Genesis 1:1 –
2:3; Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13;
Exodus 14:10 –
15:1; Ezekiel 37:1-14; Jonah 3:1-10; John 20:1-18
In the Name of the Father and of the
+ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The events of Thursday and Friday threw
Jesus’ disciples into confusion and despair. When they saw Him betrayed in
Gethsemane by one of their own, arrested and taken away for trial like a common
criminal, they all fled in fear that the same fate might befall them as well. When
a couple of young women recognized him and exposed him as he looked on from a
distance, Peter was afraid and he denied his friend, his master, and his Lord,
just as Jesus had told him that he would. Only a precious few stood near His
cross as He died. And, when the women returned to His tomb on Sunday morning,
they came prepared to anoint a dead body. Such was the darkness, the chaos, and
the confusion that ruled those days and nights, just as it was in the beginning
when the LORD said, “Let there be Light.” And, there was Light.
In the beginning, the Light of God’s
creative Word penetrated and overcame the primordial darkness, bringing order
out of chaos. And, even now the Light of that Word made flesh Jesus Christ
shines forth from His empty tomb reordering the fallen creation, making all
things new. And so, tonight, we remember our holy baptisms in which we were
born again and made new by the water and the Word into new life that cannot
die. Surely, if we have died with Christ in a death like His, we will also be
raised with Him in a resurrection like His. He saved us in the killing flood of
baptism, and He delivered us safely through the waters by His mighty hand,
gathering us into the Ark of His body, His Church. In His Church, though we are
tossed and turned about by the tumultuous waters of our sinful culture and
world, and by our own sinful flesh and desires, we float safely through and
upon those troubled waters until He returns to deliver us safely home. And so,
tonight we wait and watch in hopeful and expectant vigil as we remember that He
has come, that He comes now, and that He is coming again, perhaps before the
sun rises in the morning.
He has called us through His
Spirit-Breath from death to new life in Him. Though we were as dead as dried
bones lying strewn about in the Valley of the Shadow of Death in chaos and
confusion, by His Word and Spirit the LORD has raised us up to new life and
service in His kingdom, a mighty army. Still He breathes His Spirit upon us
through His Word and Sacraments that we might “rise each day from the death of
sin to live in newness of life” before Him.
Yet, still we succumb to temptation and
are fearful and sin. Satan tempts us to believe that our new life is a lie and
that God is holding out on us. Therefore, like Jonah, we attempt to resist God
and flee from Him, going our own way. But, as Jesus spent three days in the
heart of the earth, may we so repent of our sinful unbelief and fear and
“embrace our death in Him through Holy Baptism and so proclaim His victory over
sin and death to all the world.”
And, as we take up our crosses daily and
follow our Good Shepherd through the Valley of the Shadow of death, we remember
how the LORD protected Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace of
King Nebuchadnezzar. Let us so remember and be strengthened in faith that we
might persevere through temptation, suffering, and death, that our God is
faithful and will protect and preserve us, and that not even death can defeat
us, so that we may “reject all false worship, and live and die in confidence,
knowing that we are safe in [His] Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and
reigns with [the Father] and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.”
This night, all fear must be cast out
and darkness chased away, for Christ, the Light of the World, is risen and
death has been defeated. He has died, and yet He lives and will never die
again, and He shares His victory with us. The ancient darkness has been
banished forever. Let us rejoice in the brightness of His Light.
“Almighty God, through Your Word and
Spirit You most wonderfully created all things, and through the Word made flesh
You brought new life to fallen humanity. Grant that in Your mercy we may be
conformed to the image of Him Who shares fully in our humanity, even Jesus
Christ, our Lord.”
In
the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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