Text: John 20:1-18<\/p>\n
Christ Is Risen<\/p>\n
Christ is
\nrisen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah! Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our risen
\nLord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The
\ntext for this morning comes from the Gospel reading, which was read earlier.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been For three This hymn And when When Peter After the After It is so Dear, sweet Remember Christ\u2019s Where is He is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah! Amen.<\/p>\n Now the Text: John 20:1-18 Christ Is Risen Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah! Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading, which was read earlier. It\u2019s been an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,9016],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nan agonizing week. First, Jesus rides
\ninto Jerusalem where He hears the cries of the people: \u201cHosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the
\nLord, even the King of Israel!\u201d<\/em> On Thursday, Jesus met with His disciples for
\nthe last time and instituted His Supper, saying, \u201cThis cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.\u201d<\/em> Friday brought with it a day of shear
\nhell. Jesus was brought before his
\nenemies and was beaten and scourged. Starting at 6am, Jesus was brought before the elders, the scribes, and
\nthe whole Council. At the third hour,
\n9am, they crucified Him, but death didn\u2019t come quickly. Starting from the sixth hour until the ninth
\nhour, from noon until 3pm, darkness covered the entire land. Then the shout of Jesus rang across the land:
\n\u201cMy God, my God, why have you forsaken
\nme?\u201d<\/em> and Jesus died. There He hung
\nuntil evening had come, 6pm, until Joseph of Arimathea went before them to
\nremove the body of Jesus.<\/p>\n
\ndays, Christ laid dead in a tomb. On
\nthat Sunday morning which we call Easter, something happened. \u201cNow on
\nthe first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was
\nstill dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.\u201d<\/em> After the last week\u2019s events, it brings us to
\nthis morning. Early hasten to the
\ntomb\/Where they laid His breathless clay;\/All is solitude and gloom.\/Who has
\ntaken Him away?\/Christ is ris\u2019n! He
\nmeets our eyes.\/Savior, teach us so to rise.<\/u><\/p>\n
\ndoesn\u2019t end with the empty tomb. It
\ndoesn\u2019t end with a missing Jesus. It
\nends with a risen Jesus and our plea for our Savior to teach us to rise. The focus wasn\u2019t on the fact that the tomb
\nwas empty; the focus was on why<\/strong> the
\ntomb was empty: because Christ rose from the dead to give us everlasting
\nlife. It is because Christ defeated
\ndeath by His death and resurrection for you and for me.<\/p>\n
\nMary Magdalene found that the stone was rolled away, she was troubled, just as
\nanyone would be if we went to the cemetery and found that our loved one was
\nmissing from their gravesite. Mary of
\nMagdalene and her companions could see the stone was gone. What could they assume but the worst? After all, they were coming for a dead Jesus,
\nnot a living Savior. The stone away from
\nthe tomb, out of its groove, suggested violence. Mary Magdalene\u2019s focus: \u201cThey have taken the Lord out of the tomb.\u201d<\/em> She still refers to Jesus as \u201cthe Lord.\u201d Although Mary Magdalene cannot see the body
\nof Jesus, she cannot do otherwise than still call Him \u201cthe Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nand the other disciple arrive at the tomb, they find it just as Mary Magdalene
\nhad described: the stone was rolled away. When they entered the tomb, they found the lines they had wrapped Jesus
\nin. The sight riveted John to the spot
\nas he hesitated at the entrance and peered in. Peter didn\u2019t stop but went right inside and studied the scene
\nintently. Both must have had an awe-struck
\nexpression on their faces when they arrived. A large stone, only moveable by several strong men, has been moved. The body of Jesus, a mere man to some, the
\nSon of God to others, has been taken. They
\nmust have been dumbfounded by the scene, because John says that \u201cfor as yet they did not understand the
\nScripture, that he must rise from the dead.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\nlast three years, being with Jesus, seeing all that Jesus had done, hearing all
\nthat Jesus had spoken, how could they not understand that He had to rise from
