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A sermon is a manner of oral communication and therefore words and sentence structure/order would be added, altered, or deleted at the moment of delivery. + In Nomine Jesu + The Rev. Evan Gaerther Jesus Christ died on the cross. This is made sure by the soldier that pierced his side. Joseph of Arimathea was given permission by Pilate to bury the body of Jesus. Jesus was buried in a new tomb, but the tale of death was not new. People knew the end of the story of man’s life was found in his death. Jesus was dead. We confess in our creed that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus laid his breathless body in all its quiet into the tomb and rolled the stone across its entrance. Joseph’s stone that is rolled across the new tomb is like a period that stops a sentence. It is over. But as we observe this Holy Saturday we do so in the light of the resurrection. We see that stone rolled, the darkness cover the tomb, and yet we look upon this burial with our vision illuminated by the light of the resurrection. When we look to the closed tomb of Holy Saturday we do so being an Easter Christian. Looking at what should be a disappointment and failure and holding onto hope and promise that God is at work. That is the way an Easter Christian can look at all the world’s hopelessness and disappointments, through the illumination of the light of the resurrection. Our faith is holding, beyond proof or logic, that we have a God that is victorious for us over death. Daniel in the lion’s den is a wonderful story of God’s presence in the midst of the worst the world can throw at us. Daniel had been arrested for praying to God instead of the king. The punishment was to be thrown into a Lions’ Den. Throughout the night, into the next day, the King waited but without hope. But in the midst of that place of torment and power, God shines through as the rescuing God. At the break of day the king went to the den and found Daniel alive. Daniel said to the king, “My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before the him.” (Daniel 6:22) Death could not hold Jesus. The devil could not defeat him. It was not simply on account of the divine nature of Jesus that he was able to defeat death. Jesus was victorious and raised from the dead by God the Father because he has been the beloved son, doing the will of his father, obedient even to the point of death. The mouth of death which so quickly consumes those that we love and care about and ultimately ourselves has been shut by the Lord. Paul correctly writes to the Corinthians that were afraid of what had happened to those that had already died, (1 Cor. 15:54-57 (ESV)) “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. “ In our own faith life, Holy Saturday, is a day that is a reflection of living in the here and now amidst sin and destruction, suffering and disappointment. But having faith in the promised glory of the second coming of Jesus Christ we spiritually put on the immortal and imperishable body of Christ. Through faith in Christ we die to sin and rise alive to Christ. In our creed we not only confess that under Pontius Pilate He suffered, was crucified, died and was buried, but also we confess that He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. We put on Christ through our suffering as we each bear our own personal crosses. Our suffering is made holy through Christ participating in it for us. On the cross he died to sin. In baptism we die to sin, we go under the water’s of baptism and drown the old Adam. Christ could not be held by death. Now if we die with Christ through baptism we certainly rise with Christ as well. We emerge from the consuming mouth of death with death’s mouth shut as emerge from the waters of baptism. Through our faith in Christ we to are no longer instruments of sin and death, we are children of God. On this Holy Saturday we gaze upon that closed tomb and know, illuminated by Easter, the stone closed is not the period, full stop to this story. In our own lives there may be moments of deep dark despair and frustration. But remember that you have died to sin and rose alive in Christ and are no longer an instrument of those dark moments. Death has been swallowed up in victory; you are an instrument of victory. You have been recreated, reformed, refashioned into a tool of life, not death. Live in life and victory, seeing your life illuminated by the resurrection and not the darkness of the closed tomb. Soli Deo Gloria -->> Home |