Sermon for Easter Sunday: "Nothing is Everything"

+ The Resurrection of Our Lord – April 21, 2019 +

Beautiful Savior Lutheran, Milton

Series C: Isaiah 65:17-25; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26; Luke 24:1-12

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

“How was your fishing trip?” “Oh, it was great…I caught nothing the whole weekend.”

“How was your Saturday of garage sale hunting?” “Fantastic! I found absolutely nothing.”

“How’s your business doing?” “We’re doing well…sold nothing all week!”

Normally, when we expect to find something we’re disappointed when we find nothing. Finding nothing usually isn’t a good thing.

Except today. Jesus’ resurrection changes all that. Jesus’ resurrection reverses, upends, and completely turns our expectations upside down. Today, finding nothing leads to the very best something of all. 

On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 

The women were expecting to find the body of Jesus. That’s why they brought the spices. That’s why they got to the tomb early. They saw Jesus crucified. They watched as he was laid in tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. So, they expected to find a dead man that morning. But instead, they found nothing. 

And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

They were perplexed. Confused. Scared. St. Luke says they kept on being at a loss. Their hearts and minds were racing in bewilderment. They did not find what they were looking for. Instead, they found the stone was rolled away. They found the body of Jesus was no longer there. They found two messengers declaring the most unexpected, astonishing, words: 

“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here; He 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.”

One thing’s for sure, no one – not the women, nor his disciples, nor even his closest friends – no one expected this. No one believed it at first either. This tells us something important about Jesus’ resurrection. The women and the disciples weren’t getting what they hoped for. They didn’t make this story up for fame or glory either. Jesus’ resurrection isn’t a fabrication; our faith rests on facts. Luke tells it like it is: “it happened,” he writes. 

Everyone was taken by surprise. For God did something completely unexpected and new. 

This is how God works. God makes a habit of showing up and working in the places and people we least expect him to: like tax collectors and sinners; the least, lonely, lost, and last ones. That’s comforting when we find ourselves disappointed, despairing, or doubting in life; when we find ourselves face to face with our own failures and sin; when we find ourselves like the women at the tomb: perplexed, afraid, or confused. God does some of his best work for us in hidden, unexpected places. On the cross where Jesus made himself nothing to give you everything by grace. In simple, ordinary water, words, bread and wine – that look like nothing extraordinary to our eyes – and yet, that’s precisely where Jesus finds you. He washes you, speaks to you, and feeds you with his unexpected, unconditional, unlimited forgiveness.

Not only was Jesus’ resurrection the last thing anyone expected. In Jesus’ dying and rising, God does morethan anyone could have ever expected. 

Jesus reverses everything. Jesus who was crucified is risen for you. Jesus who was dead is alive again – he’s the first to experience the resurrection life he gives you. Jesus who was buried walks out of the grave so that one day you will too. 

Sin, death, and hell threw their worst at Jesus and he took it all on the cross. to create a new heavens and a new earth. Fallen creation is restored. The darkness is forever banished. The devil’s reign is ended. The reign of Christ has begun. Where we expected and deserved punishment, judgment for sin, and a guilty sentence, we find that the price has been paid, Jesus was judged in our place, and we are declared innocent. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 

And, as the messengers spoke to the women…they remembered Jesus’ words. 

They remembered when Jesus said, “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.” 

They remembered when Jesus declared, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

They remembered when Jesus taught them, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to give his life as a ransom for many.”

They remembered when Jesus promised, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

When the women found Jesus’ tomb to be empty, it looked as if they had found nothing. Yet in finding nothing, the women made the greatest discovery of all: Jesus is risen for you. You could even say that in finding nothing, they found everything. Today, God does what he did at the very beginning, he makes something out of nothing. Today, finding nothing leads to the very best something of all.

Christ is risen! Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Christ is risen! Sin is forgiven and washed away.
Christ is risen! The devil is crushed under the cross.
Christ is risen! A new creation has dawned; the old is gone, the new has come.
Christ is risen! Adam is lifted up from the dust, and one day, we will rise from the dead as well.
Christ is risen! His Word is sure.

Christ is risen! And today the empty tomb resounds with good news and great joy. 

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.