Pro-life apologetics outline

Crawford County Life Conference (04/20/13)

·         Introduction

o   Most of you here identify as pro-life

§  Today, polls indicate that a larger percentage of Americans identify as ‘pro-life’ than ever

§  However, how many of us, and how many of them, can actually tell others why?

·         How many can make a persuasive case for life?

·         Has anyone ever taught you how to make the case?

·         It’s easy to say ‘I’m pro-life;’ it’s much harder to defend that view

·         Many of our pro-life politicians can’t make the case, and they just reflect the general consensus

o   We must be prepared to make the case for life

§  Lives depend on it!

§  Simply saying ‘I’m pro-life’ won’t end abortion or solve any of the other life issues

§  We must make the case

·         Individually

·         To groups—in churches, schools, and other organizations

§  Legislation and the Supreme Court are important, but this battle won’t be won in Des Moines or Washington DC

·         We must convince people—our friends, family, and neighbors

·         When individuals are convinced, then the culture changes, and when the culture changes, then the demand for legislation will increase exponentially

·         We must still lobby and work for pro-life legislation, but if we aren’t making the case in the public square, all that hard work will go for nothing

§  Today, I’m going to help you to make the case in your life

o   Three caveats

§  I’m not here to make the biblical case for life

·         That is important, and God’s view of life, revealed in Scripture must be proclaimed

·         But we must also be prepared to make reasonable arguments in the public square to people who don’t accept the authority of the Bible

§  I don’t know everything!

·         This presentation is based in large part on the work of Scott Klusendorf, a tremendous pro-life apologist http://www.prolifetraining.com/

·         I have never been in public debate, and I certainly don’t have the experience that he has in this area

·         For some questions, I may have to defer to his work, and I encourage you to visit his website

·         There are other techniques available, but Mr. Klusendorf is very well read in the great thinkers of the pro-life movement, so these are well-informed tactics

§  The material presented this morning is intended to make the case for the protection of the unborn at the street level

·         In many ways, it has that narrow, but extremely important application

·         More sophisticated arguments are needed for other contexts; I encourage you to not make this the only time you study pro-life apologetics

·         While I am dealing primarily with abortion, I believe that many of these principles also have application to the other pro-life issues; I will try to point those out along the way

·         Four tasks

o   Clarify the debate

o   Establish a foundation for the debate

o   Answer objections persuasively

o   Teach and equip

·         Clarify the debate

o   Our position is quite simple: Pro-life people contend that abortion unjustly takes the life of an innocent human being

o   The one question the debate should focus on is: who or what is the unborn?

§  This is the one question that gets lost in the shuffle

·         We argue about choice, about privacy, about women’s rights, but these are all peripheral and distract from the main issue

·         The vast majority of pro-choice arguments (especially on the street level) assume the unborn aren’t human, they don’t prove it

·         The issue we should be debating: Is the unborn a member of the human family?

o   If so, no justification for abortion is adequate

§  I will deal with so-called ‘hard cases’ briefly in a bit

§  Innocent human life should not be destroyed to benefit others

o   If not, no justification for abortion is needed

§  The ‘safe, legal, and rare’ language makes little sense—in fact, the ‘rare’ part is dropping off

§  If the unborn isn’t human, you could have as many abortions as you wanted

§  Our task is to turn common, street-level pro-abortion arguments to that fundamental question—here’s how:

o   Trot out the toddler

§  Any time you hear a pro-abortion argument, think, ‘would this argument also work for killing a toddler?’

§  If not, then the person you are interacting with is assuming that the unborn isn’t human

·         They aren’t working to prove it

·         Perhaps the unborn are not morally equal to toddlers, but that must be proven, not assumed

§  Here’s how it works:

·         Someone makes an assertion against you: “Women have a right to make their own private decisions. What goes on in the bedroom is their business and no one else’s.”

·         You don’t get angry, you don’t get defensive, you simply say: “I have a two-year old here…” and restate their argument, except you replace the unborn with the toddler

·         Can I kill it?  Of course not, it’s a human!

·         Aha!  That’s exactly the point!  Is the unborn a human just like that toddler?  That’s what we need to discuss

§  Trotting out the toddler forces your opponent to make that case

·         It puts them on the defensive

·         It sets the terms of the debate

·         It keeps you from running down bunny trails

·         Establishing a foundation for the debate

o   Once you have focused the debate on the identity of the unborn, you need to argue persuasively that the unborn are full members of the human family deserving of the same rights that all humans are owed simply on account of their being human

o   Who or what is the unborn? (Science)

§  From the earliest stages of development, embryos are distinct, living, and whole human beings

·         The science of embryology affirms this quite clearly

·         You didn’t come from a zygote; you were a zygote!

