Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

          They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.  vs. 2b

          The Easter Vigil is all about the Church coming to the grave site of Jesus, standing watch, and waiting in the darkness of night for what can seen clearly only when daylight arrives. It is about joining the women and the disciples, Peter and John, and struggling with them to comprehend in the darkness the implications of finding the stone rolled away and the tomb of Jesus empty. What has happened to the body of Jesus? The women concluded that they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and do not know where they have laid him (vs. 2), and Peter and John, upon inspecting the empty tomb, agreed with them (vs. 8). If you must seek to understand these things with them standing in the dark, would you not agree that their conclusion is a reasonable one. Jesus died on the cross and was buried. Dead people stay dead. When you visit loved ones who have died, the only one’s who leave the graveyard are the bereaved . . . unless, of course, the tomb is empty. Then it is reasonable to think someone has taken the body.

          But this is the tomb of Jesus and He knew this day would come -the day when his disciples would have to face the immediate aftermath of his shameful, criminals’ death on a cross in Jerusalem. It would be a dark day and a dark night that would follow. They would need to understand what all of this would mean for Jesus and for them. And about all this, reason would not be of much help. Jesus well understood that the message of Him crucified would be a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. Reason would conclude that a dead messiah is of no further use to God or man, much less bringing about some great victory for the Kingdom and people of God.  Reason would say that the dead cannot help those with a death problem. Dead people are out of the running. They can contribute only one thing to any grave situation. They can stink! And following just this line of reasoning, it was perfectly fitting that Jesus would be buried with fragrant spices -about 70 of our pounds-worth - and the women brought more. . . . out of respect for a good friend who had died.

          But now here they were in the dark and so are we, yet, it was our Lord’s intent not to leave them, or us, in the dark about what all of this really means.  We need to understand that when you are in the dark about spiritual things, reason is often not a very good guide to seeing things aright. For this reason, the Lord gave His disciples - and He has give to us - the only thing that can help at times and places like this: when things are not clear . . . when you are in the dark. He gave them, and he has given to us, His Word. Think of how many times during these past weeks as we have traveled with Him and His disciples to Jerusalem that He has told us about what would there transpire.  During his early ministry in Jerusalem He told those who demanded a sign: Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up (Jn. 2:19).  For those who were in the dark in Nazareth and looking for a sign, Jesus gave them the sign of Jonah: 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.  The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.  The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. (Mt. 11:40-42)  At Caesarea Philippi He responded to Peter’s great confession telling them that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priest and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised (Mt. 16:21).

           We are challenged this night, while it is still dark, to put on the eyes of faith fashioned and shaped by the Word and promises of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Our darkness is entails a sin and death problem from which we cannot overcome or get out from under by our own initiatives.  The guilt of it weighs us down, the iniquity of it has us continually alienated from our Maker, the curse of it hangs over our heads and threatens to make our existence a meaningless exercise, and the frail mortality of it all sends a signal that we are not going to have any kind of real future where our hopes and dreams might be fulfilled. Reason in the darkness of our condition and our night visit at the tomb must give way to the promises of our Lord in His Word given to us that the grave will not hold him. He will rise from the dead. And we can trust His Word because He has made it good in so many decisive ways already.  This is the Jesus who raised up a paralytic that we might know that in Him the forgiveness of sins have come to earth for all of us who are spiritually paralyzed and dead in our trespasses. This is the Jesus who raised from the dead the widow’s son at Nain and his friend Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha.

           So right now, right here, we need to see in the dark the wondrous meaning of Jesus being absent from His tomb.  In what you don’t see - in the negative space - the predictive words of our Lord present us with the Sign of Jonah by which we can see in the dark what all this means.  Jesus has risen from the grave. Death has been swallowed up.  The tragic events of the cross must be seen as a very Good Friday. Remembering the words of John the Baptist, here is the perfect Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world. For now, we see in the dark, not by reason or by the light of day, but by the prophetic Word of our Lord. By listening to the words of our Lord crashing the darkness of our lives, we see with our ears right now in the empty tomb, the Easter victory.  No one has taken Jesus from His tomb!  He was no victim on the cross and He has been no victim at His tomb! The sign of Jonah has rebuilt the temple of his body. Jesus has taken on the forces of death and darkness and defeated them.

          And here as we stand in the darkness of our fallen existence, the finished cross and the empty tomb are brought to light by the Words of our Lord.  I will raise this temple up! Don’t look for it among the ruins!  Look for it in the words I have already spoken and that have been repeated by the Angel: “He is not here He is Risen!”  And when it becomes light, you will see the Light . . . the Light that lightens the Gentiles, the light that is the glory of His people Israel, our risen and victorious Lord Jesus Christ. He is the light that lightens your load of sin, and leads you from sin to grace, from guilt to forgiveness, from tombs of death to a resurrected new life.

           In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. A-men.