Now shall we be turning prayerfully to the
passage of Scripture that was earlier read, focusing
very particularly on the first eight verses in
Mark chapter 16.
Can I simply read now at this stage
verses six and seven, just to remind you
again of the heart of the message that
we have there.
Don't be alarmed, said the angel to the
women folk who had come to the tomb.
You were looking for Jesus the Nazarene who
was crucified.
He is risen.
He is not here.
See the place where they laid him.
But go tell his disciples and Peter he
is going ahead of you into Galilee.
There you will see him just as he
told you.
The cardinal affirmation of that passage is found
in those words in verse six.
He is risen.
And in those words are found the most
glorious truth ever uttered in the years of
mortal man.
The unadorned statement contains the most glorious news
ever heralded abroad.
That God, having sent his only son into
the world to bear away the sins of
men in dying under the curse that our
sins deserved, having so done is alive again.
And not simply alive for a while again
to die, but alive forevermore as the Lord
of life and death.
So that this morning it is possible for
us to know one who is competent to
be our savior.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is competent to save
the most wretched and the most miserable of
the two counts very specially.
That he died on the cross to take
our sin away and procure pardon for us.
And having so done, after being buried in
the garden tomb, he rose again and is
alive forevermore.
So that ours is not a savior who
simply did something in the past.
He did that but he does more.
He is alive to give us of his
presence and of his power and assures us
of his intercession into the present, into the
future, however far the future may take us.
As the writer of the epistle to the
Hebrew says, seeing that he ever lives, his
is life without an end.
Seeing that he ever lives and that in
the power of an endless life, he is
able to serve to the uttermost those that
come to God by him.
In his book, The Trouble with the Church,
Helmut Tillich wrote, I am shocked, he says,
by the casual matter-of-course way in
which the news that Christ has risen is
taken.
Anybody who has grasped what that means would
be rocked in his seat.
The implication of Tillich's statement, not Tillich, but
Tillich, the implication of his statement is, of
course, that many of us who have never
been thus rocked have never appreciated the significance
of the Easter event.
Well now, we have been following the narrative
in Mark's gospel coming up to the crucifixion
of our Lord.
That is why we are taking this passage
from Mark chapter 16 this morning as basis
of our meditation on Easter morning.
There are two things I would like us
to see here.
First of all, we have an invitation, come,
see, as the King James Version puts it,
come and see.
And then we have a commission, go and
tell.
And I trust that as surely as these
women folk of old heard and responded to
both, so too may we this morning come
and see something for ourselves.
And as the significance of what we see
dawns upon us, may we have the grace
and the courage and the dedication to go
and tell.
Our world is languishing for the knowledge of
the living Lord Jesus Christ, who alone can
deal with a problem of the human heart
and of human society.
And if anyone is to tell them, it
must be you and myself together, all of
us united with a common purpose and dedication.
May the Lord grant us that grace today.
Now, look first of all then at the
invitation.
Mark is the most concise of the four
gospel writers, and this means that many things
recorded by the others are left out by
him.
Though he has some very lovely touches of
his own, but he's concise here.
Look first of all at the action planned
by a group of women, as told by
Mark, verses one and two.
And when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene
and Mary, the mother of James and Salome,
bought spices so that they might go and
anoint him.
And very early on the first day of
the week, yesterday, very early on the first
day of the week, they went to the
tomb when the sun had risen.
No sooner were they free to do so,
they could not do so until the Sabbath
was over, and they dare not do so
during the hours of complete darkness.
No sooner were they free to do so
than this noble group of women set out,
as they thought, to pay their last parting
respects to their dead Lord and Master.
Their ardent love for him was probably matched
only by their fear at this point.
There is a development in their experience, but
at this point they were very much afraid
of many things.
I guess for one thing, they were afraid
that the body was in process of decomposition
already, and they were afraid of many other
things.
And so as early as they possibly could
get out, they have these spices with them,
and they go to anoint the feet, to
anoint the body of their Lord Jesus.
They knew, of course, that Mary of Bethany
had anointed him whilst he was alive, and
Jesus said, she has done this on me
in preparation for my dying.
They also knew that Joseph of Arimathea and
Nicodemus together had poured a hundred pounds of
spices in between the folds of the linen
clothes as they buried him in Joseph's unused
tomb.