\nthe dead? Even for us at times, we fail
\nto understand that He had to rise from the dead. \u201cBy His dying He has destroyed death, and by
\nHis rising again He has restored to us everlasting life.\u201d The Scriptures point us to His
\nresurrection. They spell out the meaning
\nof Christ\u2019s resurrection for us, as well as the event. It provided a forceful demonstration of
\nChrist\u2019s deity. It announced our
\njustification. We know that we shall
\nfollow Jesus in rising from the dead. Our faith is sure since we have a living Savior.<\/p>\n
\nfinding the tomb empty, Peter and John left and returned home. As far as our text for today reads, that\u2019s
\nthe last we see of Peter and John until later that evening. Our text continues with Mary Magdalene, who
\nnever left the tomb. Mary Magdalene
\ncouldn\u2019t bring herself to leave the tomb. If ever there was a time for Christ to be present, now would be it. She was in a state of mourning because her
\nSavior had been killed. Sitting outside
\nof the tomb where He laid would help to bring comfort to her, knowing that He
\nwas inside. But now seeing the stone
\nrolled away, the empty tomb brought only fear and uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\nunfortunate in our lives that we too, like Peter and John, abandon the empty
\ntomb. Jesus is no longer present, so we
\nleave and forget all about Him. We tend
\nto do things on our own. In our society
\ntoday, it\u2019s \u201cout of sight, out of mind.\u201d If Jesus isn\u2019t right here, right now, then we overlook Him. However, that is not the way it should
\nbe. Jesus is<\/strong> right here, right now. He
\nis present in our lives every day. He is
\npresent in the world in which we live in. We know that because as Luther writes regarding the First Article of the
\nCreed, \u201cHe also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home,
\nwife and children, land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that
\nI need to support this body and life.\u201d We know that He is present in our lives because of today! By His death on Good Friday, by His
\nresurrection from the dead today, we know that He is present in our lives
\nbecause He died for you<\/strong> and He rose
\nfrom the dead for you<\/strong>. <\/p>\n
\nMary had physically seen Jesus on a day-to-day basis. She had witnessed His many miracles of
\nhealing, feeding, and raising the dead. Yet even in her more enlightened status as one very close to our Lord, he
\nsinful human nature blinded her from seeing her Lord. It was when her gracious Shepherd called her
\nby name that she recognized Him in His glorified body. It was the voice of her Lord that called her
\nforth from the tomb of despair and doubt. <\/p>\n
\nthis little hymn you learned as a child? \u201cI am Jesus\u2019 little lamb\/Ever glad at heart I am;\/For my Shepherd gently
\nguides me,\/Knows my need and well provides me,\/Loves me ev\u2019ry day the
\nsame,\/Even calls me by my name<\/em>.\u201d We too have been called by name by our
\nShepherd. Our Risen Lord and Savior,
\nJesus Christ, called us by name to Him at the font, when we were baptized into
\nHis name, made a part of His family for all eternity. You have been made alive again this morning,
\nfor your resurrected Lord has called you from the death of sin to the
\nlife-giving and certain proclamation of your adoption by grace.<\/p>\n
\nwords to Mary Magdalene, \u201cI am ascending
\nto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God\u201d<\/em> tell us that His
\nrelationship to us will be different. He
\nis no longer here performing miracles and healing the sick. He is no longer teaching the people. Instead, He has sacrificed Himself for us
\nall, \u201cto prepare a place for you,\u201d <\/em>so
\nthat He will come again and will take you to Himself, that where He is you may
\nbe also.<\/p>\n
\nJesus? He is no longer dead. He is no longer in the tomb. He has risen, just as Scripture has foretold
\nof long ago. He descended into hell,
\njust as the Creed says, where He showed His pierced hands and feet to Satan and
\ntold him that he no longer had any hold over God\u2019s creation. More importantly, He ascended into heaven,
\nwhere He reigns with God forever, waiting for the time where all of His
\nbrothers and sisters in the faith are joined with Him for all eternity. <\/p>\n
\npeace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in
\nChrist Jesus until the day of resurrection. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"