Grace to you and peace, in the name of our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

For two thousand years Christians have greeted each other with an ancient salute of grace and truth.

Alleluia! Christ is arisen!
He is risen in deed! Alleluia!

Many churches use that greeting every Easter. ’Alleluia’ is a Hebrew word. It means, “Praise be to God.” So the greeting is:

Praise be to God! Christ is arisen!
He is risen in deed! Praise be to God!

That helps clear things up a bit, and in fact we should give praise to God because He has come to save us. That single act fulfilled the promise made all the way back to Adam and Eve,¹ and to every generations leading up to Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds, the wise men, and everyone else living at that time. All of them, all people living in the Old Testament times, were waiting for the Messiah,² the Christ,³ the Holy One of God. They waited, and they believed He would come.

Then He came.

He came, and He began His work to fix what we broke. He came to pay the cost of our sin. He came, but the promise was not fulfilled simply because He came. The Old Testament, the Old Contract, was still in force. The full Law of God was in effect. Sin must be paid for with blood. That was the Law of God.⁴ Jesus was here, but His being here didn’t help.

Oh He helped many people. He healed diseases,⁵ He mended limbs,⁶ He made the deaf hear and the blind to see.⁷ He even raised people from the dead.⁸ John the disciple said if all of His miracles were written down the whole world could not contain the books it would take to record them.⁹ Miracle after miracle He did. Feeding thousands.¹⁰ giving comfort, and teaching, always teaching. Teaching that He is the One who was to come. He is the Holy Christ of God.

Then a Thursday came.

Every year we watch on Thursday, and listen, as He completes His teaching of the New Testament, the New Contract, made with His Body and His Blood.

The old Passover meal was to end, and it did end on that Thursday night. The night Jesus celebrated it one last time with His disciples. On that Thursday night, Jesus took the ancient tradition of Passover and changed it. He removed the sacrifice, because He is the one time perfect sacrifice for all sin. Just as He had been teaching them from the beginning,¹¹ Jesus gave them a new meal. A Holy Meal we now call The Lord’s Supper. Not just a Sunday snack, but a Holy Meal, a Sacred Meal, in which we eat, not a Passover lamb, but the very Lamb of God.¹² Not just a lamb that covers sins, but the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.¹³

After giving such a wonderful grace giving gift, we watch Judas slink away on that fateful Thursday night. By Sunday he would be dead. Dead by his own hand. Even though he had spent three years being taught by Jesus, he could not grasp how Jesus came to forgive all sins. Even sins as egregious as his, had he simply repented, had he simply apologized. …but he didn’t, and he is lost to us forever.¹⁴

Then Friday came.

We call it Good Friday but there was nothing good anyone could see on that day. Jesus was tried in a trumped up tribunal. Peter, with shouts of vulgarities, denying he even knew Jesus.¹⁵ Pilot’s cowardice, Herod’s mocking jeers. Then the whipping. Then Barabbas goes free. Then the sentence, “Crucify Him!” Then the guards gutless guffaw as they grate Jesus head with spiked thorns. Then the walk of sorrows. Then the nails. Then the cross is lifted up.

As Jesus hangs there. He is in Hell, and not just figuratively. He is truly, actually, in Hell. Utterly forsaken and abandoned by our heavenly Father,¹⁶ enduring the full wrath of Almighty God for each and every one of your sins.

Then He died.

The great Teacher, the great Prophet, the Holy One of God, who had come to set His people free; the One who had healed, comforted, mended, and raised so many; the Author of Life was dead. He died on that Friday we call Good, and it looked, to everyone, like God had lost. It looked like Satan had won.

It looked like God had lost, but there were beings who knew that was not true. None of them human beings. God, if you can call the Uncreated, Eternal, Author-of-all-that-is a being, of course knew He had not lost. Lucifer, now some might have though he would be celebrating as Jesus “descended into Hell,¹⁷” but not for long. Lucifer knew Jesus had not lost. …and just to make sure he knew, Jesus went to basilica of Beelzebub that fateful Friday to let him know personally.¹⁸

Jesus, in an act of righteous victory for Himself, and of debilitating humiliation for Lucifer, went right to the very capitol of Satan’s kingdom, and proclaimed for all, the foul fell beast had fallen. The angels of Heaven, and the demons of Hell all knew Jesus had not lost. It was only us, those He came to save; those He had taught for years; those He had promised for generation, it was us. We looked at that empty cross, and that occupied tomb and we, only we thought, “God is dead.”

Then Saturday came.

