Easter, The Resurrection of Our Lord + 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 + April 16, 2017
Order of Holy Communion - Pg. 15
Hymn # 200 I Know That My Redeemer LivesIntroit
WHEN
I || awake, I am still with You. Alle- | lu- | ia! *
You have laid Your hand upon me. Al-
| le- | lu- | ia!
||
Such knowledge is too wonderful | for | me; *
It is high, I cannot attain it. Alleluia! Al- | le- | lu-
| ia! (Psalm 139:18b,
5a, c, 6)
||
O Lord, You have searched me and | known | me. *
You know my sitting down and my | ris-
| ing | up.
||
You comprehend my path and my lying | down, | - *
And are acquainted with | all | my |
ways.
||
If I ascend into heaven, You are | there; | - *
If I make my bed in hell, behold, | You
| are | there.
||
Even there Your hand shall | lead | me, *
And Your right hand | shall | hold |
me. (Psalm 139:1–2a,
3, 8, 10)
||
When I awake, I am still with You. Alle- | lu- | ia! *
You have laid Your hand upon me. Al-
| le- | lu- | ia!
||
Such knowledge is too wonderful | for | me; *
It is high, I cannot attain it. Alleluia! Al- | le- |
lu- | ia! (Psalm 139:18b, 5a, c, 6)
Almighty God, Who through Thine Only-Begotten Son Jesus Christ, hast overcome death and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life, we humbly beseech Thee that, as Thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by Thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Readings
Sermon on the Epistle Lesson - 1 Corinthians 5:6-8
Christ
is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!
1)
Dear saints, every now and again an archeologist discovers an ossuary, which is
a bone box, in the Holy Land that dates from the first century and is inscribed
with the name “Jesus.” Over thirty such boxes have been discovered over the
years and archeologists are quick to point out that “Jesus” was a very common
name in first century Palestine. No one believes that any of these ossuaries
belong to Jesus of Nazareth. Yet every few years the media trot out headlines
to mislead the casual reader to believe that someone has dug up the remains of
Jesus so that Christianity is surely a scam. Even if no one dares stretch the
truth to that extent, the yearly barrage of such headlines does its best to inculcate
us with the idea that even though we haven’t found His remains, they will be
discovered someday. This is a wild goose chase fueled by unbelief and desire to
discredit the Christian verity. The angels tell us there are no remains! He is
risen! His disciples saw the place where Christ lay. He was not there! There
are no remains to be found because the remains that were wrapped in linen and
spices, the remains that were laid to rest in the freshly hewn tomb of Joseph
of Arimathea, are alive! There are no remains because Christ has risen.
2) St.
Paul writes in the Epistle appointed for this Festival, “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” Christ is
the fulfillment of the Old Testament Passover, just as He is the fulfillment of
everything established in Moses. Every dietary restriction, every Festival,
every Sabbath, was a type of the reality to come in Christ Jesus. St. Paul says
in Colossians 2:17 that all these things are “a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” This is why Christians do not celebrate the Hebrew Passover and why
there’s no purpose in exploring the Jewish Seder. It is a shadow and type of
the reality to come in Christ Jesus. That festival, as an institution, was to
last only until Christ was revealed, just as all the Mosaic institutions were
to serve as pictures of Christ’s ministry and atonement. It would feel the
height of foolishness to choose to remain in the shadows when the brightness
and truth of the reality has come! Christ, our Passover Lamb, was sacrificed on
the Day of Preparation when all Israel would be slaughtering their household lambs.
Christ gives His flesh to Christians to eat in the Lord’s Supper just as the
Israelites were to eat the flesh of their Passover lambs.
3) It is because Christ is our Passover that there are no
remains, for His resurrection is foretold in the institution of the Passover
while Israel was still in Egypt. The Lord commanded Moses in Exodus 12:10, “You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it
until morning you shall burn with fire.” Whatever is not eaten at the Feast
that evening is to be burned with fire the next day so that nothing remains of
the Passover. This practice was a shadow of the reality to come in Christ, the
true Passover, of whom there would be no remains in the tomb. David wrote in Psalm 16:10, “For you will not leave my soul in
Sheol, nor will you allow Your Holy One to see corruption.”
St. Peter tells us in Acts 2:31-32 that David “spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not
left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up,
of which we are all witnesses.” Jesus’ body did not experience the
corruption and decay of death because He is risen! Christ our Passover has been
sacrificed and as our Passover, there are no remains, for Christ now lives into
eternity!
4) Because
Christ is our Passover, because He is risen from the dead, free of the
corruption and decay of death, St. Paul tells us that we are to “purge out the old leaven, that
you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened.” The Old Testament Passover was also called the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
The Lord commanded Moses in Exodus
12:15, “Seven
days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven
from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the
seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.”
