Bible Text: John 20:1-18 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus | Series: Easter 2020 | Alleluia. Christ is risen.
The disciples should have been more surprised at Jesus’ death than at his resurrection. Jesus had raised the dead in front of their eyes – in fact he raised Lazarus just a week before his crucifixion. The disciples had confessed already, and they meant it, that Jesus was Lord, that he had the words of eternal life. They heard Jesus say, I and the Father are one. They saw Him prove it again and again with miracle after miracle, sign after sign, that he was God in human flesh. They knew that. And so they should have been far more amazed that he could die than that death couldn’t hold him. This is exactly what Jesus’ mockers said to him over and over again on the cross, you who will destroy the temple and raise it again in three days, come down from the cross, if you are the son of God. You who saved others, save yourself, if you are the Son of God.
This is the logic, that if Jesus is who he claims he is, then he can’t die. This was even Peter’s logic, who told Jesus He couldn’t suffer, couldn’t die, that this was beneath the Son of God. His crucifixion, his mocking, his suffering, his death, his powerlessness on the cross, this is supposed to be the proof. He can’t be God. God can’t die. God can’t suffer. And even if He could, He wouldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t allow Himself to be mocked. Isn’t this the God who says, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little?” Isn’t this the God who says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked?” So this mockery, this death, it’s rubbed in Jesus’ face as the undeniable proof, that He cannot be the Christ, cannot be the Son of God, cannot be one with the Father, cannot be God.
Now this is why St. Paul calls the cross foolishness. Our reason can’t fathom it. It’s why Jesus tells his disciples they won’t understand what he’s doing until after His resurrection. He knows the weakness of their minds. It’s why they all run away from the cross and hide in an upper room in fear. Without the resurrection, the cross looks like nothing but a tragedy, nothing but an innocent man being put to death, and worse than that, not so innocent a man, because He did claim to be the Son of God, and here He’s dead and proved wrong.
St. Paul calls the cross stupid, that what foolish means, it means both silly and abhorrent to the way we humans think, because God can’t die, but here we claim He dies; God can’t suffer, but here we claim He suffers; God is holy, innocent, but here we say He was made sin for us. But St. Paul never calls the resurrection stupid. Not even close. It’s quite the opposite. He hangs everything on it, on the fact that it happened. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead…” Paul ushers in a host of witnesses, including most who are still alive, over 500 people, on several different occasions, who witnessed Jesus alive after His death. The Bible convinces us of historical certainty, an empty grave and hundreds of eye-witnesses, Paul and all the other apostles, who themselves saw this Man who was dead alive again, so that it can’t be denied: as surely as Christ died, He rose from the dead.
And here’s where we return to the cross. That’s what the resurrection does, it points us back to the cross and proves beyond doubt that it’s anything but foolish. Who’s going to argue with Christ’s words now when He’s proved what He said, “I am the resurrection and the life?” Who will tell him to save himself now, when He’s burst through the tomb and conquered death to save the world? Who will insist that He prove He’s the Christ, the eternal Son of the Father now, when His Father has raised Him from the dead? Who will argue with Jesus when He proclaims sins forgiven, death destroyed, and the gates of heaven opened?
Easter means there is no arguing with this Jesus. Human reason with all its objections has to submit. It said God couldn’t suffer, couldn’t die, and it was wrong. It said a man couldn’t rise from the dead, couldn’t conquer death, and it was wrong. Easter proves the beauty of Jesus’ cross – this was God in our human flesh and blood, He did suffer for us, He did pour out His blood, He did die our death and bear our sins. He took our punishment on Himself. He opened the way to everlasting life.
And now He’s risen. So listen to Him. He argues against your fear of death, “Whoever believes in me, though He die, yet shall He live.” “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” “Where O death is your victory, where o grave is your sting?” “I have come that you may have life, and have it fully.” He argues against your guilt, your stained consciences, the horrible realization that you have once again failed to love your God and love your neighbor, “Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven.” “Come to me all you who are weary from your sin and heavy laden with your guilt, and I will give you rest.” Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is there to condemn anymore? It is Christ who died, and more than this, is risen from the dead and sits at the right hand of God and is interceding for us. He argues against your false hopes, your failed dreams, your vain love of this world, and offers you the only life worth living, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled. Neither let it be afraid.”
And finally your Lord Jesus argues against your loneliness, the thought of your separation from God. It’s so beautiful that the same Jesus who on the cross cried out in loneliness, in alienation from His Father, to whom He was eternally united, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?” this same Jesus who was abandoned for us, approaches Mary in her distress, as she weeps and thinks her Lord has left her, that she is separated from her God, as her loneliness drives her to try and find a dead body for the hopeless comfort it might give, and this same Jesus who was forsaken for her, shows her without doubt that she will never be forsaken, seeks her out, calls her by name, says, “Mary.”
This is what He died and rose to do. As the writer to the Hebrews says, He endured the cross and scorned the shame for the joy that was set before Him. Think of that, it is His joy to have us as His own, to seek us out, to give us what He died to give. And we are His own. He has called us by name in our Baptism. He has promised to be with us always to the end of the age. He has promised that nothing will snatch us out of His hands. He gives us eternal life, and we will never perish. He has died to win it and He has risen to prove it. What a wonderful God we have.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!