HE IS RISEN INDEED, MEANS THAT “HE IS RISEN” IS TRUE!
The Text, St. Mark 16:1-8 (v. 4-6). “But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away – for it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him.”
Risen Lord, this is Your Word, and these are Your words. Give us courage by the truth. Your Word is truth. By Your Word of truth, give us sure hope and great joy! Amen.
In the name of the risen Jesus, dear fellow redeemed: Grace and peace from God our Father, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Amen!
Alleluia! He is risen! – He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
You just said that Jesus’ resurrection on the third day is true. “Indeed,” in the original form of the Easter greeting in Greek, is alethos, “truly.” In Latin, it’s vere; we get “veritable” from that, or in Spanish, verdad, the truth. When you say, “He is risen indeed,” you’re saying, “He is risen, it’s true!”
We live in a world that says truth doesn’t matter or exist. We bristle at this, especially if people say we follow a fairy-tale religion or just believe things we wish were true to make ourselves feel better. We respond defensively. But we aren’t immune from it either. Aren’t you sometimes slow to believe? Doesn’t gloom and darkness descend on you if you feel things are hopeless and bleak, you’re stuck in sadness, or you can’t stop your worry and anxious feelings? Or sometimes you aren’t sure you can be forgiven, or you’re stuck in the past, you can only regret things, or can’t get over some guilt. You might have gloomy forebodings about the future, or times you even wonder about God or the Bible. Isn’t it vitally important in all of this, that it’s actually true?
We know where the attacks on the truth come from. They come from the devil, whom Jesus calls “the father of lies” (Jn 8:44). The devil’s attack on the truth is his attack on hope. Without the truth, you lose hope.
Jesus’ followers had lost hope, you can see it. The disciples had locked themselves in. The women’s question, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?” shows they too were carrying disappointed hopes. They had watched as Jesus’ body was buried. They were going there to finish embalming the body. There’s a dread as they walk.
When they saw the angel, it says “they were alarmed.” This “alarm” is tied up in sadness, but it’s deep sadness, a hopelessness, fear that everything about Jesus, all the promises, aren’t true. They grieve as those who have no hope. The angel addresses the hopelessness: “Be not alarmed.”
Do you struggle to have hope? It happens for many reasons. A feeling of hopelessness can overtake you suddenly. Something happened, or a lot of things happened. You try to be optimistic and persevere, but you run into so many walls. Or the world around us, how things go, make you feel hopeless.
But in all the ways you can feel hopeless, it’s because Satan is attacking your hope. We have to understand how hope is differentiated from faith.
Faith is the gift of God, it’s how your life in Christ begins, being given faith in baptism. It grows through learning, by hearing God’s word of truth and knowing Christ as your Savior. This is being a disciple. The teaching of the Word is the primary thing. Faith comes from the Word, which is the Truth.
We have a Good Friday faith when we say in the Creed, “I believe in Jesus Christ … who was crucified, died, and was buried.” This is a faith that says: “I believe He died for me, to take away the guilt of all my sins.” We also have an Easter faith; we say: “I believe … the third day He rose again from the dead.” This is a faith that says: “I believe that all the sins really are forgiven,” since His resurrection proves that His death does pay for all sins. It’s the true faith.
But then the devil attacks your faith. He uses all the things you see or feel. He uses sorrow and sadness, danger and threat. He uses strife with others, adverse experiences, loneliness, whatever. If it’s something or someone important to you, he attacks that. But his target is your faith, that you will feel far from God, under judgment, that you will doubt God’s goodness to you.
This is where your faith has to become hope. Hope clings to the promises of God when it’s difficult. Hope is faith battling. Hope is like a captain of a storm-tossed ship, which is you. Hope battles against your feelings, these feelings of sadness, fear, feeling timid or faint-hearted, feeling burned, pessimistic, cynical. Hope is faith being courageous despite what you see or feel. Hope is faith being joyful despite what you see or feel.
Satan attacks your hope. He does this by getting us to hope in things God hasn’t promised. It might be your wishes, something you’ve built up in your mind. “My life is supposed to look different,” you think. People blame God over “disappointed hopes,” but often it’s their own hopes they’ve built up. “Hope in God,” which defines a Christian, is based instead on God’s promises.
The disciples had “disappointed hopes” because their hope was based on a continuance of nice experiences with Jesus. I’m grateful that the Bible shows them being this way, it’s honest about their fears and trembling and being without hope. That’s how we are. The devil attacks our hope. He makes you a storm-tossed ship. He makes you think you’ve lost your optimism, courage, and joy. He wants you to be just like all those who “have no hope” (1Thes 4:13).
