God's Not Dead! Death Is! :: Mark 16:1-8
Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting? Saint Paul asked us these rhetorical questions in his epistle to the Corinthians. And we have a fitting response.
GOD’S NOT DEAD! DEATH IS!
This is our theme today.
And what a thrilling experience it is to recognize this truth! God’s not dead!
What a thrilling experience it is to join the whole Christian church on earth in rising from the ashes of Lent ... rising in celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord ... rising in celebration of his continued Divine Service to us ... rising into eternal life in his name ... rising in praise to God that he has taken the sting of sin and death.
He is risen ... He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!
All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus can rejoice in this good news because all of us who were baptized were buried with him into his death so that just as Christ was raised from the dead we too can walk in the newness of life in his resurrection (Rm 6:4).
1. So can you believe it ... that God’s not dead?
Apart from this day, our lives are all too often a reflection of the women in today’s Gospel reading. The women ... Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome ... arose early, before dawn, and went to the tomb. They were feeling the sting of death. They thought Jesus was dead. They thought they could anoint his body and hide the stench of death in their lives.
Instead ... looking up ... they observed that someone had already opened the tomb ... and then looking in ... they discovered it was empty. It left them feeling nothing but fear and trembling. Let’s add shock to trauma. They were out of their minds ... ecstatic ... overwhelmed with emotion. Where is our Lord, they wondered. We know he died! We saw him die. We saw him buried.
But where, O Death, is your victory?
It’s been said that one time when Martin Luther was depressed over the problems he faced, his wife, Katharine, came in wearing a black mourning cloth. When Luther asked her who died, she replied, The way you’ve been acting I thought God had died.
Isn’t that just like us all?
2. The God is dead attitude is more prevalent in our lives than we might care to admit.
Contradictory as the term is ... because if God were dead, he wouldn’t be God ... our world certainly acts like it. The God is Dead movement popularized by the Enlightenment of the 19th century is still making headlines in our world. More people than ever before think that God is dead. They’ve stopped going to church. They have stopped praying. They have stopped listening to his voice in their own personal devotions. They think they can diminish the sting of death by celebrating the life of those who died. In record numbers they’re drifting away from our risen Lord. God must be dead, they say.
I don’t think you will hear many people around Saint Clair County admit they think God is dead. But their actions belie their words. We are masters of our destiny. We define ourselves in our terms. We convince ourselves that we can worship him in our own way ... in our own place.
Adam and Eve acted the same way that day in the garden when they decided first to listen to the serpent, and listen to themselves think. They began adding to God’s word, declaring we can be like God ... that we can distinguish between good and evil on our own. They began hiding from God. They began seeking their own material gains, their own prosperity.
How have you killed God in your life?
The women at the tomb weren’t any different. They thought God was dead. And even when they learned that Jesus was risen, they didn’t say anything to anyone. They were overwhelmed by their own thoughts and feelings.
Don’t be overwhelmed with wonder at this news, the young man in white told them in the tomb. I know why you’re here. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified One. He has been raised. He is not here in the tomb. See the place where they laid him.
3. That is to say: God’s not dead. Death is.
The message of Good Friday is that death is God’s judgment for the sin in our lives ... that God is actually Just ... that God had to punish sin ... that God doesn’t want any of us to die ... to feel the sting of sin. So he sent us the perfect sacrifice to stand in our place. He sent his only begotten son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to us. He who knew no sin became sin for us. He did this for us so that we don’t have to die. Jesus suffered and died for us in our place ... so that death will have no power over you any more.
And we have proof now!
God’s not dead! He is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!
Jesus is not in the grave. The Crucified One, as the young man wearing a white stole declared to the women, has risen from the dead! Jesus is alive! God has conquered death.
Therefore, the message of Easter is life, new life, eternal life, springing out of the tomb and flowing beyond death. This life is ours now through faith in Christ. On account of the shed blood of Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, eternal death has passed over us. Now we pass with Christ through death into life everlasting.
4. Oh, how different life is, now and forever, as we grasp this truth and share this victory of our glorious Lord.
Christ, the crucified One, is risen! Jesus has opened the grave for you. The great stone set in front of the tomb has been rolled away, revealing the truth of the resurrection (Mark 16:1-8). This is why we believe in the resurrection of the dead! Jesus is risen. He has returned to the eternal life from which he came, giving all who believe in him, who trust in him, the same life that he gave us in the beginning. Through his resurrection, he has saved us from sin and Satan and Sheol, and we can now enjoy life with the sure hope of our own bodily resurrection, too, as Job reminds us: After my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God (Job 19:26).
And so we will, for God has washed us clean in baptism and given us new life. And now he is preparing to lead us back into the Marriage Feast of the Lamb in his kingdom. Here, in the blessed sacrament, our living Lord, will soon share his flesh and blood with us. Our life is in his blood, the blood he shed for us, the blood he delivers to us in the Lord’s supper. As we come to this meal, knowing that these words were written, inscribed in a book, proclaiming that our Redeemer lives, we can boldly say: O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? ... Our God who died on the cross has swallowed death. He has taken the sting.
And thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:54–55, 57).
Rejoice in this good news today!
Rejoice in this good news tomorrow!
Rejoice in this good news for the rest of your eternal lives!
God’s Not Dead! Jesus Christ is risen today! Hallelujah!