He is Risen, Indeed :: Mark 16:1-8

And (the angel) said ... He is risen. And having gone out, (the women) fled from the tomb, for trauma and ecstasy had them, and to no one they said nothing, for they were afraid.

In the glow of Easter morning, we have some loose ends to tie up, unanswered questions that perplex us, pieces in our puzzle that don’t seem to fit anywhere. We began our worship with an echo of the resurrection faith: He is risen! 

But was it only that, an echo of the resurrection faith that, with each repetition, becomes quieter and softer until you can’t seem to hear it any more? Are you ecstatic with both fear and joy this morning? Maybe neither? Maybe not at all? Tomorrow we’ll come back to earth again, knee deep in the burdens of life, and we’ll have to incline our ear once again to hear the good news spoken with great conviction: He is risen!

So I have to ask ...

1. What good is this news, anyway that He is risen? 

How excited do you get when you hear it? Is your reaction more like this ... 

Yeah, Pastor, we’ve heard it all before: Jesus has lived for us, suffered for us, died for us, and rose again for us. You say that every ... single ... Sunday. 

Yeah, he lives, the victory’s won ... 

Yeah, he crushed the ancient serpent’s head and defeated death. ... Yeah, we know. 

What does any of that mean anyway? He is risen? I get it, he’s God. But between the two of us, there seems to be a great chasm. I have burdens; He doesn’t. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, you hear this all the time these days ... complaints about how meaningless life is, about how meaningless the Christian Gospel is, how insignificant and helpless all this praying and praising is amid the complex problems of life. He is risen? Has COVID gone away yet? It’s been, what, 55 weeks since the two week shutdown began? How many millions of prayers have been raised on that subject now? How many people are dead? 

He took my afflictions? 

We have eternal life now?

A fellow from the second century by the name of Celsus became the first writer to decry this Christian faith that He is risen. He said our Christian doctrine that God takes an interest in us is absurd. If Celsus were alive today, he would have an instant following. 

A new story came out just this week that showed church membership here has fallen below the majority for the first time. In other words, your husbands and wives, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors, brothers and sisters have not only stopped going to church, they aren’t even members. The polling company Gallup has tracked this for 80 years. Just after WWII, 76 percent of Americans were members of a church. Today, it is 47 percent. How many of those people actually go to church?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as I told you this just a couple weeks ago, even if they believe that he is risen, they don’t know what it means. And they don’t think they should care. What about you? Is your reflection in this poll? 

1. Why is it so important to know what it means that he is risen?

On Easter Sunday, the women woke up super early, and they took the aromatics they had bought to anoint the body of Jesus. When they got there, they were surprised the tomb was open. Then, as Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome entered the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side with a white stole wrapped around him, and they were alarmed. And he said to them “Don’t be overwhelmed. You seek Jesus, the Nazarene, the Crucified One. He is risen.”

Don’t be overwhelmed? He is risen? Wait, are you serious? What do you mean?

In the Greek language, Mark says the women then FLED the tomb in terror or trauma and ecstasy ... that is, their emotions were running wild: they were literally out of their mind, which is what ecstasy really means. It was all so traumatizing. The death and burial of God; now the resurrection. They were terrified by what they saw and heard, and they didn’t know what to think. 

Their cry should have been, he is risen indeed! Hallelujah! But they said nothing to no one because they were afraid.

That’s just like us! Isn’t it? We say nothing to no one.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, He is risen! ... 

Are you saying nothing to no one, too?

If you do believe it, what do you have to fear? 

Do you believe that Jesus has really risen from the grave? 

Do you remember what this means?

I know some of you object to this question mark that I put behind your affirmation that you know He is Risen! But our critics are correct, it raises some complex problems and unanswered questions that aren’t solved easily if they’re ever solved at all. Our faith today expressed by the angel draped in white is not a formula that fits the facts of life. In fact, it contradicts everything our world tells us. It contradicts biology and philosophy. Life with its questions and burdens and sufferings and puzzles refuses to yield answers. 

You and I seem to have no problem at all with the idea that He is risen! That God is alive. That God interacts with us. That God cares about us. That God hears our prayers. But then death strikes. And it scares us. And, we don’t know what to say. Tell me, how traumatic is it to see the closing of a casket? The finality of it all? How can you say anything to anyone at all.

So listen to the apostle Paul. Memorize this passage from our epistle because ...

2. The resurrection means that everything has changed! 

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.” 

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

3. This is what it means: The victory is yours now because he is risen!

Brothers and sisters in Christ, like Job, we now know that our Redeemer lives. Death has no grip on man any more. Jesus the Christ, True God and True Man, has risen. He is alive. The stone that rests in front of our tombs isn’t too big. The lock on the latch to the door of our caskets have no strength any more. Why? Because He is risen! 

We all will one day be in one of those boxes, save for the return of our Lord first. Those caskets will indeed be sealed shut and we will be buried. But that isn’t finality. Death is no longer a goodbye; it is See You Later! 

He is risen! No fear can grip me now because he is risen! 

The reason fear grips us is because too often we forget what the resurrection of Jesus really means ... not only for God, but for man. 

Because of He is risen, we know now Jesus is not just true man, he is true God. Jesus is not just true God, he is God in the flesh, God with us, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. But Jesus is also True Man, born of a virgin, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, whom you crucified and buried. Jesus is True Man, who gets hungry and tired, who gets hot and cold, who aches and weeps, who suffers and dies. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we saw God die on Friday. But He is risen. And his resurrection is our resurrection. See, he has united himself with us. He not only has come to us, he has returned to us. His back is not turned against us. He has brought you to himself and made you one with him ... through the waters of baptism, the baptism in which you died with Christ and through which you were raised into eternal life. He is risen! And you have been raised with Christ. 

Behold, this too is a mystery we don’t understand. So hear Paul again, we shall not all sleep, we will be raised. No fear can grip me any longer because He is risen! Now we understand why Christmas is so important. Now we understand why Christ’s baptism is so important. Now we understand why his Transfiguration is so important. We understand the mystery of the resurrection of Lazarus and the Sacrament of the Altar. Jesus Christ, the Crucified One, is not in the tomb. He is risen! Death has no power. He is giving all of us life through baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. 

Now, won’t you go tell our brothers and sisters the good news? There is nothing to fear. Join me in proclaiming the good news: Jesus, the one who was crucified, is now here, with us. Not just in spirit, but here in the word and water and in, with, and under the bread and wine. He hasn’t forgotten us. He has risen to nourish us, heal us, make us whole. He is giving himself fully to us, delivering us our imperishable heavenly inheritance.

Oh, what joy should fill our hearts and minds with this glorious news. He is giving us eternal life. In Jesus’ name.