The Resurrection - April 21, 2019 - Easter Sunrise - Text: Psalm 16:10

He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Allelulia!
 

Our text for this morning is Psalm sixteen verse ten: “10For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.” This is our text.
 

Just a reminder as we get started that this year during the Lenten Season and through to this service, our Easter Sunrise service and later at our Easter morning service we have been looking at some of the prophecies of the Old Testament which have their fulfillment in the New Testament in the person and work of Jesus. Last Friday we witnessed Jesus’ trial, condemnation, crucifixion, suffering and death. Today we celebrate His resurrection.
 

I find it interesting that the word history might be said to be two words, His and story, speaking of His Story or Jesus story. Remember as I constantly tell you, we get it right when we point to Jesus. Just as the Old and New Testaments point to Jesus and just as all of human history points to Jesus, Jesus being the crux, the middle of all history. So, let us review a little of His Story during this past week, what we call Holy Week. On Thursday we watched as Jesus celebrated the Passover with His Apostles for the last time and from that celebration gave us His Holy Supper wherein we eat His body and drink His blood so that He becomes a part of us.
 

Following their celebration of the Passover meal they sang a psalm and then Jesus went out with His apostles to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. We watched as He encouraged His Apostles to watch and pray and how He went a bit further away from them and prayed and we were told that He prayed in agony even sweating drops of blood, and asking for there to be another way to bring salvation rather than through His having to suffer and die. Yes, we saw the human nature of Jesus in the fact that as a human He was not looking forward to the cup of suffering that lay before Him.
 

We watched as Judas brought a gang of thugs, temple guards to arrest Jesus. We were reminded that Judas intentions were more than likely from a misunderstanding of Jesus as savior, that is that Judas believed Jesus to be a social/political savor who would start a revolt and over throw the Roman government. And so we saw Jesus passively allow Himself to be arrested and put on trial.
 

We watched as Jesus was abandoned by His earthly friends. No one stayed to defend Jesus. No one was there to bear witness or give testimony at His trial. Instead we later find His friends being locked in a room for fear of the Jews.
 

On Friday, Good Friday it is called today, we watched as Jesus was beaten, mocked, spit upon, stricken and afflicted and so forth. We watched the illegal nightly trials. We watched as a parade of witnesses could not agree on a crime of which to accuse Jesus. We watched as a convoluted accusation of a misconstrual of what Jesus said was used to gain the death penalty. We watched as a crowd was incited to ask for Jesus to be crucified.
 

We followed as Jesus was moved from being on trial by the church leaders, to being on trial by the civil court of Pontius Pilate and even questioned by Herod himself. We watched as Pilate tried his best to have Jesus released, but to no avail, but rather that the Jewish leaders were inciting a riot. So we watched as Pilate declared Jesus to be condemned to die, washing his hands of the whole situation.
 

We watched as Jesus suffered physical death, being whipped, beaten, mocked, and spat upon. We watched as nails were driven in His hands and feet. We watched as He hung on the cross suffocating to death. We watched as He suffered physically and as He suffered the eternal spiritual death penalty of hell on the cross.
 

We heard Jesus as He was abandoned by God the Father as we heard Him speak, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” and we watched as He breathed His last and subjected Himself to His Father and died.
 

On Saturday, yesterday, we waited. We watched as Jesus observed that Sabbath day of rest. Indeed, as God had given this seventh day of the week as a day of rest, so Jesus’ body lay resting in the tomb to await His resurrection on Sunday, the first day of the week.
 

As for the followers of Jesus, as His body rested in the tomb they waited with eager expectation in order to attend to His body, anointing it and better preparing it for a proper burial. Since it was late on Friday and since the Sabbath was about to begin they were only able to do so much and so Saturday was a day of waiting for them as well.
 

Today we come along to the tomb with Mary and those who would come to complete the task begun on Friday, the task of lovingly preparing His body. We come along early in the morning in order to grieve and pay our last respects. And yet, as we come to the tomb we find that the tomb is empty. We find that Jesus is not in the tomb. We find that He has risen from the dead.
 

Jesus was conceived, born, lived, suffered, died and rose to fulfill all of Holy Scripture which points to Him. David points to this moment in his psalm, out text, “10For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption” (Psalm 16:10) . Jesus’ body may have been placed in the tomb on Friday, but it did not remain as His body did not see corruption. His body was not subjected to being worm fodder as our bodies are today. Instead, just as God planned and promised, so Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus bodily rose from the dead, defeating sin, death and the devil.
 

Today we come early to the tomb and finding an empty tomb we know that Jesus is not dead, but that He is alive. We do not worship a dead God, but we worship a living God. Unlike the false gods of other religions, gods and idols based on fantasy, mythology and otherwise gods and idols outside of human history, we worship a God who entered into our human history. We worship a God who was and is a part of our human lives. Archeology and history only support His story, that Jesus was a human living being who lived and was crucified. The bodies of other religious leaders can be found here and elsewhere on earth. The body of Jesus cannot be found except that Jesus continues to live as God in flesh in heaven, where He is watching over us, ruling over us and interceding for us. Not only is Jesus bodily in heaven, but as true God, He is also bodily everywhere present. Just as Jesus appeared bodily to His disciples on the first Easter evening, even though the doors to the room were locked, so to He is with us bodily in the bread and wine at His Holy Supper.
 

All history is all of His story. All history points to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Jesus, the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Jesus the one who came to live perfectly for us in our place. Jesus the one who took all our sins and the sins of all people, of all places, of all times and suffered and paid the price for all sins. Jesus is the one who gives us life, forgiveness, eternal life.
 

Today we come and we rejoice and are given to. Forgiveness is not something we get for ourselves. It is not something we can earn nor deserve. Forgiveness was earned and paid for by Jesus giving His life for ours, paying the price for sin, human death. Jesus freely gives us the forgiveness He earned because of His great love for us. With forgiveness we know that we have life and salvation and so we rejoice.
 

Today our celebration begins and continues. We celebrate God’s great love for us. We celebrate Jesus’ life for us. We celebrate Jesus’ victory over sin, death and the devil. We celebrate that all history points to Jesus and His story. We celebrate that He gives us faith, forgiveness and life.
 

Indeed, as Paul so well reminds us, if Jesus had not risen from the dead our faith would be in vain and we of all people would be most pitied. But Jesus has risen from the dead. His resurrection was promised. He spoke of His resurrection. Many people bore witness of His resurrection. His word and all history, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the years before Christ, the years before the common era, the years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the years of the common era all point to this moment in time, Jesus’ resurrection and defeat of death, His defeat of sin, death and the devil. So, we revel in the resurrection. We rejoice in forgiveness of sins. We desire to give thanks and praise to Jesus and to continually be given the gifts and blessings He has to give through His means of grace. We rejoice as we greet each other even continually, He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! To God be the glory for Jesus’ sake. Amen.