·         You had to develop, but the kind of thing you were was not in dispute

§  If the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings…

o   Are the unborn entitled to the same protections as all other members of the human family? (Philosophy)

§  There is no essential difference between the embryo you once were and the adult you are today that would justify killing you at that earlier stage of development

§  Most pro-abortion advocates confuse human value with human function—we need to assert that differences between embryos and ourselves are matters of development, not value (they are non-essential to our nature as humans)—we do this with the SLED test

·         The kind of thing we are (human) remains the same through time and change

·         Size: You were smaller as an embryo, but since when does your body size determine value?  Are large humans more valuable than smaller ones?

·         Level of Development: True, you were less developed as an embryo, but two-year olds are less developed than teenagers.  Do teens have a greater right to life?

·         Environment: Where you are has no bearing on what you are.  How does a journey of eight inches down the birth canal suddenly change the essential nature of the unborn?

·         Degree of Dependency: Sure, you depended on your mother for survival, but since when does dependence on another human mean we can kill you?

·         These are not good reasons to say that you had no right to life then but do have it now—any of these reasons can be used to take your life today, or the life of anyone else

§  Humans have value simply because they are the kind of thing they are (human), not because of some acquired property they may gain or lose during their lifetimes—this is where the ‘personhood’ argument, used even by pro-lifers, shipwrecks

·         Dealing with objections

o   We’ve already done some of this, but there is one in particular that needs to be dealt with: Hard cases

§  Rape and incest—with compassion and understanding, trot out the two-year old to see that these objections hold no water

·         Can we kill anyone who brings to mind a painful event?

·         If killing you makes me feel better, can I kill you?

§  Life of the mother—when the mother’s life is threatened (ectopic pregnancy, and other situations), and only one will live, or if both will die if nothing is done, almost all pro-life ethicists permit (not require) an abortion

·         This situation is then the excruciatingly difficult decision between the lives of two human beings--in a sinful world, we must choose

·         Ethicists generally concur that the mother should be saved

o   Understanding the difference between objective and subjective

§  “If you don’t agree with an abortion, then don’t have one!”

§  Our opposition to abortion isn’t a matter of personal preference or opinion, but a matter of truth

o   Dealing with the ad hominem argument

§  “If you hate abortion so much, why don’t you adopt all these unwanted children!”

§  What I do with my life has no bearing on the truth of whether the unborn are human and we are justified in killing them

§  I may be inconsistent, but that inconsistency doesn’t destroy the truth

·         Teach and equip

o   The pro-life movement is filled with articulate defenders of the unborn—we should all become the same

§  Learn from them

§  Read their books

o   Our case is twofold:

§  The unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings (science)

§  There is no essential difference between that embryo that I once was and the adult that I am now that justifies killing me at that earlier stage (philosophy)

o   We must be prepared to make the case—lives depend on it!

§  We must proclaim the Law—abortion is a grievous wrong that should be ended; we must make that case in the public square

§  However, we must not stop there—the Gospel must be proclaimed!

·         If churches or individual Christians don’t speak about abortion, we have inexcusably missed the opportunity to bring grace into broken lives (the very calling of the Church!)

·         There are men and women out there scarred by abortion, and they need to hear the only message that can bring healing—Christ’s blood-bought forgiveness

·         We must be ready to support hurting women who have had an abortion and scared women who are considering it—we must have true compassion, not the ‘compassion’ promised by the pro-abortion community

Easter 3 of Series C (Revelation 5:8-14)

“And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.’” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this third Sunday of Easter comes from the Epistle lesson read a few moments ago from the fifth chapter of the Revelation to Saint John. Dear friends in Christ, is church boring? A dangerous question, I know, for a preacher to ask his hearers, but I will ask it again: Do you find the Divine Service boring? I would guess that every single person here this morning has answered that question with ‘yes’ at some point in their lives. Perhaps you answered ‘yes,’ as your parents tried to get you going; perhaps you answered ‘yes,’ as you thought about sleeping in. But you’re here at least, right, even if you think that being here is boring, a wasted hour of your life. Boring, old hymns, boring old words, repeated each and every week, and then, to cap it off, an eighteen minute speech. Let’s just admit it; we are all bored with worship at times or all the time, aren’t we, even (to let you in on a secret) the man who leads it. It isn’t just children, it isn’t just hearers, but boredom on Sunday mornings affects us all, from occasional attendees and children to every-Sunday adults and even to preachers themselves. 

