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The Victory of Christ
Crucified Is Given to You in the Preaching of His Resurrection. This beginning line from the LCMS commentary
is very much true to those who BELIEVE.
We, like Mary Magdalene have come to revisit that tomb where the stone
was rolled away and confront the Lord on our own faith journeys to experience: HE
HAS RISEN INDEED, ALLELUIA!
Thousands
upon thousands of people were crucified during the era of the Roman occupation
of most of the Middle East. They lined
the streets like billboard signs of death and oppression... The silenced voices of many prophets, rabbis
and perhaps innocent rebels hammered to wood dripping the cold reality of
violence upon the place of the skull—Golgotha.
What
stands out for us however is Jesus—why?
Because he resurrected from the dead, indeed, ALLELUIA! Defeated sin,
death and the devil—victory upon the cross saving us all, once and for
all! So as St. Paul says in today’s epistle,
we must follow ourselves in belief in the midst here and now: “1So
if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where
Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on
things that are above, not on things that are on earth, 3for you
have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ
who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”
When Christ who is our life is
revealed, we will be revealed—right? The
other day I was watching a show talking about the catacombs underneath the
entire city of Paris. These catacombs
are not only 180 miles of labyrinth-like paths going deep underground but in
the center lies a tragedy of over 6 million human bones dumped from dozens of
18th century graveyards unearthed because the city was expanding
& the grounds were needed... No names exist anymore and millions of voices
silenced under Paris metro proper...
There are some groups who have
challenged the heart of the Christian faith saying Jesus may have not
resurrected at all. He was just the “rejected
prophet” who died in vain but their tenet of fading faith “believes” his
message just merely lives on... The reality
is: the Resurrection makes, completes the core of why we are, whose we are and
the reality of GRACE! For if we allow
ourselves to fade away and see Christ Jesus as merely bones, we would suffer
the consequences much like Paris did in the 19th century, when whole
sections of the city crumbled away to dust collapsing to the reality of
thousands upon thousands of the dead unearthed below... DEATH
The city of Paris had to come to
grips with their sin of indifference towards the reality of life and death and
rebuild. This was a physical reality but
in seeing this story as a metaphor to the reality of Christ Jesus
resurrection... when have we been revealed to realize that we have not set our
eyes upon the cross yet alone the reality of things above... We need to hear deeply the Psalmist voice in
our hearts: “8It is better to take refuge in
the Lord than to put confidence in mortals.”
However
we idolatrize ourselves and the comfort of the intellect above God and towards
the earth... For what lies beneath is well-hidden out of sight and out of mind
as we allow the allusion permeate from the godless that God is dead—only a
social justice prophet, temporal, non-creedal and had a nice moral story to
share... The Good News isn’t just Jesus’ 3 years of ministry here on earth BUT
that he DIED and ROSE and ascended as we will hear about soon.
Coming
out from the dead to the voice and sounds of faith—Mary Magdalene’s tears; for
while others hid away in a secluded house... Mary’s faith in Jesus had her coming
to the tomb not just to see and prepare him but she was compelled to through
faith. Jesus completed the moment for
her in simply saying her name along with some instruction: ““Mary!” She turned
and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17Jesus
said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the
Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and
your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18Mary Magdalene went and
announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he
had said these things to her.”
Those
of great faith have this real for them too.
Yes, it is true for our prayers daily arise as conversation to the Lord.
The voice within us guided by the Holy Spirit IS the reality of the
resurrection alive and well within us!
That IS the reality of being Christian!
It is other worldly, it is setting the mind on things from above... for
the fruits of the Spirit come naturally built by faith through GRACE.
The
reality of GRACE is the resurrection of Christ Jesus, the son of God, Our
Crucified Lord! The human journey has us sojourn much like Jonah in the whale
as even the early Christian Ossuaries are marked with the symbol... “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord
his God from the belly of the fish, 2saying, “I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly
of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. 3You cast me into the
deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves
and your billows passed over me. 4Then I said, ‘I am driven away
from your sight; how shall I look again upon your holy temple?’ 5The
waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped around my
head 6at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose
bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O Lord my God. 7As my life was ebbing away, I
remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to you, into your
holy temple.”
As
Christians we confess that Jesus the Christ died and through rising defeated
sin and death and the devil. YES! All three not just the first and the second
but the third also... We like Jonah can say we were rescued from the pit,
unearthed, unburied to live into a completely New Life—the lifestyle of GRACE
given to transform to be/become the hands and feet of Christ—truly ALIVE joined
to Him in Faith through GRACE!
The
world is the whale in many ways—can be our internment, certain death,
imprisonment for eternity OR we can allow our faith to grow—transform and shape
our lives to the reality of the Cross and its true reality of a resurrected, Crucified
Lord! Say deeply: CHRIST JESUS HAS
RISEN, INDEED, ALLELUIA! Hear it, live
it for the future of the church as Martin Luther would say stands upon it!
“This
one and firm rock, which we call the doctrine of justification,” insisted Luther,
“is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the
understanding of all godliness.” “…if this article stands, the Church stands;
if it falls, the Church falls.” We confess that justification by grace alone
through faith alone in Christ's righteousness alone is the gospel, the core of
the Christian faith around which all other Christian doctrines are centered and
based.” Without the resurrection,
without the Cross we would be nothing, expecting nothing and return to the
earth as nothing but bones and dust...
Our
daily path of discipleship is remembering our Baptismal call to hear anew the
songs of the Psalmist: “17I shall not die, but I shall live, and
recount the deeds of the Lord. 24This is the day that the Lord has
made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. 29O give thanks to the Lord,
for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” To hear these verses and all the Good News to
empower us, renew us and rebuild—become a people who will survive the sword,
death and empty promises of the Evil One to truly know GRACE in the wilderness
of the world which surrounds us.
AMEN
Resurrection of Our Lord Easter
Day; Year A; April 20th, 2014; SOLA Lectionary
Nicole Collins
Psalm 118; Jeremiah 31:16;
Colossians 3:1-4; John20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10
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