Mark 16:1-8 - Easter
Sunday - April 8, 2012
He Is Risen! He Is Raised!
The Stone Is Rolled!
Christ is risen.
Christ is raised. What’s the
difference? Well, it’s the same
difference as between lie and lay, or sit and set. But this is more than a lesson on proper
grammar – believe it or not, there’s something useful to be learned from this
distinction. To rise is to stand up by
one’s own power. That’s what Jesus did. To raise is to cause something else to stand
up that has no power in itself. That’s
what the Father did for Jesus.
So who did what? Did
Jesus rise? Did the Father raise? Well, both.
Just as the golden sun rises in the east, so the glorious Son of God
rose from the dead. Just as parents
raise up a child, so the Father raised His crucified only begotten Son from the
grave. Let’s consider both of these
statements: Jesus rose. The Father
raised.
Jesus rose from the dead because it was not possible for
death to hold Him. He was the sinless
Son of God who was not subject to death. He submitted to death — not because He owed
something to death, but out of obedience to the Father who laid on Him the
iniquity of us all. Jesus willingly
endured. He says in John chapter 10, “No
one takes [My life] from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay
it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have
received from My Father” (Jn. 10:18). “This
command.” Jesus speaks of it as one command; but it was two-pronged; and Jesus obeyed it on both counts. First, He went uncomplaining forth to bear the
sins of the whole world. And second, He
broke victoriously from the strong bands of death in order to destroy the power
of sin in us. To die was Jesus’ will; to
rise was His prerogative. Jesus does
everything that the Father gives Him to do.
When we consider Christ’s suffering, death, and His whole
life of seeming weakness from conception to cross, we call this His state of
humiliation – that time when the Son of God humbled Himself by not making use
of all His divine power. When we think
of Christ obeying the Father, I think we tend to conceive of this obedience as
a part of His humiliation. But this
isn’t quite accurate.
Rendering complete obedience to God has not always required that
Christ lay aside His glory. Obedience
has always marked the eternal relationship of the Son to His Father. Yes, it was in humiliation that the Son
obeyed the Father and came not to be
served but to serve; yes, it was in humiliation that Jesus gave His life as a
ransom for many (Mk. 10:45). That’s
true. In His death, we see humility and
obedience united in perfect love. But
look at where it is that Jesus’ humiliation ends and where His exultation begins:
it’s marked by nothing less than obedience! It’s when He obeyed His Father’s call to come
forth from the cold grip of death and to reclaim Life as His rightful
possession. And so in exulted glory—not in humility— Jesus obeyed His Father
and claimed for Himself and for us what He humbled Himself to earn. Christ rose! Alleluia! He rose indeed!
The will and power of the Father and the Son are one. Jesus did not claim His right to live apart
from the Father’s desire for Him to die.
He didn’t appeal to His innocence, but accepted the verdict of guilty in
our place. So also Jesus did not claim
His right to rise apart from His Father’s desire to raise Him. He didn’t say, “I shouldn’t stay dead this long! I’m innocent; I’m gonna rise.” No, instead He waited patiently; He fulfilled
the Sabbath by resting in death until the Father declared Him innocent on
Sunday morning. He declared Him innocent
by raising Him from the dead. The Father
raised Jesus! Alleluia! He raised Him indeed!
God loves life. He is the author of life and our Creator. And that is why He hates sin. The wages of sin is death because by our sin
we seek to find the source of life in ourselves rather than in the God who made
us. Think of it. That’s exactly what sin is. When we covet what we think will improve our
lives, we deny God as the one who makes life good. When we lust for flesh that grows old and
fades like grass, we deny the God who took on our flesh to redeem it and sanctify
us. When we value our life above
another’s – whether by speaking ill of someone or harboring hatred in our
hearts toward our weaker brothers – we deny love to those who have been made in
the image of the living God. This is
sin. The soul who sins shall die (Ezek.
18:20).
That’s why Jesus died. One man died.
The Father took everything that the law can possibly condemn in you and
He imputed it to His Son. Yes, Jesus was
unlawfully lynched by murderers. But He
was tried, convicted, and justly executed by His Almighty and righteous Father,
who for our sake laid on His Son the iniquity of us all. Sin needed to be punished.
And so it pleased the Lord, for our sake, to bruise Him,
as Isaiah tells us. The Lord is
the one who put Him to grief, as Isaiah foretold. But He saw the travail of His soul, as Isaiah
said He would, and He was satisfied. “By His knowledge My
righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.” And bore them He did (Is.