This is why it’s important that Jesus’ resurrection is true – because that means that all God’s promises are true. So the devil attacks this truth, in order to defeat our true hope. Just imagine if Jesus is not risen, what that means:
· If Jesus is not risen, then He is not the Son of God, as He said, and so you can wonder if God really does so love the world, and who the true God is. Then you’re vulnerable to the atheism that says there’s nothing outside or after this life, a worldview that’s hopeless and loveless.
· Secondly, if Jesus is not risen, then we’re still in our sins, condemned, since if He isn’t risen, there’s no proof that His death really pays for sins; then there’s no way to be forgiven. Life would be constant hopelessness and despair, a conscience ever in turmoil, unforgiven, uncomforted.
· The final point is that if Jesus is not risen, then what hope does anyone have of life in heaven? He has to rise from death in order for all who believe in Him to rise too. Without this, grief is never-ending.
But now for the Gospel: as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, “But now Christ is risen from the dead.” He says this after pointing out how many hundreds of eyewitnesses there were who saw the risen Jesus, and this is mostly besides the eight times in the gospels Jesus appeared to His followers, eating with them and letting them touch Him, and touch His wounds, to see that He wasn’t a spirit but was still in His flesh, God and Man, one Christ.
We say He is risen indeed, in truth, because of the eyewitnesses. It is the truth, and because of that we are the ones who have hope, in spite of Satan’s attacks on the truth and on our hope.
Hear the words of the angel: “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples – and Peter – that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.”
True hope is built on faith, and faith comes from the Word, so that’s what we just heard: the Word. The angel acknowledges the women’s feelings, which hope is battling against but losing. Then the angel tells them the fact. He includes the fact that’s beating them down, that Jesus died. But then the angel says the ultimate, most important fact in your life and all history: “He is risen! He is not here.” He shows them the fact of the empty tomb. He lays before them the promise that they will see Jesus again, “as He said.”
The emphasis here is that Christ’s promises are true. “As He said.” The angel builds their faith again on Jesus’ words, shows them how His words have come true. This is establishing their hope on God’s certain and sure promises. So that they will have the sure and certain hope. So they’ll stop being those who have no hope and return to being the ones who have hope.
Jesus’ resurrection does that for you. The angel builds your faith on Jesus’ words, shows you His Word is true. It’s “as He said.” This happens each time you are told that God forgives your sins for Jesus’ sake. Your timid heart does not want to believe it, you don’t feel forgiven or feel worthy. The absolution is telling you the fact, the truth, rooted in Jesus’ resurrection, the authority given to Him which He gives to His church on earth: to forgive sins, that when your sins are forgiven on earth it’s as true and certain in heaven, since Christ our dear Lord is saying it to you Himself through the pastor.
Since His resurrection is true, then it’s fact, it’s true, that Jesus is the Son of God – so God doeslove the world and sent His Son for you; and it’s fact, it’s true, that there is forgiveness for you for Jesus is risen; and it’s fact, it’s true, that you and your believing loved one will rise again, for Jesus is risen.
Because it’s true, you have hope: a living hope. A hope that does things, it battles against fear and sadness, and battles with certainty, courage and joy. This is who you are as a Christian. Christians are the Hopers. We who have hope the world doesn’t have (and needs). And we carry the Truth with us.
So what do you do if you run into a lack of hope? If your hope isn’t battling but retreating? If you’re hit with so much and and lack hope, what to do?
First is to realize this comes from the devil. He only attacks the hope of Christians so this attack tells you that you are a Christian, you are God’s child, you do have enough faith for the devil to be attacking you this way. This is why you make the sign of the cross daily to remember your baptism, that you are God’s child. The devil’s attack drives you back to your baptism!
Next, if you find you lack hope, is to realize that your forgiven self, your believing self, is being weakened by the devil’s attack and it isn’t as strong right now as your doubting self that listens to fears. What you need is not to think you’re a lost cause and everything’s hopeless. What you need is for your forgiven self to be made stronger. The Lord’s Supper is for this. It’s there to strengthen you in faith, hope, and love. Jesus, the crucified and risen Savior, gives you His body and blood to strengthen you in hope.
Finally, we remember that hope is in the things that you do not see, in the life that’s waiting for you, the promises of eternal life which are true, verified by Christ’s resurrection. There’s always reason to live, always joy, always a sure and certain hope. No matter what you see or feel, you can always say: “But I have hope, because He is risen indeed.” That’s the truth!
No gloom shall ever shake, no foe shall ever take
The hope which God’s own Son in love, for me, hath won. Amen!
(“Awake My Heart With Gladness,” v. 3)