Text: Matthew 28:1-10
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. 2 Suddenly, there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, and going to the tomb, he rolled away the stone and was sitting on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. 4 The guards were so terrified of him that they shook and became like dead men. 5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid! I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here. He has risen, just as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. 7 Go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead! And look, he is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him.’ See, I have told you!”
8 They hurried away from the tomb, with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!”
They approached, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him.
10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go, tell my brothers that they should go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”
Sermon
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. (1 Corinthians 15:56, 57)
When I was thirteen, my parents took me and my two younger sisters on vacation. It was the one big vacation we had as kids. This was way bigger than going up north to learn how to water ski. And it was certainly way better than staying on the farm with no vacation and baling hay all summer.
My parents took us kids to Disney World, Sea World, and Busch Gardens. Disney World was great. Sea World was cool. But what teenage boy wants to spend a day at some fancy gardens? Gardens are for girls.
It turns out, there were plenty of fancy flowers at Busch Gardens. But better and cooler was that Busch Gardens also had roller coasters. And lots of them!
Busch Gardens had something for everyone – flowers and roller coasters. Thank goodness!
This Lenten season we traveled to visit all kinds of gardens. The Garden of Promise in the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Gethsemane on Thursday of Holy Week. The Garden of Paradise in heaven.
Today we conclude our travel through the various gardens as we visit the garden where Christ rose from the grave. It’s a Garden of glory.
The Bible tells us that near the place where Jesus was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden there was a new tomb. Jesus’ body had been placed there by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. This is where the women were headed as soon as the sun rose on Sunday morning marking the end of the Sabbath. These women were anxious to finish giving Jesus a proper burial. But that would prove unnecessary. Matthew chapter 28 tells us, “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. Suddenly, there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, and going to the tomb, he rolled away the stone and was sitting on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards were so terrified of him that they shook and became like dead men.”
What an amazing display of power in this garden. It seems the violent earthquake was simultaneous to the angel’s entrance into our world. He was one of the mighty hosts of heaven – so powerful as to toss the stone away from the tomb like a toy, so fearsome that battle-hardened soldiers dropped in sheer fright.
But even with such power, he was only a servant of someone much more powerful and awesome – someone who did what the angel could not do, someone who had defeated death. We are told, “The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid! I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here. He has risen, just as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. Go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead! And look, he is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him.’ See, I have told you!’”
Jesus didn’t merely cheat death. He met it head on. He had truly died. His lifeless body had lain in the tomb until the third day. But then his body grew warm once again. His eyes fluttered open. His lungs filled with air. He came back to life. When he defeated death, he did it not merely for himself. He defeated death on behalf of the entire human race. The angel with his power only made an impression in a certain garden and only on a handful of people. But Christ Jesus encompassed and swallowed up death for everyone throughout the world and through all generations that came before him or will come after him. Now Jesus says, “He who believes in me will live, even though he dies” (John 11:25). Christ’s glory is a glory of power!
On the cross, Jesus had set aside the full use of his glory, and even the full use of his power as God, to suffer and die. But when Jesus rose from the dead, he made full use of his power as God once again. This is called his state of exaltation. In his state of exaltation, he passed through the walls of the tomb with his body – invisibly, wondrously, gloriously. In his state of exaltation, he is no longer confined to the laws of physics. The Bible says that God “appointed him to be head over everything” and that he “fills everything in every way” (Ephesians 1:22,23). The angel did not remove the stone from the tomb to let Jesus out. He opened the tomb so that the women and others could see for themselves that Christ had truly risen.
When we plant gardens, we always expect something good to spring up. Those who planted the garden where Jesus’ tomb was – would they have expected such powerful glory to spring forth from their garden? But now if Jesus has arisen in such a glory of power, where does that leave us? We’re still here on earth while he’s exalted in heaven. Are we left to fend for ourselves in life and make it through death on our own? The answer is no. The glory that radiates from that garden is not just a glory of power, it is also a glory of grace.
Five-year-old Julianna Snow was dying. When her mother, Michelle Moon, was looking for how to talk about end-of-life issues with her little one, she found nothing online. That’s when she created a blog to share her story and to help others who are struggling with similar situations.
On that site she shared portions of conversations she had with Julianna, who suffered from a severe case of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, an incurable neurodegenerative illness. Each time Julianna got sick with an infection, she ended up in the hospital, where painful procedures bought the little girl a little more time on this earth.
After the last hospital stay, Julianna said she didn’t want to go back—ever. She would rather go to heaven. So Michelle had hard conversations with her daughter about the reality of dying and wrote about them in a post:
Michelle: So if you get sick again, you want to stay home. But you know that probably means you will go to heaven, right?
Julianna: (nods)
Michelle: And it probably means that you will go to heaven by yourself, and Mommy will join you later.
Julianna: But I won’t be alone.
Michelle: That’s right. You will not be alone.
Julianna: Will Alex [her brother] go to heaven with me?
Michelle: Probably not. Sometimes people go to heaven together at the same time, but most of the time, they go alone. Does that scare you?
Julianna: No, heaven is good. But I don’t like dying.
Michelle: I know. That’s the hard part. We don’t have to be afraid of dying because we believe we go to heaven. But it’s sad because I will miss you so much.
Julianna: Don’t worry, I won’t be alone.
Julianna died shortly after this conversation. By sharing her story, Michelle’s honesty is a reminder for those of us with healthy children: Our children are dying too. We don’t know when, where, or how, but we will all die.
Because Michelle saw Julianna’s illness every day, she couldn’t ignore the truth. For us, we often push that idea to the side. We let the busyness of our earthly future overshadow the reality of the eternal future. But ignorance is not bliss. Because we are all going to spend eternity somewhere, we need to have conversations about the reality of sin, about our Savior, and about heaven with our children. We want our children to know about Jesus in the Garden of Glory now so they can enjoy their time with Jesus in the Garden of Paradise forever.
The glory from the garden of the empty tomb is a glory of grace. Consider what pains the angel took to alleviate the women’s fears. He cared nothing about the quaking soldiers. He showed them no concern at all. But he reached out to the women in the gentlest, friendliest way and told them, “Do not be afraid.” He reminded them of Jesus’ words. He showed them the empty tomb. He underlined the news by asking them to take it to the disciples. Such a glory of grace.
The glory of grace doesn’t end there. As the women are on their way, from out of nowhere Jesus meets them. Does he appear threatening to them? Just the opposite. He comes to them in a familiar, friendly way. They can even run up and embrace him. Listen again: “They hurried away from the tomb, with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ They approached, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. Go, tell my brothers that they should go to Galilee, and there they will see me.’”
Jesus calls his disciples “brothers.” Even after he has entered into his state of exaltation, he hasn’t forgotten that he became one of us and why he became one of us. He came to take the punishment for our guilt away by his death on the cross. His resurrection is proof that he succeeded. Now, to all who put their confidence in Jesus, there is only friendliness, love, goodness, grace, kindness, and generosity from God. Past sins are no longer dredged up or thrown in our faces. They are gone, forgiven. Death itself is no longer punishment for sin. Jesus is living proof that we too will rise from death. It is why we and our children can face dying without fear. Jesus is proof of God’s grace.
Jesus certainly did not leave us alone after he was exalted. The resurrected Jesus still comes to us in such familiar ways – through the voice of a pastor speaking God’s absolution and blessing, through our Lutheran teachers sharing the Holy Spirit’s written words, through the gentle splash of simple water and a promise in Baptism, through the tangible evidence of his body and blood under simple bread and wine in his Supper. Through these means we may cling to him in faith as the women did that first Easter morning. We may be assured that he is with us, that we are forgiven, and that we won’t have to die alone.
Like Michelle told her dying daughter, “We don’t have to be afraid of dying because we believe we go to heaven.” And as Julianna reassured her mom, “Don’t worry, I won’t be alone.”
Even though there aren’t any flowers or roller coasters in this garden, it’s a garden for everyone. Thank goodness! It’s the garden where Jesus gives his victory over death to all who believe in him. That’s way better than flowers and coasters. Through this Garden of Glory here, we’ll enjoy the Glory of the Garden of Paradise forever. Amen.
He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face. Amen. (Isaiah 25:8)