But we aren’t just bored with Sunday morning; our boredom in the Divine Service isn’t the disease, it’s just a symptom. A more “exciting” worship service, whatever that means, wouldn’t cure our boredom. In fact, some sort of “entertainment worship” would simply mask or even feed the disease, because the problem is, deep down, we are bored with the Word of God. We find God’s Word dull and uninteresting. Because that’s all that worship is, isn’t it? You look through our liturgy and you quickly find that our worship service is simply Bible texts arranged together, spoken and sung, interpreted and proclaimed by hymns and preachers. And we are bored with it. We’re tired of old, boring stories about dead people, we are bored with complicated doctrines and ancient poetry. We are bored with God’s Word.

But even that doesn’t get to the root of this problem, this sin of boredom. That’s right, I called it a sin, specifically a sin against the Third Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” What does this mean? “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” Boredom is a direct and blatant violation of God’s command for right worship. Why? Because when we are bored with worship and the Word of God, we are actually bored with Jesus. Boredom in church or Bible class isn’t boredom with a preacher or liturgy, it’s boredom with Christ. The Divine Service is all about Christ and His gifts from start to finish. We’re bored with His gifts, we’re bored with His salvation; we’ve heard it all before, and frankly, it’s all old hat. Let’s not kid ourselves; we’re bored in church because we’re bored with Jesus. Is there any greater offense to our God?

For Christ is worthy of our worship, of our glory and praise, not of our boredom. He deserves our worship not because He is flashy or exciting, because He can tell a good joke and entertain us, but because of who He is and what He has done. Our text this morning gives us a glimpse, a privileged view, of the worship that is going on in heaven. And this worship is anything but boring. The Lamb of God goes to the Father sitting upon His throne and takes a scroll from His hand. In response, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fall down in worship and sing a new song: “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals!” The Lamb, the Christ, alone of all in heaven and on earth, is found worthy to open the scroll, the scroll which tells how God will bring victory over sin, death, and the devil. The four living creatures represent all the creatures of this earth; the twenty-four elders stand for the Old and New Testament Church. 

But then the circle expands, and so does the worship: “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.” What do they sing? “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” The Lamb is worthy to receive all honor and worship, even the honor and worship that is due to God alone, for this Lamb is true God, He is included in the divine majesty. Worshipping Jesus doesn’t violate the First Commandment; it’s the only way to obey it. All creatures in heaven and on earth declare this truth, giving to the Father and the Son together worship and praise: “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and glory and might forever and ever!”

Why is the Lamb, the Christ, the Son, worthy of such worship and honor and praise by the heavenly host, indeed, by all creation itself? The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders tell us in their new song: “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood your ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” The Lamb is worthy of our worship because He won the victory, the victory over all evil, all that was opposed to God and to us. But He won that victory through suffering. He is a slaughtered Lamb, because He was slain for all creatures, for you and me. He is the Lamb of the new Passover; His blood marks us, and death passes over. He ransomed a people for God, He bought us back by paying the price that we owed for our sin with the shedding of His own blood. All of your sin, even the sin of boredom that afflicts you whenever you worship or study God’s Word, is washed away in that blessed flood.

His blood transforms us from a nation of rebels to a kingdom of priests. “You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” He forms us, those who have been claimed by His blood through the waters of Holy Baptism into His Church, His Kingdom, and we are priests forever, offering up the sacrifice of prayer and praise before His throne. The Lamb is worthy of praise and honor, glory and worship because He won the victory, not through power and might, but through humility and suffering. He is worthy of worship because of His wounds, the wounds He bears for eternity as the Lamb who was slain but yet lives, and sits enthroned forever and ever. “The living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ and the elders fell down and worshipped.”

