The Lord is risen for sure!

[AI translation] In a remote province of the great Roman Empire, where someone had been appointed governor as punishment, nearly two thousand years ago, a mysterious and happy rumour spread like wildfire. Some women heard it first from some heavenly being, then it was passed on by word of mouth: Jesus is risen! In the meantime there were others who had seen Him, spoken to Him, heard His greeting. Excitedly, they whispered, they laughed, they sobbed, they shouted to each other: did you see? I saw it! He appeared to me too! Me too! The unbelievable miracle became a happier and happier certainty: the Lord is risen for sure! This old and yet always new good news is still being heard around the world today, for people who are so thirsty for the really good news - for us too: the Lord is risen! This last word of our Word is intended to underline the undoubted authenticity of this great miracle. It emphasizes that the great miracle has really, truly, truly, actually, certainly happened: the resurrection! It is not imagination, not fiction, not a nightmare, not an illusion, but an undeniable fact that Jesus, who was crucified, who died in such terrible agony, who was buried: LIVES! He is truly alive! So let us hear again the best news God can tell people: Jesus is Risen! Jesus is alive!First of all, I would like to emphasize that this is a fact that transcends all debate, all ideas, all pro or con opinions! It is true! I know that many people do not believe it, think it is impossible, doubt it or stumble over it, but it is true! Despite all the misrepresentations, good or bad, it is true! And I am not here to prove it. The Bible never proves God's truths by reason, but simply declares them, makes them known, in spite of all reason. So it is in the Easter story we have just read.
What men did there to prevent the resurrection from taking place! Or if it did happen, they tried to prevent the news from spreading by denying it. The Passover story is sandwiched between two strange records. One is about the enemies of Jesus asking Pilate for a guard at the tomb. Although they did not believe that the Crucified One would ever rise again, they feared that the disciples, by stealing the body, would deceive the world. So they placed the tomb under armed guard and sealed the great stone with wax. So then no deception can take place, the world is insured against a risen Saviour! No one may open the tomb without their knowledge and permission! This is what happened before the resurrection. Immediately after the resurrection, the guardians, returning to the city from the tomb that had been opened, told all that had happened. And then the wise and powerful men took counsel, and decided that the official opinion should be put forward that the disciples had come there in the night and stolen the body while the guards were asleep. And they gave the soldiers a lot of money. The money doesn't matter, as long as the rumour isn't true! This is the framework of the Easter story. Almost surrounding the fact of the resurrection is the desperate human attempt to hold back the miracle at all costs. At arms, with money, with lies, with denial, with reasoning, it wants to resist the power of God. It wants to make the divine fact unhappened, it wants to bury it, it wants to bury Jesus forever. Let the resurrection sink into oblivion, let it remain a fiction, an outdated myth!
But all efforts were in vain: it failed! Yet Jesus rose again! Yet the stone was rolled away. Yet the tomb remained empty! Yet Jesus lives! Any human effort to counter the reality of the Easter fact is as ridiculous and foolish an enterprise as if one were to try to stop the sun from rising with the palm of one's hand and scattering its life-giving rays over the earth. Denial, money, power cannot obscure the life-giving, Easter light! Its light breaks through all the clouds of human reasoning, hatred and unbelief! These wretched men, the guards and the elders and the high priests, belong to the Easter story like night owls and bats to the twilight: as soon as the sun rises, they must disappear. And they are gone. Because the sun is up, Jesus is risen! In spite of everything, "the Lord is risen for sure"! And this fact is not changed by the fact that modern man denies it, that modern man cannot believe in the miracle of the empty tomb. A naturalist once said that the resurrection - especially the bodily resurrection - does not fit into the modern man's world view. Death does. Death does have a place in the modern worldview. Death can be taken seriously by modern man. He believes in it. And there is every reason to take it seriously, since our whole life is a life beating in the embrace of death. But the fact that God can reach into death and snatch a life from its stranglehold defies all scientific explanation. And it is true!
But it did happen! For once, life has triumphed even over death! The Lord is risen for sure, for real, for actuality! Whether we think it possible or not. God is simply declaring to us as an indisputable fact, indeed, something that eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, the heart of man has not thought of, as something that breaks our previous concepts, beyond our imagination. The Easter news is about something that is impossible, unbelievable - and yet true! The stone has been rolled away. The stone of our worldview, the stone of our scientific knowledge, has been rolled away! Jesus is risen! Jesus is alive!
But it was not only Jesus' enemies who resisted this news, but also his disciples who received it with disbelief at the first moment. The very fact that they embalmed the body of their Lord, even though he had told them that he would rise again on the third day, shows that they did not believe in the possibility of the resurrection either. They treated the dead Jesus as if he was finished forever. They made a mummy of him. And do we not do the same thing many times? Let us say that we believe in Jesus Christ, who "rose from the dead the third day". But do we really believe in him, the living Saviour? How many times do we embalm him in all sorts of beautiful theories, dogmas, religious rituals quite separate from real life, false creeds, our Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, festive Christianity! Here we are, celebrating His resurrection - and yet the troubles of life, the dark horror of death, weigh as hopelessly on us as on those who do not celebrate: we too prefer to believe in death. We are just as full of anxiety, of fear for tomorrow, as if Jesus had not risen. We are just as afraid of sickness, of growing old, of dying, just as clinging to the earthly, just as impatient, selfish, envious, vain, gluttonous, harlot, tired, as if we did not even know that Christ is risen! As if we had never heard that there is an eternity, and we are going to it! So where is our faith in the Risen Christ? Are we not just believing in a mummy?
But the Lord is risen indeed - and in spite of our doubt, unbelief or lying faith, He lives and reigns! And all power is in His hands today, in heaven and on earth, in Europe, Asia and America. He has the power and glory in agriculture and politics, in the factory and in our homes, in our lives and in our deaths! Despite all our pretended Christianity, the Easter message is true: the Lord is risen!
It is a divine fact, a divine reality that is true even if you don't reckon with it. That even if you don't believe it, it is true. That even if you smile at it with a knowing superiority, it's true! That even if you deny it, it's true! But it is a divine reality that, if you reckon with it, if you stand behind it in faith: you will be renewed, you will revive, your life will be transformed, you will be comforted, you will be encouraged, you will see life, the world, history, your problems, the death of yourself and your loved ones differently! A fact to live from and by! God proclaims: the Lord is risen for sure! Really, truly, actually!
The real Easter is when one hears this news not from the lips of a sinful preacher, but from the Lord Himself in the depths of one's soul! Not everyone celebrates Easter on the same day. The apostle Thomas, for example, had his Easter joy a week later than the other apostles. Let us not celebrate Easter today because the calendar says so, but because our faith can be opened to the living Christ! My Easter sermon is not enough for you, and even if an angel came from heaven to tell you that Jesus is risen, it would not be enough for you, any more than it was for the women there in Joseph's garden.
What are you actually doing here in the church today? A preacher or a solemn sermon? Oh, then you have a very poor Easter! You can't live on that! You need Jesus, the Risen Christ! Him alone! But then this Jesus is quite enough for you! If you are really looking for Him, then God has a glorious message for you: the Lord is risen! And then you can henceforth live in the real presence and present reality of the living Jesus!
The Lord is risen indeed! This news encourages you to dare to live! Dare to face yourself, your faults and charisms, your weaknesses and strengths! Dare to face life, its ups and downs, its joys and sorrows, its beauties and ugliness! Accept life as it is! Love life in spite of what it is! May you have the will to fight the good fight, to endure suffering if necessary, to face every obstacle and difficulty with an open mind! Dare to live! But to live the real life, the Christian life, and not just the appearance of it, the caricature of it! Dare to hope, to believe in the good, the beautiful, the true! That it's worth being pure and honest! Worth loving, worth forgiving, worth losing yourself to serve! For the Lord has risen again!
But it would be good to live with such Easter faith! You could say now: we would believe in Him if we could meet Him as disciples! If he would appear to us, if he would come into the temple now! If he would stand here in the pulpit, or behind the Lord's table. His presence, though not visible, can be heard! The Word in the Bible is His Word! Behind the table of the Lord's Supper He is indeed standing, and He is calling us into the reality of His presence! So we too can believe in Him, and by that faith we too can live in the power of His resurrection! The living God Himself is now proclaiming among us again the great Easter gospel: the Lord is risen! With this Easter certainty, let us now confess that Christ is risen!
Christ is risen,
whom death has taken away;
Let us rejoice, let us be glad,
Christ is our consolation,
Alleluia!
If he rise not again,
No more forgiveness of sins,
But lives, therefore holy is his name,
Let us sing his praise,
Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Let us rejoice, let us be glad,
Christ is our consolation.
Alleluia!
(Canticle 185)
Amen
Date: 10 April 1955 Easter.