The Lord reiterated that command four verses later to show the severity of His
command. Leaven, what we call yeast, was not to be used in the bread eaten
during the Passover. What might seem to be a meaningless command is a shadow of
the reality to come in Christ, for none of God’s Words to us in the Scriptures are
meaningless. The Scriptures often use leaven as a metaphor for sin and false
doctrine. Christ warns His disciples of the leaven of false teaching in Luke 12:1, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is
hypocrisy.” Christ only uses the word “Beware” when He speaks of
false teaching. False teaching is a leaven which seems small and insignificant.
But like leaven, the tiniest bit of false teaching eventually spreads
throughout the faith in the heart and entire congregations. We see this all too
often in our day. A new practice or teaching is introduced in a church which
seems harmless, though it detract from Christ’s gospel or glory just a bit. If it is not removed with the scalpel of the Word
of God, it eventually takes hold and becomes irreplaceable, so that even those
who once fought such error eventually become partakers of it by their association
with it. St. Paul echoes the words of Jesus in Galatians 5:9 and warns, “A little leaven leavens the whole
lump.” False teaching and errant practices are
not to be tolerated in the church because Christ says they will only grow and
sour the entire lump.
5) Because
Christ our Passover has been sacrifice and is raised from the dead, we are to
hold fast to His Word and beware the leaven of false teaching and church
practices which normalize false teaching in the hearts of the saints. False
doctrine and errant practices aren’t the only leaven we are to rid from the
house of our hearts though. St. Paul writes in the Epistle, “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with
old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:8). Since Christ
has sacrificed Himself to atone for our sins and since faith in Christ’s atonement
justifies us so that God declares us righteous in His sight, we are no longer
to allow the leaven of malice and wickedness to dwell within us. Those sins
which cling to us and we find ourselves doing, often out of weakness, we are to
cast from our hearts with the aid of the Holy Ghost. St. Paul says in Galatians 5:24 that “those who are Christ's
have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Those things which are flesh desires we are to cast off as the
Israelites were to cast all leaven from their house and from their camp during
the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We must take to hear the words of St. Paul in Romans
13:12-14. “Let us cast off the works of
darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the
day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife
and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the
flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” For the flesh lusts
against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. Paul calls us to cast out
the leaven of our sins so that they do not grow and fill our hearts, souring
our faith and eventually displacing it altogether.
6) Finally, since Christ
is our Passover who has been sacrificed for our sins and raised to justify all
who repent of their sins and believe the Gospel, we rejoice as the Israelites
rejoiced at the first Passover. The first Passover was to be eaten in eager
expectation that the Lord would that very night deliver Israel from the iron
furnace of Egypt. The first Passover was eaten in faith that God the Lord would
visit Israel and raise them up from the living death of Egyptian slavery and
grant them life in the Promised Land. This deliverance is also a shadow and
type of the salvation to be revealed in Christ Jesus to all mankind. Christ our
Passover rises from the dead, never to die again. Because He is risen from the
dead, He promises everlasting life and the resurrection of the body to all who
believe on His name and trust His Word, for He says, “I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and
believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:25-26.
As Israel participated in the first Passover and received
deliverance from Egypt, so everyone who participates in Christ the Passover by
faith will be raised to new life on the Last Day. Our promised Land is not a patch
of land or a physical Kingdom as it was in the Old Testament. Our promised land
is that sweet and blessed country, the home of God’s elect, the New Jerusalem
in the New Heavens and New Earth. For this promised land of everlasting life in
paradise we wait in eager expectation. “The hour is coming,” says Jesus, “in which all who are in the graves will
hear His voice and come forth” (John 5:28-29).
7) Christ our
Passover has been slain to be “the propitiation
for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2),
“that whoever believes
in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Christ our Passover
has been raised from dead, incorruptible and immortal, so that all who receive
Christ in true faith will be raised from the dead on the Last Day. On that day,
“when this corruptible has put on
incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to
pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54). There is no need to
search for His remains. The heavenly messengers have told us, “He is risen! He is not here. See the place
where they laid Him” (Mark 16:6).
There is no need to dig in the dirt, sifting through centuries of rubble for
Christ’s bones because God the Father did not let His Holy One see corruption,
just as He had prophesied. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us. Let
us rejoice that His sacrifice atones for our sins so that all who believe this
are righteous in God’s sight. Christ our Passover Lamb has been raised form the
dead. Let us rid our hearts of the leaven of malice and wickedness, lest it
grow and smother our God-given faith. Christ our Passover lives, never to die
again, to raise all who believe in Him to everlasting life even as He is risen
from the dead.
Christ
is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Amen.