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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
Many of us may be fond of thinking that we are capable of multi-tasking, like a multi‑core computer’s processing more than one “task” at the same time, but our doing such things as taking a phone call while typing an email, talking with people in our car while driving it, or maybe chewing gum while walking. Research shows that, unlike a computer, we do not actually do two or more things at the same time, but instead we rapidly redirect our attention from one task to another task, in the end likely taking more time and doing all the tasks more‑poorly than if we had concentrated on them one at a time and completed them in succession. So, perhaps other people have had to tell you and me something more than once and been able to accuse us rightly of not really paying attention when they communicated it to us the first time. (Sadly, archived voicemail, email, and text-messages often help them prove their point.) Exhaustion, emotions, and other stressors can exacerbate our need to be “reminded” of things we already have been told, perhaps like the women in the Gospel Reading for this Easter Day, St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired account of the Resurrection of our Lord. The angel tells the women and Jesus shows them that He is (2) “Risen, as He said”, and both the angel and Jesus tell the women (1) not to be afraid, (3) to go quickly and tell others, and (4) that they will see Jesus again. We will consider those four repetitions, as it were, under the theme “Risen, as He said”, after we recap the Gospel Reading.
Behold, today’s Gospel Reading tells both of events at Jesus’s tomb and of one of Jesus’s first appearances. After the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the “other” Mary—probably the mother of the younger of the two disciples named James and also possibly the same person as the wife of Clopas, and so maybe also an aunt to Jesus—they, who had witnessed Jesus’s death and burial (Matthew 27:56, 61), also went to “see” the tomb. They may have been out in Bethany, where St. Matthew may have been, and they also may have stopped in Jerusalem on their way to pick up Salóme. St. Matthew does not mention any burial spices, leaving open the possibility that the women were simply going to confirm Jesus’s death. Most likely before the women got to the tomb, behold, there was a great earthquake, as there had been at Jesus’s crucifixion (Matthew 27:51, 54). An angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. For fear of him, the guards, who should have been accustomed to fearful situations, trembled and, perhaps ironically, became like dead men. When the women got there and saw the tomb open, Mary Magdalene may have immediately gone back to Jerusalem, and the “other” Mary and Salóme may have stood outside until other women joined them and led them into the tomb. But regardless, of which women were there, the angel told them: (1) not to be afraid, (2) that Jesus was “Risen, as He said” (Matthew 16:21; 17:23; 20:19), (3) to go quickly and tell others, and (4) that they would see Jesus again. The women departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. Perhaps then on their way from Jerusalem back to Bethany, behold, Jesus met them, greeted them, and Himself told them: (1) not to be afraid, (3) to go quickly and tell others, and (4) that they would see Jesus again. (Obviously, Jesus did not need to tell them [2] that He was “Risen, as He said”, since by that time they seem to have realized that.) Let us now consider in turn each of the four things the angel and Jesus said.
Both the angel and Jesus told the women—and so tell us—(1) not to be afraid. The open tomb, the guards like dead men, and the appearance of the angel no doubt created or contributed to the women’s fear, especially if they had forgotten or not understood or not believed what Jesus had said about His resurrection. They were likely exhausted and already sad from Jesus’s death days earlier. They may even have been doing a little multi‑tasking, talking and walking on their way to “see” the tomb. No doubt the pre‑dawn darkness also distracted the women, as tremors from the earthquake may also have distracted them, if they felt the earthquake where they were.
Why might we this day be afraid? Have we forgotten what Jesus had said about His resurrection, not understood it, or not believed it? How do our exhaustion and emotions factor in? What distractions and other stressors exacerbate our need to be “reminded” of what we already have been told? By nature we are sinful, spiritually dead and hostile to God. His Holy Spirit calls us to repent and gives us spiritual life, but, in this lifetime, even we who believe still have to deal with our sinful nature clinging to us, leading us to forget, misunderstand, or doubt what Jesus says. We all need every day to turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. God forgives our sinful nature and whatever our sin might be; He forgives it all, for Jesus’s sake.
The angel told the women—and so tells us—what the women realized when they saw Jesus (2) that He was “Risen, as He said”. Jesus was crucified, but now He was risen, as He said. The only‑begotten Son of God, for us and for our salvation (for the forgiveness of our sins), came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man. That man, Jesus, was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered, and was buried—all as He had said would happen. But, the third day He rose again—also as He had said would happen. When Jesus met the women, He greeted them with a greeting that can also be a command to continue rejoicing, as they were rejoicing. They, likely having fallen to their knees before Him, took hold of His feet—notable because a ghost or spirit was not thought to have feet—and so they worshipped Him.
As we realize that Jesus is “Risen, as He said”, we also worship Him. Worship is the right response to Jesus’s resurrection. We worship Him in the greatest and highest way possible, by confessing ourselves as sinners before Him and by seeking and receiving His forgiveness in the ways that He has chosen to give us that forgiveness. We have an example of one of those ways, preaching, in today’s First Reading (Acts 10:34-43), as St. Peter in Cornelius’s house in Caesarea preached forgiveness through Jesus’s Name. Another way that we receive forgiveness is baptism in Jesus’s Name, which buries us into Jesus’s death, enables us to walk in newness of life, and will unite us with Him in a resurrection like His (Romans 6:1-5). Another way is individual absolution in Jesus’s Name, by which pastors with Christ’s authority, given Easter evening (John 20:22-23), free us from the sins we confess that we know and feel in our hearts. But perhaps the greatest way that we receive forgiveness is communing with Jesus Himself and with all those who believe, partaking of the one bread that is His body and the one cup of wine that is His blood, which communing strengthens and preserves us who believe in body and soul to life everlasting.
Until that life everlasting, we (3) go quickly and tell others, as both the angel and Jesus told the women—and so tell us—to do. In the case of the women, the audience and message were private (the women were not called to the public ministry). The women were to tell the disciples that Jesus was “Risen, as He said” and that the disciples should meet Him in Galilee. In our cases, we go quickly about our daily lives, living in our God-given vocations, and telling the people He brings into our lives of our experience with God’s love and forgiveness and how they also can have that love and forgiveness. The angel gave the women what might be regarded as an early creedal statement: Jesus Who was crucified is “Risen, as He said”, and our creeds and deeds today continue to confess faith in that same Jesus.
Both the angel and Jesus told the women (4) that they would see—and thus that we will see—Jesus again. In all likelihood the women did see Jesus in the flesh again with their own eyes over the 40 days between His resurrection and ascension. And, we soon may have that same opportunity. As St. Matthew tells it, already at Jesus’s resurrection many of the signs were given of the coming of the Lord at the end of the world and thus of the full realization of the Kingdom of God. In today’s Epistle Reading, St. Paul exhorted the Colossians—and exhorts us—to seek and set our minds on the things that are above, for when Christ appears, then we who believe also will appear with Him in glory (Colossians 3:1-4). We, too, will be “Risen, as He said”. As much as like the women we can rejoice continuously now, we and they will rejoice all the more then.
This day we have heard from the angel and Jesus Himself: (1) not to be afraid for (2) Jesus is “Risen, as He said”, (3) to go quickly and tell others, and (4) that we will see Jesus again. No matter multi-tasking or other distractions, God’s Word and Sacraments keep those things present in our hearts and minds. Whatever reasons we might have for fear are overcome by the greatest reason to rejoice: Jesus is “Risen, as He said”. If you repent and believe, your sins are forgiven. Depart in peace.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +