St. Mark 16:1-8
Divine Service
Easter Day

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Hallelujah!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

The story is told of how the people of England in June of 1815 were anxiously awaiting the outcome of the battle of Waterloo.  In this battle, the British army, under the command of the Duke of Wellington, was combating the French army, under the command of Napoleon.  A series of stations, each one in sight of the next, had been set up to send visible coded messages from the battlefield in Belgium back to England.  Finally the message arrived: “Wellington defeated...”  But as this was being spelled out, a sudden blanket of fog obscured the signals.  The people of England were heartbroken.  Their commander and his army had apparently been defeated.

However, the reason for the sad news was because the fog had interrupted the sending of the coded message.  Actually, the complete message had not been received.  The complete message was to have said: “Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.”  Later, when the fog cleared, the full message was communicated.  The outcome of the battle was the exact opposite of what the people had originally thought.  Wellington and the British had, in fact, not lost the battle at all!  They had won!  (Adapted from Clarence Mankin, The Messenger Newsletter [Peoria, IL: Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 1991], 1.)

On Good Friday, the message from the cross appeared to say: “Jesus Christ defeated…” His lifeless body was laid in the tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea, and his followers returned to their residences filled with grief and hopelessness.   It seemed that the archenemy, Satan, had won the most decisive victory in history.

But Easter Sunday brought the rest of the story.  The full message, revealed on Easter Sunday, is: “Jesus Christ defeated Satan at Calvary!” The resurrection of Christ shows who the true victor is.  Furthermore, just as the whole British nation shared in Wellington’s victory over Napoleon, so also all Christians share in Jesus’ victory over the devil and death.

The Resurrection Shows Jesus to Be the True Victor over Sin and Death, and His Victory Is Shared with All Christians.

Christ’s victory came as a surprise, even to his closest followers.  Nobody ever expected that Jesus would come out of that tomb alive.  His companions thought that Friday afternoon was the last they would see of him.  Their reactions of surprise to the message of Christ’s resurrection are recorded for us in our text from Luke 24.

The first people to be surprised were the women who arrived at the tomb early on Sunday morning: “But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.”  The spices were for anointing Jesus’ dead body.  They were certain Jesus was dead.  They expected that if the guards were gracious enough to open the tomb for them, all they would find inside would be a corpse.  Instead, what they found at the gravesite was that the guards were gone, the stone was rolled away from the tomb’s entrance, and the body of Jesus was gone.  What was their response to this discovery?  Verse 4 states that “they were perplexed about this.”  Perplexed, indeed!  Confused, mystified, confounded, baffled and bewildered!  An empty tomb was not what they expected.  This was a huge surprise!

Even more surprising, however, was what two messengers – we know that they were angels – told them.  They said: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.”  Talk about surprising news!  He’s not dead?  He has risen?  He’s alive?  This certainly was not what the women expected.

But it wasn’t only these women who were surprised on that Sunday morning.  The apostles were surprised as well “returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.”  What do you think?  Did the eleven receive the report of Jesus’ resurrection with joy and exaltation?  No, they received the women’s message with doubt and skepticism: “but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.  But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.” 

The fact that Jesus rose from the dead took everyone by surprise.  But the followers of Jesus shouldn’t have been surprised.  Jesus had told them beforehand that this would happen.  This is the point that the angels make when they tell the astonished women: “He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”  In one sense, the angels are surprised.  They’re surprised at the surprise of the women.  They’re surprised that the women didn’t see Jesus’ resurrection coming.  The angels ask, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”  In other words, they say: “Why are you expecting the One who is the source of life to be dead?  Don’t you remember that Jesus said he would rise from the dead?” Jesus had predicted his death, and he had predicted his resurrection.  So there should be no surprise that he was alive.

But perhaps nowhere was the surprise of Christ’s victory over death greater than in the spiritual realm.  It appeared as if Satan and his demonic hordes had won.  In the battle of the ages, the fallen prince of darkness had done all he could to bring the Prince of Peace under his power.  When Jesus succumbed to death, it appeared that he had been swallowed up into Satan’s dominion of death.  He who had the power of death seemed to have wielded successfully that power against the Lord of life.  C. F. W. Walther expresses Satan’s apparent victory in these words of a hymn: (LSB 480:2)

The foe was triumphant when on Calvary

The Lord of Creation was nailed to the tree.

In Satan’s domain did the hosts shout and jeer,

For Jesus was slain, whom the evil ones fear.

Yet in what appears to be a victory for the enemy, God brings about a surprise.  While in the very grasp of death, God’s Messiah overcomes death.  The victim suddenly is shown to be the victor!  In the face of seeming defeat, God pulls off victory—indeed the victory of the ages!  He who was dead now is alive again!  Dr. Walther’s hymn continues with the rest of the story (LSB 480:3):

But short was their triumph; the Savior arose,

And death, hell and Satan He vanquished, His foes.

The conquering Lord lifts His banner on high;

He lives, yes, He lives, and will nevermore die.

Weeks after Jesus’ resurrection, the apostle Peter declared to the very ones who had crucified Christ and had watched him die: “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24).  The apostle Paul says God “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him” (Col 2:15).  From his struggle with Satan, Jesus emerged triumphant with dominion over death as He says to St. John in Revelation: “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”  (Rev 1:18).

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all – and the most wonderful – is the fact that God’s surprise victory is our victory too, through faith in Christ.  Christ’s conquest over Satan brings victory to all of God’s people.  Jesus himself promises this in John 14 where He says: “Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me.  Because I live, you also will live;” (John 14:19) and in John 11: “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”  (John 11:25–26).

Christ’s death and resurrection are not only history, or his story.  They are our story as well.  This is because in the mind of God every believer shares complete identity with Christ in his death and resurrection.  Death no longer has ultimate power over us because we have been raised with Jesus through faith.  We are no longer slaves to sin and Satan since the penalty for our sin—the penalty of eternal death—has been paid by Jesus.

Therefore, you, as members of Christ’s body, his Church, are unified with Christ in his conquest over sin, Satan, and death.  When he conquered the forces of darkness and left them disarmed and paralyzed, you were participants in that victory.  Because he has snatched the keys of death and hell from the devil and burst forth from the dark abyss, you now share in that triumph!  This truth is expressed in another stanza from Dr. C. F. W. Walther’s Easter hymn (LSB 480:4):

O where is your sting, death?  We fear you no more;

Christ rose, and now open is fair Eden’s door.

For all our transgressions His blood does atone;

Redeemed and forgiven, we now are His own

On June 18, 1815, when the fog had dispersed, the people of England received the full message from the battlefield: “Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo!” Wellington’s victory over Napoleon brought victory to all British citizens.  So also, when the fog of surprise and doubt had cleared on that first Easter Sunday, the message of the empty tomb was clear: “Jesus Christ has defeated Satan, sin, death, and hell!” As a result, Christ’s conquest now brings victory to all of God’s people.  He brings victory to you!  That is the greatest surprise of all, and the biggest joke on Satan that ever was.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

+ SDG +

Sermons | Sermon Archives