St. Paul Lutheran Church
Sermon by Pastor Balogh

EASTER SUNDAY
MAR 23, 2008 - listen to this sermon in mp3!

John 20:1-18 (Our text is our Gospel reading for today.)
He's risen! He's risen, indeed! Alleluia! Dear fellow believers
basking in the spotlight of Christ's victory over death. On this Easter
Sunday, Christians all over the world are traveling in spirit to the
empty tomb where Jesus had been laid. Why is that? Don't we have more
interesting places to go than a grave? Or if we insist on heading to a
tomb today, aren't there better ones than the borrowed tomb of Joseph of
Arimathea? How about the tomb of King Tut? The gold and art from that
Egyptian grave has impressed millions of people from every continent.
All over the world, the remains of kings, dictators, and princes are
preserved, guarded, and admired. And you and I? We can't even be sure
about the exact location of our King's burial. Because of that fact,
Muslims heckle Christian missionaries throughout the world. "We have the
tomb of the great prophet Mohammed," they say, "and you Christians have
nothing."
But that's the point. That's why we're here celebrating today. We have
"nothing," and that "nothing" means everything. That "nothing" changed
our lives. Today, we celebrate the life-changing power of the empty
tomb. We're going to do that by contrasting how people come to the tomb
and how they leave the empty tomb.
We walk with three individuals this morning: Mary Magdalene and two
disciples, Peter and John. Mary was the first to arrive. Mary, as the
Scriptures simply tell us was part of a group of women who followed Jesus
on some mission trips and supported his ministry. The reason she was so
devoted to Jesus' ministry is because he had cast seven demons out of
her. Jesus' power had changed her life. She wanted to show her
gratitude. Nor did Mary's devotion end when she witnessed Jesus breathe
his last. In the late afternoon of Good Friday, Mary and company watched
where Jesus was buried so that they could return and pay their respects
with a proper burial. It is for this reason that she was on the road
this Sunday morning.
To be honest, it was not a joyful trip. She was headed to the grave of
the one she thought her Savior. Her heart was filled with grief and
sorrow. As far as she knew, Jesus was dead. As she plodded to the
cemetery early that morning, her sorrow was compounded by the fact that
she didn't even know if it would be possible for her to pay her respects,
there were guards and a stone that covered the tomb. And just when it
seemed that things couldn't get worse, they did. There was an
earthquake. When Mary arrived the stone was moved and the body of Jesus
was gone. For Mary, this added insult to injury. It poured salt into her
emotional wounds. She ran quickly to where the disciples were. Her
grieving voice reports the sorrowful news to Peter and John: "They have
taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put
him." She returned with the two disciples and flooded with grief and
sorrow, all Mary could do was sit outside the tomb and wet the earth with
her tears.
But there's more. After hearing Mary's report, Peter and John also went
to the tomb. One can only imagine what was going on in their hearts.
Peter's last view of Jesus had been Friday morning as the rooster crowed.
Jesus had looked right at him while he was cursing and swearing he
didn't know the man! A proud moment no doubt! Wasn't this the guy who
was going to go to death with Jesus? Wasn't this the guy who had walked
on water with Jesus? Wasn't this one of the disciples who had been
given the privilege of seeing the glory of Jesus on the mount of
Transfiguration? Yet the denying Peter didn't even have the courage to
show up at the cross. Not only did he have to deal with the grief and
sorrow of Jesus dead, he had the millstone of guilt and shame hung around
his neck. What a heavy burden it was!
What about John? How did he come to the tomb? With grief and sorrow?
Certainly? But with John perhaps the most dominant thought was doubt.
All those years with Jesus who was supposed to be the Savior. He had
seen the glory of Jesus, seen the miracles and power. But Jesus ended up
on the cross and dead? Had it all been a dream? Had it all been empty
promises. And even when the women came with reports of "Jesus is alive,"
those words were greeted as nonsense. John didn't know what to think.
How interesting it is to see these people as they come to the grave.
They're a lot like us aren't they? We act as if the troubles and griefs
of this world are overwhelming. We get wrapped up in ourselves and in
what seems to be rather than in God and what He promises will be. Or
many of us are like Peter weighed down with guilt and shame. We haven't
exactly done Jesus proud have we! Jesus told us about the way the world
would treat us and that it would hate us for His name's sake, but that's
why we so often by our lives deny him. We claim with our lips that we
will follow but our lives say otherwise. Just like Peter, we know what
the Lord wants and we don't even come close to getting it right. Or
John, the skeptic. Could this stuff about Jesus really be true? Our
lives are filled with doubts and questions. Is Jesus the true God? Is
Jesus our Savior? Is it possible for God to truly and completely forgive
me? Have you ever found yourself saying, "I want to believe, I just
don't know if I can? There are so many renditions out there, how do I
know this is the truth?