It doesn’t seem to us that the Lamb, the Christ, is sitting on the throne when we look at the world around us. In fact, it doesn’t seem like any victory at all has been won. We still get sick, we still have accidents, our loved ones still die. We still fall into sin. Disasters still happen; war still threatens us. The killing of unborn children remains legal, and the destruction of marriage and religious freedom with it may soon become a reality. Reading the paper or watching the news declares that sin, death, and Satan are still sitting comfortably upon their thrones. But that is not reality; appearances are deceiving. In our text today God pulls back the curtain, He shows us what is really happening as we struggle in a world of sin and death. Christ reigns, Christ rules. He has triumphed, despite all appearances to the contrary. The slaughtered Lamb sits enthroned, He holds the keys of Death and Hades, He has conquered in the fight: Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia! God rules in this world through the Lamb who was slain, our suffering Savior. He rules in seeming weakness, through a Church and a Kingdom that seems on the edge of collapse. But that Church is already victorious, that Kingdom truly does rule over sin, death, and Satan. That is reality, as God shows us in our text.

And we participate in that reality every Divine Service. In our text, God pulls back the curtain on Sunday morning. When we gather to receive Christ’s great gifts and give Him great thanks and praise, we are joining with the heavenly worship that is described in our text. In our ordinary church, led by a sinful man, with imperfect pitch and all the foibles that can fill a worship service here in this corrupted world, we are participating in the worship of heaven. Revelation chapter five shows us the reality that we are included in when we come to this place to worship the slain Lamb, our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. In the Divine Service heaven bends down near to this earth; in our sanctuary the doors of heaven are open and we join the eternal chorus. We are told in our text that the bowls of incense “are the prayers of the saints.” Our prayers and praise rise up like incense before the throne of God, for the Lamb gives us every good gift, even His Body and His Blood; He pours out on us forgiveness, life, and salvation.

The Divine Service is anything but boring because Christ isn’t boring. He has won the victory, and He is worthy of our praise and honor, today and forever because His shed blood covers our every sin. Now, this doesn’t mean that a preacher has license to be uninteresting and dull, or that he can conduct the liturgy in a dreary manner. The one who conducts the Divine Service has the responsibility to give Christ the glory for which He is worthy. And when Christ is given the glory, when His death and resurrection are front and center, church is anything but boring. The preacher may not always give an A-plus sermon, he may stumble through the liturgy, but Christ is always victorious, He is always our living Lord. His redemption remains true, it is reality, despite anything that happens in this world, for He has triumphed, He has won the victory. “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” Worthy is the Lamb, for He was slain, but He lives, never to die again. Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia! Amen.

Second Sunday of Easter (Series C; John 20:19-31)

“And when [Jesus] had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia! The text for our sermon this Second Sunday of Easter comes from the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the twentieth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John. Dear friends in Christ, the doors were locked. Not just shut, but locked. The Church had locked itself in, disconnected itself from the world, and it cowered there in isolation. Why? The answer is one word: fear. Fear of oppression, fear of their enemies, fear of exposure, fear of persecution. Fear that what had happened to their Lord would also happen to them. Fear trapped them in, it cut them off from all others. The Church was a country club of fear, and membership was closed, no one was allowed to join. The doors were locked.

Jesus entered in through those locked doors; He broke into His Church. “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” Locked doors don’t concern the resurrected Jesus; He passes right through them. He enters with a message, a proclamation: “Peace be with you.” He brings peace to a Church cowering in fear, behind their locked doors. Peace is His gift, peace is the reason that He became man, walked this earth, suffered death and rose. The peace He gives is the fruit of His resurrection, it is the result of the empty tomb. This is much more than the absence of war, violence, or turmoil in this world. His peace has little to do with international politics or local crime. His peace is cosmic, and it brings to an end the greatest conflict in all of creation. When Jesus says, “Peace be with you,” He is bringing to the disciples peace between God and man. The strife is over, the battle done. The rift between God and His creation has been healed, bridged by the sacrifice of Christ. He died in our place and He rose to declare to the world that peace had been won, that the Father had accepted His sacrifice. This peace will characterize eternity; in the resurrection, we will live in perfect peace. That gift has been won through the cross and the empty tomb; now, behind locked doors, that peace is brought to His disciples.

