“I Have Seen the Lord and Believe!”
Easter Sunrise Sermon
3/23/08
John 20:18
He is Risen!
Friday morning I stopped by to see Betty Walters. She is recovering
from a broken hip and needed some cheering up. So I read her this
sermon. It seemed to help—it made her feel better. I pray it has the
same effect on you-- if it doesn’t you can blame Betty.
People spend their entire lives looking.
Looking for Love;
Seeking acceptance and success;
Trying to find God.
Perhaps we have traveled down this same worn-out rabbit trail—
seeking Life--and the living Lord among the dead. If so, then we are in
good company—for that is what we see Mary doing very early on this
first Easter Sunday. This isn’t Mary, the mother of Jesus, but rather
Mary Magdalene from whom Jesus had driven seven demons.
She had risen early--but not before He had—for the purpose of
going to the tomb and anointing his body, and maybe to mourn as she
looked at Him one last time.
She was the first to arrive, but when she did she saw something
that took her COMPLETELY by surprise;
• The stone blocking the entrance to the tomb was rolled away.
• The body was not there!
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• Angels were sitting where His body should have been.
Listen to what the angels said to Mary: “Why do you seek the living
among the dead?”
It is a question that still rings true today--
For Christians who have haunted cemeteries as though to feel the
presence of loved ones long since gone to live with Jesus;
And for non-Christians who endlessly seek after the One and only
Living Lord among a myriad of dead ones.
Since time began people have sought god in the stars, in the sun and
moon, and in the earth. They created gods for themselves, some of
which may have served their own imagined needs—but NONE of whom
could provide for their greatest need: The forgiveness of sins and life
everlasting.
Though we live in a civilized and educated society, we still see
people in pursuit of these elusive, hidden gods.
• Some seek the god of success and worship wealth;
• Some become mindless minions of modern-day Messiahs;
• And some even imagine that God can be found deep within
themselves.
But all of these worthless and dead deities of our own making—and so
many others that we can’t even begin to mention—serve only as a
bottomless pit that leads to eternal darkness. By pursuing such paths
people make the same mistake that Mary did—looking for the Living
Lord among the dead.
But God is not these tombs—He is risen!
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He appears to Mary in the garden, and Mary then goes and tells the
disciples this wonderful news—“I have seen the Lord”. It is the same
news that we can share with others—for we also have seen the Living
Lord. We have seen Him through eyes of faith.
We have see Jesus in His Word. After Mary turns weeping, she
encounters Jesus. But she does not recognize Him. Why is this?
Because Jesus’ body is a resurrected one—and does not look the same.
It isn’t until Jesus speaks to Mary that she recognizes Him. The Gospel
of Luke records a similar encounter with the disciples. It isn’t until
Jesus speaks His Word that their minds, and hearts, and eyes are
opened. We see Jesus when we hear His Word. His Word enters our
ears, and penetrates not only our hearts and minds, so that our eyes are
opened in faith.
We see Jesus in His Sacrament. Soon we will be eating our Easter
breakfast. That is appropriate, because there is a lot of post-
resurrection eating going on. In this Gospel we see Jesus breaking
bread with the disciples on the Sea of Galilee. The Gospel of Luke has
the Lord’s Supper as a setting, where the eyes of the disciples eyes are
opened—and then Jesus disappears. We see Jesus in His meal—in the
breaking of the bread—which explains why in Acts 2:46 the Christians
regularly do so.
We see Jesus in the Church. Not the building made of stone and mortar.
But in the bodies that occupy these holy spaces. Yes, it’s true, we see
Jesus in you, for you are His body, and He is your head—as St. Paul
says in Colossians 1.
Do you remember when Jesus appeared to Saul? What did He
say? “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Jesus had already died,
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rose again, and ascended into heaven. Yet Saul was persecuting Jesus—
for He was persecuting His body, the church. You are that body of
Christ. True, you don’t look like Jesus—but then, Jesus didn’t look like
God, did He?
There are those who believe that they can worship god better in
nature. But this is wrong—for though God is every where—He does not
dwell in nature. He dwells here—in His home, the church.
So we see The Living Lord Jesus in His Word, and Sacraments, and
Church. This is hard to believe, isn’t it? Just as it was hard for Mary
and Thomas and the disciples believe that Jesus was alive.
Mary saw and believed. Thomas wouldn’t believe until he had
seen. And so Jesus appeared to Him and said, “Thomas, you believe
because you have seen . . . blessed are those who have not seen and still
believe.”
And now note, dear friends, what the Apostle John, himself an
eyewitness, says immediately following.
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples,
which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you
may have life in His name.
Like Mary, that first eyewitness of the resurrection, we also can
rejoice this Easter morn, for we have seen the Living Lord. Our eyes
have been opened by the Holy Spirit working in Word, water, bread and
wine. He has opened our eyes, our ears, our minds, for the purpose of
believing—for it is by believing that we can be assured of life in His
Name. Believing not in dead deities, or those of our own choosing, but
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in the Living Lord Jesus Christ, who assures us that because He lives,
we shall live also.
I leave you with these words of another eyewitness named Peter,
recorded in his second epistle.
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known
to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, bt6u we were
eyewitnesses of His majesty. We ourselves heard the voice borne from
heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have
something MORE SURE, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to
pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and
the morning star rises in your hearts.”
Amen.
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