series will expound on these words of Christ, linking them to Jesus’ words and works recorded in the Gospel as well as the Old Testament prophesies that pointed to Him. Each word of Christ proclaims and delivers something about Him, the Word Incarnate, and delivers His saving death to us that we would trust Him for forgiveness, life, and salvation.

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