This proclamation of peace destroys fear. The disciples were afraid of the Jews; the Church today too often is afraid of the world. Do we also have locked churches? Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not talking about our physical doors at all. What I’m speaking about is a Church that is locked in on itself, shut off from the world and her community. Are our doors also locked? Do we also keep the Church locked safely behind these walls? If we examine ourselves, we will find that too often we do, and for the same reason: fear. We don’t speak our faith because we are afraid of what others may think of us, we are afraid of destroying a friendship or family relationship. We are, perhaps even unconsciously, less friendly to outsiders who enter these doors because we are, deep down, afraid of what others might do to ‘my’ church. They walk right in, but when they aren’t greeted or made to feel welcome, or even encouraged to sign the guest register, they realize that the doors are locked. Instead of visibly being involved in our communities as leaders and agents of positive renewal, showing mercy and love to our neighbors, the Church remains locked in on itself, concerned only with the needs of its members. We don’t take the Church into the streets because we are afraid of what scorn and abuse the streets might throw back on us. I know and feel this fear, and the disciples certainly felt it, too; and this fear keeps us behind these locked doors.

Jesus enters to destroy that fear, to shatter it with His words of peace. The declaration, “Peace be with you,” calms trembling hearts. There is no more need to fear; Christ has conquered sin and death, He has overcome the world. His wounds are the proof. “When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.” The wounds of Christ are the guarantees of peace. They are the declaration of forgiveness. Jesus has no anger, no wrath over our sins; the cross has taken care of all that. All He has is the beautiful words of forgiveness and grace, “Peace be with you,” and He shows wounds that won that forgiveness.

The disciples were turned in on themselves, locked in the Church, which they had made their own prison of fear. But with the words of peace, Jesus turns them outside of themselves and sends them, He sends the Church out into the world. “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’” Jesus broke into their locked room and opened wide the doors. They are sent into the world to take the peace which Christ had won, the peace which Christ has given to them, to all people. Through now opened doors the proclamation of Christ’s resurrection goes forth to Judea, Samaria, and all the ends of the earth. The disciples, cowering in fear, are sent out as apostles, sent ones, to boldly speak of Christ. The Church of every age is sent out in the same way; our fears are destroyed by the peace of Christ and we are turned outside of ourselves into the world. Our locked doors are burst open, Easter goes forth. We have been given peace; now it is our privilege to give that peace to others.

Through open doors the Church goes to open up the gates of heaven. Through faith all Christians are witnesses of His resurrection, and the cry of victory rings forth in every generation: Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia! The apostles preached this glorious message in synagogues and temples, in churches and in homes. Individual Christians proclaimed Christ’s victory to their friends and families, each in his or her own vocation. In the same way, today pastors preach this message publically, and individual Christians speak it in their various vocations. Some apostles were even given the unique task of writing down the words and deeds of Jesus, so that future generations could hear and believe. As John declares about his own gospel, “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” 

Heaven is opened by the preaching of the Church, and hell is shut, because the Church’s preaching comes with the authority of Christ Himself, the authority to extend the peace of the resurrection to others through the forgiveness of sins. “And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.” The peace of the resurrection is given to a sinful world through the words of forgiveness, proclaimed by the apostles and the pastors who follow in their stead. Heaven is opened by their preaching, and hell is shut, because the content of that preaching is the forgiveness of sins, which delivers to sinful people the peace of Christ, the fruits of His resurrection, by reconciling them with their God.

It is the forgiveness of sins that gives their preaching and teaching power. And this power is not their own. The apostles, and the pastors that follow them, aren’t called upon to forgive or retain sins based on their own opinion, to open or shut heaven however they want to. They are under authority; they declare the verdict that has already been enacted in the heavenly throne-room. When you refuse to repent and believe, as Thomas did at first, the pastor is obligated to declare that your sins are not forgiven, that heaven is shut against you. But when you repent of your sins and believe in the peace of the resurrection, the pastor is required by Christ to forgive that sin and declare that heaven is open to you. As the Small Catechism declares: “I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord had dealt with us Himself.”

Pastors extend the peace of the resurrection to all sins in general in the public worship service, during confession and absolution, and then in preaching. But they also proclaim Christ’s peace by applying forgiveness to specific sins in private. This is one of the most under-utilized gifts that Christ has given to His Church; in fact, most congregations have lost Private Confession and Absolution altogether. When Jesus sends His disciples forth to forgive sins, He sends them to forgive specific sins, sins that weigh upon your conscience like a heavy burden. In our text, Jesus is telling you where you can go to find comfort; not to your own thoughts, wrestlings, or good works, but outside of yourself to those who have been called for no other reason than to forgive sins.