A hundred pounds in weight.
Enough, says one commentator, to cover the floor
of the entire area around the tomb.
Enough, says another one, in terms of value
to pay for the ransom of a king.
But you see, love is never satisfied that
someone else has done something.
Love always wants to do something oneself.
And these women, the Lord bless their memory,
these women wanted to do something themselves.
And out they went, they have their spices,
they have their ointment ready, and they go
early in the morning.
The gospel narratives vary in the way they
put it.
Evidently they started out before it had actually
dawned.
By the time they got there, it was
just dawning.
But they set out to do what they
could, as they thought, to pay their last
respects to the dead Savior.
Love is daring.
Daring in its actions and sacrificial in its
donations.
I tell you, it cost these women more
than money to do this.
It cost them money, I can't tell you
how much.
Few of us, few ladies I'm sure, would
like to pay a visit to a modern
cemetery early in the morning at the dawn
of day.
But these women, folk, were glad to be
up.
And with haste, without any man near, alone
they went into the cemetery to pay their
respects to the Savior.
They were as courageous as they were eager
to impart the fruit of whatever material possessions
they had.
The action they planned, the anxiety they expressed.
Look at verse three.
As these women are going along, three of
them, they are saying one to another, says
Mark, who will roll away the stone for
us from the door of the tomb?
As far as this big-hearted group was
concerned, there was only one major problem which
seemed insurmountable as they were now on their
way.
That is because they had forgotten a lot
of other things.
They had forgotten that the tomb, the stone
at the mouth of the tomb was sealed
with a Roman seal.
And they had forgotten that there were soldiers
on guard when last they saw that tomb.
And so the one thing that fills their
horizon at the moment is the fact that
it's that massive stone on the mouth of
the tomb.
Who on earth is going to roll away
that stone?
Now, tombs in these days had no actual
doors as such, but simply a space serving
as an opening in the wall for entrance
and for exit.
The door, properly so-called, would be a
stone that would be rolled to cover that
space.
And in this case, it was a massive
stone, apparently, far greater than the normal.
And according to the custom, in all probability,
there was a groove outside the entrance into
the cave into which the stone would fit
so that you couldn't easily move it, especially
when it was of these proportions.
Now, the stone at the mouth of this
tomb then was large, exceedingly large, and the
women knew it.
And the one thing that fills their minds
at this moment is, who rolled away the
stone?
This is the one problem we've got.
We've got our spices.
We're on our errand.
We're on the way.
But how on earth are we going to
get into the tomb and here show our
respects to the dead Savior?
The third thing I want you to notice
is the astonishment that awaited them.
And I want to stress that, the astonishment
that awaited them.
The stone, if you please, had been rolled
away before they arrived.
Look at verse four.
And looking up, they saw that the stone
was rolled back.
And again, it was very large.
Who rolled that stone away?
Who had been planning ahead for the entry
of those few women into that garden tomb?
Who had wanted them to see inside?
Who had planned it?
Who had thought of it?
Who was responsible for the removal of that
stone, which they themselves could not remove?
Mark doesn't tell us.
Matthew does.
Matthew says this, and behold, there was a
great earthquake.
For this was no ordinary earthquake.
There was a great earthquake because an angel
of the Lord descended from heaven and came
and rolled back the stone and sat upon
it.
His appearance was like lightning and his raiment
white as snow.
Now, ere you get too absorbed with the
angel for a moment, whose appearance took the
form of a young man dressed in white
apparel, ere you get too absorbed with him,
let me remind you of the significant truth
here.
The angel is only a messenger.
The angel obeys orders.
He doesn't initiate the action that he's going
to do.
It didn't originate in his mind whoever the
angel is in Scripture.
The angel is a servant.
So you see, somebody commissioned that angel to
leave wherever he was and to make his
way to that garden tomb and to take
his position there.
And he moves from place to place as
we see from the different from the different
gospels.
In fact, there were two angels at one
point and three another and maybe more.
But at this point, these women saw one
angel.
What I want you to notice is this,
that the angel comes at the behest of
someone else.
That the angel is a messenger doing the
will of someone else.
Behind the angel's presence and action lies his
master's command and his master's concern.
Who was this angel's master?
