Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

From the Holy Gospel: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.  [Luke 24.5b-6a]

Christ is Risen, Alleluia! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! It is the point of Christianity. It is the expression of the fact that we are members of one body, not by our own doing, not even by our own choosing, but by the grace and election of God, our Father. The true, intended message of Easter, is the message of the victory of the resurrection.

I.

The victory of the resurrection shows that Jesus is alive, again – it gets Him out of the grave. It shows that God the Father has accepted the eternal, once-for-all-time sacrifice for sinners, the once-for-all-time source of rescue of sinners whom God both created and loves. The victory of the resurrection, together with the Ascension, also explains why you don’t see Jesus anymore – until His glorious return for His church and for the final judgment of the lost. The victory of the resurrection does all this.

And, it does far more than that! The victory of the resurrection is the message from God, wrapped in a festival, that answers the question – where do I find Jesus today? That’s a very import question for Christians today. For consider what the modern, American, answer to that questions happens to be. You find Jesus in your emotions! That’s the answer, and you see it in most American churches.

This explains the expectations that people have for “church life” today. If you find the risen Christ in your emotions, then your emotions are what church-life is supposed to address – Get the feeling! Catch the fever! Feel the love! Be touched by joy! The creative notions of well-meaning church leaders are practically endless – but the point is a single one: The message of Easter and of the Post-Easter Church is this: You find Jesus in your emotions.

And that is just plain wrong – if finding Jesus is what you seek. Now, if finding friends is what you seek, finding fun is what you seek, finding motivation to “be a better person,” finding a message that keep your loved ones coming to church – if any of these is your focus in a church, then the landscape is out-right cluttered with answers for you, options for  you!

But, if finding Jesus today – truly locating Him where He desires to meet you and embrace you, then the places to look are few.

II.

You find Jesus, first of all, in the hearing of the Gospel. Now, the Gospel is good news, great news, and happiness and joy follow from hearing it as a poor, sinful being. But the measure of your “find” is not the happiness – it’s the message, the promise, the forgiveness of sins delivered to you in the hearing of the Gospel. That, and not your emotions, is where you find Jesus personally.

And where do you find Jesus, interpersonally? Well, in the church – that is, where the Holy Spirit gathers together people, sinners, as few as “two or three.” And there, you find Jesus in the midst. The victory of the resurrection is what holds and binds the group, so that it is more than group – it becomes and is “church,” “the called out ones,” because the Gospel is there.

But preeminently, as Jesus’ own plan on how and where you find your resurrected Savior and your God, you find Jesus in the Sacraments! So, you find Jesus in Holy Baptism. He put Himself into Holy Baptism at His own baptism I the Jordan, and God the Father puts His stamp of approval on this “finding,” when He declares, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased!”

In Baptism, God puts you into Jesus and puts Jesus into you. And there, in your baptism, He says of you what He says of Jesus at His baptism, “My beloved! In whom I am well-pleased!” Holy Baptism is your adoption by God the Father, for time and for eternity, because of the victory of the resurrection.

So you find Jesus in Holy Baptism, but you also find Jesus in Holy Communion! Jesus puts Himself into Holy Communion and He puts Holy Communion into you, “Take, eat!” “This is My body! This is My Blood of the New Testament!” In the Lord's Supper, the victory of the resurrection gives you what the Early Church teaches you to call the “medicine of immortality.” 

And that, dear brothers and sisters of our risen Lord Jesus, is where you find Him! Where He intends for you to find Him! And that’s the purpose of Easter today – all this is yours, in Christ’s Church, because of the victory of the resurrection! In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost! AMEN!