Today one who has been thus called proclaims to you the message of Easter: Your sins are forgiven! The peace of Christ covers you! This peace has come to you again this day, in preaching and in absolution [and will come to you again in the Lord’s Supper.] You and I may try to make the Church a locked prison-house, but Christ has broken in to shatter those doors with His peace, His forgiveness. And His forgiveness opens other doors as well. In the book of Revelation we hear, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” The doors of heaven will never be shut to you, for you are forgiven, you have been baptized into His name. Christ Himself opens heaven and shuts hell. For eternity, you will have access to the peace of God through open doors; the gates of heaven will never be shut, and here on this earth, to all who believe, the gates of heaven are opened through the peace of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, the fruits of His resurrection. Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia! Amen.

Easter Day (Luke 24:1-12)

Oh, it’s you again, isn’t it? Our good friend Death, here to visit us again. Come to gloat, have you? Come to declare your victory? I saw you hanging around on Friday, as the earth shook and the sun refused to shine. The sun did emerge again as we laid our Lord into the tomb, and I’m sure it probably came up again on Saturday, but I really didn’t notice. All was sorrow and gloom, grays and blacks. My Lord was dead: my Lord! You had killed Him, Death; you had claimed Him with the nails and the cross of the Romans. He was dead; truly and completely dead. The centurion, an expert at death, someone who knew all your ways quite well, made sure with the piercing blade of the spear. And then we, who loved Jesus, went into mourning. We cowered in that locked upper room. But this morning, things are somehow different. The light is dawning; for the first time since darkness fell on Friday, I notice the sun. You are all about darkness; what can the light mean? The women go to the tomb to anoint the body, to perform the required rituals on the One you had claimed, but they do not find things as they should. “On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 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.” Interesting, don’t you think? The facts are indisputable; two thousand years hasn’t changed them. On Sunday morning, the stone was rolled away and the tomb, your domain, your haunt, was empty. What do you think about that, Death?
But you don’t care about those facts, do you? The facts of Easter morning don’t concern you. You don’t care about stones rolled away or tombs empty or bodies missing. None of that matters at all to you, because they are just that, empty facts without meaning. You can still convince us that you are in charge. An empty tomb doesn’t conquer you, does it? You still assert your power, because an empty tomb simply means that the body is somewhere else. Because bodies don’t get up and walk away, do they? You make sure of that. The women on that Easter morning were perplexed and frightened. The facts made no sense to them. You had convinced them that you are absolute, that you held all power, and they believed you; they sought Jesus among the dead. They still feared you. And that is still your work, isn’t it? You declare that you are still in charge, with every murder, with every war, with every abortion you declare that you rule this world. You take our loved ones, you threaten us. And we fear you, Death, we are afraid of what you can do to us, of what you will do to us.

There is a reason why we have portrayed you in sinister ways throughout the centuries, with a black hood, a sickle in hand, long, bony fingers. We fear you, and we think that you rule this world. The facts of Easter are indisputable: the tomb is still empty! But you convince us that these facts don’t matter. “And returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to the rest…. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” The disciples and this entire world, convinced by you, still seeks Jesus among the dead. And if Jesus is still dead, we have reason to fear. We know you, alright: we see you every day. But we don’t see what is beyond you, and that is what terrifies us. You are a gate, a portal, and you refuse to let us see what is on the other side. The unknown terrifies us, it motivates us to try and avoid you in any way that we can. I think that is just fine with you, because when you do greet us, as you inevitably will, it will be without hope, scared and cowering. Those who claim to have hope, who claim to know what is behind the veil disgust you; the mystery serves you much better. 

You ensnared Peter in that mystery. “But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.” He saw the facts of Easter morning, but your hold on his mind was still firm, he still sought Jesus among the dead. And that couldn’t be too bad, right? Jesus had left a legacy, He had given some good teachings, He had guided us and made us better people. There has to be some value in that; no wonder much of the world and many Christians are happy to consider Jesus just a ‘good moral teacher.’ And you are just fine with that; no amount of morals threaten you. You can even live with a spiritual resurrection; a ghostly Jesus gives you no threat, as long as His body remains in this earth. For you know what Saint Paul knew: “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” We are to be pitied because then you still hold our loved ones captive; you still hold Jesus captive, and you will one day take us. The victory then is yours, in that strange and dreadful strife. We remain in a prison of fear, seeking our own means to elude you, all of which will one day fail, and then you have us, forever.