But Dear people, it's not important how we come to the tomb but how we
leave the tomb, the empty tomb. The empty tomb has life-changing power.
Consider the people before us.
After John went inside the tomb and saw the burial cloths arranged as
they were, John himself reported, "He saw and believed" (20:8). He was
speaking of himself. Something about those clothes and the empty tomb
converted John's guarded skepticism into guaranteed certainty. Even
before John saw Jesus that very evening he knew that Jesus had indeed
risen. And he knew what the empty tomb proves: Jesus is the one he
claimed to be! The empty tomb and subsequent appearances to hundreds of
witnesses guarantee that Jesus was not just a popular religious leader
but was and is the Son of God. Only God has power over death. Thus John
writes a few verses later, "These are written that you may believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (20:31). And that's what the empty
tomb does for us. The empty tomb leads us to stop doubting and believe.
The empty tomb allows us to walk away with a faith that's not limping on
guarded skepticism but is established on guaranteed certainty.
But the power of the empty tomb doesn't stop there. The empty tomb looks
at our guilt and shame and applies grace and comfort. Go back to Peter.
We considered how heavy that burden of guilt must have been on his
shoulders. But God used the empty tomb to comfortingly address Peter's
guilt. First of all, listen to the message God's angel had for the women
at the tomb. After reporting to them that Jesus was alive, the angel
instructed, "Go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you
into Galilee'" (Mk 16:7). Later on, Jesus personally would apply his
grace and comfort to Peter by reinstating him as his spokesman. How
awesome! In Peter, here's a guy who turned his back on Jesus more than
once, yet Jesus went out of his way to say, "I forgive you. Your guilt
is gone." That's why Peter could later write, "Praise be to the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new
birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead" (1 Pe 1:3). The empty tomb gives us that same "new birth."
The empty tomb gives us hope. The Bible says, "He was delivered over to
death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification" (Ro
4:25). The empty tomb declares us forgiven. The empty tomb guarantees
our adoption as the children of God and heirs of eternal life. What
grace! What comfort! Think of what that specifically means for you and
for me. Jesus has changed us. Jesus has lead us to see our sins and be
sorry. Jesus leads us to be renewed and reborn. All because Jesus has
forgiven us. The empty tomb gives grace and comfort.
And Mary? She came to the tomb full of sorrow. She lingered at the tomb
crying, believing her Lord was stolen. But when Jesus appeared to her,
thus proving that the tomb was empty because he had risen, her tears of
sorrow turned into tears of joy. "Teacher," she cried, as she grabbed
onto his feet. Only after the Lord instructed her did she let go. Then
she went to the disciples, celebrating the good news, "I have seen the
Lord!" (Jn 20:18). What's better yet is that her grief and sorrow lasted
only about 40 hours, but her gladness and celebration would last an
eternity. What does the empty tomb prove? It validates Jesus' promise,
"Because I live, you also will live" (Jn 14:19). The empty tomb
guarantees that we can walk away from this life of grief and sorrow into
a new life where there are no more tears, no more pain, no more sorrow.
And when we realize this big picture, it sure changes our perspective on
the griefs and sorrows of this world. We realize they're temporary. We
realize we can overcome because of the gift of eternal life in Jesus.
Think of the resurrection picture in this way. I'd like you to imagine
in your mind's eye this Easter picture. Picture the cross on Calvary,
but viewed through the doorway of the empty tomb. Undoubtedly, the most
common symbol of Christianity is the cross. Whether it's in churches,
homes, or jewelry chests, the image of the cross is all over. I have
nothing against that-that's great. But let's remember to look at the
cross in the proper perspective. If it's viewed by itself, it is simply
a reminder of the seriousness of our sin. Sin causes death. But if the
cross is viewed from the empty tomb, we see it for what it really
was-just a necessary step on the Savior's road to get to the tomb so that
he could walk away from it. And because he walked away from his tomb,
we'll walk away from ours. That's some life-changing power! He is
risen! He is risen, indeed! Amen.