Throughout the years since Jesus’ death many have tried to keep Him there in the grave. Throughout the years many have declared this will be the last “foolish generation.” The last to believe in a magic man in the sky who saves you when you die. They mock, they ridicule, they degrade and deride, and they say, “Your magic man is dead.”

You hear it everywhere. You hear people who pretend to be pastors and professors, pontificate the pitch that the Promised One was nothing. Scripture says something about those poor souls. It calls them cursed. It calls the condemned. It calls them fools.¹⁹ Throughout the years many have lived and lied about Jesus’ death. They lived, they lied, they died, and met their Lord, and they cried. …and are crying still.

Saturday came and Sadducees and scribes, smiled as they saw the Savior succumb to the cross, and their sick hatred of the One who created them. They breathed a sigh of relief. The war had ended. They returned to the lives of corruption, bullying, and abuse. They returned to their positions of power which they used for any and all means to profit themselves. Even if it meant kicking some poor widow to the street.²⁰

One wonders what Jesus’ followers did that Saturday. It was the highest and holiest day of worship in the year, but I wonder how many of them went to church that day? Their “church” had killed their Teacher. How could they go to a Passover service of praise when those who led the worship had shown themselves to be the most corrupt hypocrites of them all?

Would you have gone to church that day? Could you have sat in the pews singing songs of praise for all that God had done to set you free, when the Author of Freedom was lying dead in a tomb? Jesus promised He would change things, but now He’s dead and nothing is changed. Jesus promised He would set them free, but Rome still ruled, and the Temple Authority was still corrupt.

You would wish the Sun would not rise. “Just let it stay dark. Just let me sleep. I’m too depressed to face the day. I don’t want to care anymore. I believed in Jesus, and they killed Him.” You would wish the Sun would not rise.

Then Sunday came.

Though no human beings knew it, the Creator-of-all was not dead. The victory had been won, and He continued to govern and guide all of creation. The stars still circled the night sky, and the Sun, once again, as it has countless times since the creation of the world, climbed over the Eastern horizon.

The ladies wanted, they needed, to honor their Lord, so they prepared the spices and oils to anoint Jesus’ body. As they walked the Sun rose and the sky brightened, but one has to believe these events only dimmed their mood. Growing sadder as they strode to their Savior’s resting place.

Now, so many years later, we can smile because we already know what they are about to learn. We can grin as we watch the angels tell them, “Look! He is not here!²¹” We can feel the excitement grow in their hearts as they run to tell the others. We can feel the joy leap through their chest as Jesus greets them, and says, “Do not be afraid!²² Go and tell them all! I am alive!”

You see, as the Sun rose that Sunday morning, The Son rose. The Son of God, the Holy One, the Christ, the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, rose from the dead. He defeated Death. He defeated Hell. He defeated Lucifer. He defeated sin. He took our sins and died eternally to God our Father, so that we would not have to die eternally. He then He became the first born back from the dead.²³ Though dead eternally He, by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself,²⁴ declared for all of Creation to hear, “I Am alive!!”

We now, with vigor and wonder. shout that ancient greeting:

Alleluia! Christ is arisen!
He is risen in deed! Alleluia!

Praise be to God!

Now no matter what may come; no matter what trials; no matter what troubles; no matter what tribulations, we can shout in triumph because those pretended pastors, and pontificating professors, with their pitch that the Promised One was nothing, are wrong! They are wrong because Christ is arisen!

Sacred Scripture says:

The Lord determines the number of stars. He gives each one a name.
Our Lord is great, and His power is great. There is no limit to His understanding.²⁵

Just as sure as the stars still circle the night sky, and the Sun rises on the Eastern horizon, so sure can you be of your salvation. You see:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky displays what his hands have made.
One day tells a story to the next.
One night shares knowledge with the next
without talking, without words,
without their voices being heard.
Yet, their sound has gone out into the entire world,
their message to the ends of the earth.²⁶

Look! Look out the windows and see grace of God streaming into them, the wonders of God’s gracious and Almighty hand. Look at the light stream through these windows teaching us the wonders those pretended pastors, and pontificating professors, cannot see.

Just as sure as the Sun rises,

Alleluia! Christ is arisen!
He is risen in deed! Alleluia!

Donna knew that. She relied on it. She knew it and she said so. So I can say to you, Jesus’ victory is hers. Just a few days ago her body was too run down to help her. On that day her Champion took her hand and led her home. I pray you hold onto that same truth, and follow her home when the Master calls you.

Amen.

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