There is just one problem with your grand plans, your domination of me, the people in this sanctuary, and the entire world: the truth. The women found the tomb empty, but they were not left alone. “While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.” What these men say will change everything: “And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen!’” Why do you seek the living among the dead? An empty tomb doesn’t conquer you, Death, but a living Jesus does. He is not here, but has risen! You have no hold on Him! He has risen, triumphant over you, breaking your chains, defeating you when He took His body from the tomb. 

Your haunt, the tomb, is empty because the body of Jesus is living, never to die again. He promised that He would defeat you, and so He has: “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.” You took Jesus, Death, you fool! You swallowed Him up, but He was a poison pill that destroyed you from the inside out. He looked so enticing, so appetizing, being beaten by the soldiers and the crowds, hanging there upon the cross, but that tree you used so often as your favorite tool was turned against you. The cross was the instrument of your destruction. His death was your death. You couldn’t hold Him in, and so He broke out of your prison, leaving you empty, powerless over Him. He promised resurrection, but you didn’t believe Him. You sought Him among the dead, like the women, like the disciples, like Peter, like us in our fears, but He is not among the dead. He is not here, but has risen! Alleluia!

You can explain away and get around the facts of the resurrection—right, Death?—an empty tomb doesn’t necessarily mean a living Jesus. But when the angels proclaim that the tomb is empty because Christ has triumphed over you, it is all over. You are defeated, conquered, because Jesus is only the beginning. Luke tells us that the women “remembered His words.” They remembered, and they believed. They believed that Christ had conquered you, and by that faith, they conquered you too. Paul is doing a victory dance upon your head because Christ’s victory means victory for all who believe: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen! You are defeated, Death, crushed, you have no more power over Christ, and no more power over those who belong to Christ. We are not among the dead, but among the living; you have no hold upon us. You are a gate, a portal to be sure, but on the other side is not the unknown, it is life, eternal life with the One who triumphed over you. You can rant and rave all that you want to, you have claimed our friends, our children, our parents, but through faith in the Risen One they have slipped through your fingers. You can take me tomorrow or in sixty years, but you do not have the victory. Christ has won, Christ has risen!

Your days are numbered, Death. Have fun while it lasts, because your day is coming. Yes, we will still mourn, we will still have funerals, but we will not grieve as those with no hope. For we have a sure and certain hope, the promise that your destruction is near. Saint Paul, in that chapter that you have to hate, 1 Corinthians 15, declares, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” On the Day of Resurrection, the fulfillment of this Easter morning, you will be annihilated, as Isaiah prophesies: “No more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.” Christ’s victory is my victory, and the victory of all who are in Christ, who have been Absolved by His Word, Baptized into His Name, fed by His Body and His Blood. Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen! Death, hear this proclamation, then be gone, get far from me, because you have no more power over me: Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia! Amen.

Holy Saturday

Christ is our substitute in every way; He stands in our place in every stage of life. He was conceived in the womb of the virgin and passed through each and every part of development that you and I did. He was born and grew into a man in the same way as any other human. And then He died and was buried, just as you and I will be. His Body was placed into a tomb, and there it rested, just as our body will when we die. We cannot ignore that little phrase in the Apostle’s creed: “and was buried.” He passes through every stage that we do; He passes through every stage for us, in our place.

His rest in the tomb sanctifies our tombs; it makes them temporary shelters, caverns now filled that will one day be robbed blind. Because Christ rested in the tomb, so must we, but Christ didn’t stay in the tomb. Holy Saturday is the beginning of the Easter celebration. We ended Friday in darkness; today the light begins to dawn. The sun refused to shine as the Son of God hung dying upon the cross; the stone is rolled from the tomb as that same sun rises on a new day, a new week, a new creation. For Christ has risen, the firstfruits of the dead. Christ’s grave is empty, and so shall yours be. Holy Saturday was a day of contradictions; the disciples huddled in fear, expecting to soon share the same fate as their master. The religious leaders, Roman soldiers, and death itself thought that Jesus was dead and gone. Evil thought that it had triumphed, while the godly despaired. But the truth of things was altogether different. Victory had been won on that gory cross. Death had swallowed a poison pill that would destroy it forever. The story wasn’t over, Jesus had triumphed. Soon He would descend to hell to proclaim His victory over Satan Himself, and then would rise to proclaim that same victory to all the world. Now, for Christians, Holy Saturday isn’t a day of despair, it is a day of anticipation. The night will soon be ending, the day is drawing near, for Jesus, for this world, for you and me.