Easter hope

[AI translation] The few women who gathered early in the morning, sorrowful, sad, hopeless, with pious feelings, at the tomb of Christ, carrying all kinds of spices to embalm the body of Jesus, were the first Easter church. They were a congregation because they were many, and because they were gathered together by the memory of Christ crucified. It is this reverent, mournful little company, these few devout souls who seek the living Jesus among the dead on Easter morning, that best exemplifies the bulk of the Easter congregation today. A mirror image of most of today's churches. They gather today just as they did then, on the first Easter morning. Not just a few, but quite a few who haven't quite forgotten Jesus, praying together, singing together, remembering together, celebrating together, but the whole thing is so feeble, so clumsy, that it doesn't make much difference to the life of the world. What held them together? Perhaps a small loyalty to the past. In any case, it is a fine trait if one does not immediately turn one's back on a cause that seems lost, as the cause of Christ seemed to be after Good Friday and still seems to be sometimes, but at least tries to stick faithfully to it. This loyalty is admirable, but it does not produce much strength.Like a few pious women, the Church is held together today by a common tradition, by the memory of the past, by the attachment to the ideals of Christianity, by the piety for the faith of our ancestors in the glorious past. That is very beautiful and touching, but if a church lives only on such a pious remembrance, then the cause it represents is lost, and then the Church of Christ is truly no longer a threat or a help to the world. The authorities were absolutely right when they did not even deign to persecute the small congregation that was held together by a little faithfulness and tradition. They deserve respect and compassion, although they are fine ideals and heirs to a great past, but let them remember and worship as they please, it is not worth bothering about them much, sooner or later the matter will die out on its own, slowly dying out altogether.
Indeed: a congregation without Easter hope, without faith in the risen Christ, is not much different from a well-organised memorial foundation, which, although it represents beautiful and lofty ideals, can look back on a glorious past, organises touching commemorative celebrations, and has all kinds of good and beautiful things, only its great founder is missing, because he has been dead for two thousand years, and it is not he, but only his memory, who lives among them. At one of these commemorative celebrations, they do indeed proclaim that He has risen from the dead, and there are even those who claim to have seen Him in person, and claim to have seen Him, and even met Him. But can we take seriously the delusions and fantasies of some fans? That is just old church dogma that can easily be debunked. We hear the miraculous news every Easter, but then we are like the disciples who read that the enthusiastic narrative of the women returning from the empty tomb seemed to them to be nothing but empty talk. It was as if they were saying what many people still think in the depths of their souls, that this is women's talk, not to be taken seriously!
But the disciples were still disturbed by this extraordinary news: more and more of them said that they too had seen the risen Lord. They could no longer get away from him; they kept talking about who had seen him, what he had said to them, and what had happened at the time of the encounter. Once, sitting together behind closed doors, they discussed this great matter: 'Jesus himself stood among them and said to them: (Lk 24,36) This was the everyday greeting at the time, the way people greeted each other when they met in the street, just as we greet each other good evening. It was the same natural, simple, human way of saying to his brothers and sisters, "Good evening, I am here with you, I am here again among you. Behold, here I am, your Saviour and Lord! The astonished disciples were so surprised by Jesus' sudden appearance that at first they were frightened and thought they were looking at a supernatural apparition, a ghost. Jesus had to reassure them. And to convince them of His presence, He showed them His hands and His feet and asked them to eat. No more tangible proof could there have been that Jesus, the Risen One, was not some spiritual apparition, perceived only by mediums in mysterious visions, but that He Himself was there in person, in reality, in a very human way, among them.
"Jesus himself stood among them", we read in the Gospel. This is the essence of Easter. Jesus in person, just as he is, risen from the dead, in his living reality, victorious among his brethren - here among us! As the Apostle Paul tells the Corinthians, "But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord." (1 Cor 15:57) In other words, he gives us not just some beautiful teaching, not just a worldview, not just enlightenment, not just a new example or religion, but triumph, victory! This is what the risen Jesus means! Thus He stood before the frightened and amazed eyes of His disciples, as the One who conquered death! This is Easter! And this is what not only the Easter story speaks of, but the whole Bible. If it did not speak of this, we could close it today and put it aside forever. If it is not faith in the living Jesus who has conquered death, if it is not His living person who holds the church together, then nothing really holds it together! Then it will indeed cease to exist of its own accord sooner or later. If we don't have faith in Easter, we don't have any faith at all. For without Easter, Good Friday is nothing but a painful failure, a total failure of God's most holy plan to save man. And with it the final failure of all that is beautiful, good, holy, and pure, the complete triumph of evil, the most terrible hopelessness. Is it worthwhile to be good, to love, to help others, to stand with honour, to sacrifice life, when even the example of Jesus shows that all is in vain, the power of evil is stronger, and death is the last word? Let us eat, let us drink, let us rejoice then, for tomorrow we shall die anyway! Without Easter, Good Friday is indeed the day of Satan's victory: he has at last completed the great work he began in Paradise with the first pair of men, destroying the Saviour of man. And if God has allowed this to happen - and it seems He has - then all hope is lost!
But after Good Friday, Easter dawned, and God responded to Good Friday in Easter. This response is stunningly different from anything man could ever have imagined. Not a new flood, not a bloody retribution, not an outraged, annihilating move of God, which would have been very understandable. God did not retreat to heaven in resentment and leave humanity to its deserved fate. On the contrary, he opened the way from death to life. He opened the way for the murderers of his only begotten Son, he opened the way through death to the glory of the eternal world. At Easter, He says to the human nation that killed Jesus, "I will not leave you alone just after these things, just now I want to really show you how much I love you! Brothers and sisters, if Easter was possible after Good Friday, then anything is possible! Then there is no sin in the world greater than the love of God. Then there is no darkness so thick that the light of Easter cannot illuminate it. Then there is no chasm in the world deep enough to separate you from the Father. Then there is no deathly embrace that can tear us from the arms of God. Then whatever demonic powers may rage in this world, Christ has all power in heaven and earth. Then in any satanic turmoil God is near. Then truth is stronger than lies. Then there is meaning in obedience to God, there is purpose in suffering. Then life is not meaningless, and death is not hopeless!
All this joyful hope does not come from some optimistic worldview, which can then be shaken, as worldviews tend to be, but from the fact of Easter. From the fact that Jesus has risen from the dead in reality, in the flesh, and, as we read in the Gospel, 'Jesus himself has come to rest among them'. There he is in person, in his living reality, as victor among his brothers and sisters - here among us! How did it happen that Jesus himself suddenly stopped among the disciples? We read, "When these things were spoken". So while and because they were talking about the Risen One, something happened: Jesus himself appeared among them! Talking about Jesus Christ is not only discussing a past event, but also a real fact: He Himself appears among those who talk about Him. What happened then and there is just as real here and now. Jesus is present among us here and now, while and because we are talking about His resurrection!
We dare not believe it, we think it too fantastic, just as the disciples thought they saw a wandering spirit when Jesus appeared among them. Yet here he is, speaking to us. All we need is to dare to believe the invisible and incredible reality that the victorious Christ is here among us! My brother, dare now to go out of this church with the happy Easter hope that Christ is risen and alive! Dare to believe that when you think and speak of Him, He is there with you in person! Dare to start a new life with the power of His resurrection!
Amen
Date: 28 March 1948, Easter.