53:10-11). And here it is that we see how
strong His love to save us is. “Christ
was delivered up because of our offenses,” St. Paul tells us. “[But
He] was raised [again] because of our justification.”
Jesus was raised by the glory of the Father. Jesus rose.
This is true. But Jesus being
alive wouldn’t mean anything for us if the Father hadn’t raised Him. Because when the Father raised the Son He
declared Him who bore our sin not guilty.
He declared Him who became sin for us to be free from anything deserving
of death. But what does this mean? If all our sin and the sin of the whole world
was placed on Jesus who was tortured, crucified, and forsaken by His God, then
what does it mean that this same Jesus was declared righteous and innocent by
His Father? It means that the sin and
guilt He bore is no more. It is gone. It is paid for. God accepted His holy sacrifice as the true
Paschal Lamb. And so in the Resurrection
of Christ, God declares the whole world innocent of everything that the Lamb of
God took away. This is true even before
you believe it. It must be. Your sins are forgiven. You stand righteous before God your
Maker. This is the proclamation that
works faith and saves.
The will and power of the Father and the Son are one. What do they want? Well, what does God do? This is what we learn on Easter Sunday: that
in these glorious events God was in Christ reconciling the
world to Himself. When Jesus
died, the Father killed. When Jesus
rose, the Father raised. When Jesus was
vindicated, the Father justified you. When
Jesus was quickened, eternal life was made yours. And so we shall see the saying fulfilled, “Death
is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy
victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But
thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In His death, Jesus said, “It
is finished.” In His
Resurrection, the Father echoed the triumphant declaration. “Christ
rose! I raised Him! He is Risen indeed.” Alleluia!
This
proclamation speaks for itself. There is
so much significance to the fact that Jesus who was dead is now alive that it is
hard to say anything more significant than the plain and simple fact. But say it we must. We shout it from the roof-tops. We gather together every Easter – every first
day of the week to declare what we believe.
Here is salvation where Christ crucified and raised for sinners is
proclaimed for you. It is as St. Paul
tells us: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your
heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom.
10:9).
“But,” as
Paul soon after asks, “how shall they believe in
Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” Let us then return to our
text and consider again the words of the first Easter preacher. The women in sorrow sought Jesus of Nazareth
who was crucified. They loved Him. He was righteous. He had the words of eternal life. They sought to honor His death. But whom did they encounter instead. St. Mark calls him a young man. Youth, life, and vitality reflected from the
angel fresh from before the glorious throne of God. “Do not be afraid,” he says. That’s what I say. Fear not, daughter of Zion. This is where the preaching of the gospel
begins.
You come here with death on your mind. You come here with sorrow over sins and a
resume of misbehavior and hate in your hearts.
You come here with what you have earned.
You come here in faith seeking Him who was crucified for you. But your faith makes nothing happen. The preacher who has news for you has a
message of a victory that happened while you were still weak and helpless. But
your faith receives what has been accomplished long ago while the faithful women
were sleeping and while we were yet unborn.
“He is not here” the angel
said. And for these women who had come
to honor the death of their Lord, this was cause to disperse in further
terror. But for you, dear Christians, He
is here. He is risen.
But He is here. Because we do not
come to His grave to honor the dead. No,
we come to His Church where our risen Lord comes to us. The Father honored His death for us—not with
spices to anoint Him—but with Life eternal with which He in turn anoints
you. Christ has been highly exalted – and
we with Him – so that at the name of Jesus we gladly bow as we tread death and
all things under our feet.
If the stone had not been rolled, the
women would have remained in grief, clawing their way into an empty grave soon
to become their home. And so would
we. But the angel rolled the stone away
so that we might see the impotence of death—its empty hand who could not hold
onto Him who bore all sin. And so
neither can it hold onto you. Neither
can it hold onto your parents, your husband, your wife, your children. Shall
we fear? Or could the Head rise and
leave His members dead? No. For by faith you are too closely bound to Him
who died and rose. In Baptism, we have
been buried with Him so that by faith today and sight tomorrow we shall also
rise. Therefore listen to the tomb
rolled away for you. It is here in the Easter
hymns you sing and in the Sunday morning anthems we raise. Christ is risen! He is
risen indeed! There is so much compacted in this little phrase that we
could dwell on it forever. The angel rolled away the stone so that we can
and will. Alleluia.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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