Well, I don't care whether you say it
was God the Father or God the Son,
because they were one and are one eternally.
I believe it is legitimate to say that
the very Jesus who was buried in that
garden tomb was the one who appointed this
angel to come and stand sentry and tell
these dear women all they needed to know
in order to turn their darkness into light
and their moroseness into joy unspeakable and full
of glory.
Jesus sent his angel.
So what the angel said he says for
his master.
You know there is a principle here.
Can I just refer to it in proceeding?
There is a principle here.
There are so many difficulties in life that
God leaves astride our pathway for us to
negotiate with him.
He doesn't take them away.
Just as he left a thorn in the
flesh embedded in Paul's flesh and said to
him, my grace is sufficient for you.
We'll bear it together.
There are difficulties and dangers that God allows
to remain astride our pathway and he tells
us come and face it with me.
We'll face it together and I'll give you
my grace and I'll share my resources with
you.
But you know blessed be his name there
are some that he chooses to move right
out of the way.
And those who are prepared to go on
in the pathway of obedience with him sometimes
find just as these women found that something
which was totally insurmountable has been suddenly moved
out of the way.
Now you read the autobiographies or biographies of
some of our missionary pioneers for example and
you'll find this.
It's so evidently manifested in the experiences of
men who have launched forth in pioneering enterprise
for the king of kings.
I think of Paul moving into Europe.
All the difficulties of wending his way through
Philippi.
The difficulties that faced him as he set
foot on the soil of Europe bringing the
gospel from the Middle East.
I think of William Carey the consecrated cobbler
as he was called going to India.
The multitude of mountains that stood astride his
way.
But when it came to the point God
dealt with them all.
Or Mary Spesser as she plodded amidst difficulties
and dangers galore in Calabar Calabar sometimes in
sickness that was enough to cripple any man
or woman.
Or David Livingstone elsewhere in Africa Africa or
Robert Morrison and later Hudson Taylor in China
and so we could go on right down
to the present time.
You see how the Lord is able to
do this and there are stones that he
deliberately moves out of the way that are
too big for us to have anything to
do with.
So he does it himself.
Matthew the stone of our text was rolled
away from the mouth of the tomb not
in order to let Jesus out but in
order to let the women in.
Jesus could have got out of the tomb
himself without the aid of anyone.
A little later on in the in the
resurrection narratives in the gospel according to St.
John you will remember that when the disciples
were in the upper room in Jerusalem the
windows were closed and barred and so were
the doors.
But he entered in his resurrection body which
was different of course from the body in
which he died the same and yet different.
There were elements that were different about it
so that he was able to come in
when the doors were closed.
So too could he have moved triumphantly out
of this garden tomb without anyone moving the
stone from the mouth of the cave.
He could have done so but the women
could not have come in you see.
The stone had been rolled away the difficulty
they foresaw as a massive imponderable problem that
difficulty had been dealt with by the Lord
whom they thought was dead.
And the sepulcher contained no corpse.
Now we recognize the considerable love of these
women for their Lord.
And what I'm going to say next must
not in any wise be allowed to dim
that fact.
We recognize we salute them.
Here they are just a handful of women
early in the morning.
They're daring everybody and they're going out to
do honor to the body of the one
that they had learned to trust and to
love.
Even so we must not be blind to
their faithlessness.
You see over and over again the Lord
Jesus had told his disciples that on the
morning of the third day he was going
to rise again from the dead.
And had they believed that they would never
have moved out of home.
They would have waited his coming to them.
Over and over again Jesus had taught his
disciples concerning his pending death and following it
his resurrection.
He had said to them in various settings
and under different circumstances in one way and
another he had made it abundantly clear that
he was going to die and then he
was going to rise again.
But somehow or other it had never got
through or they heard the words all right.
But the truth of it the reality of
it the expectation of it it never penetrated.
So that you see in consequence the discovery
by these dear women that there was no
corpse in the tomb was a disappointment.
Now you and I may smile at that.
But they were disappointed that their Lord was
not dead and that the body was not
there.
They have their ointment they've come to pay
parting respects to the body.
And they wanted to see the body they
wanted to do something for the body.
And they were a little bit disappointed they've
spent their money for naught.
It's all because the real significance of it
has not yet dawned upon them.
The sepulcher contained no corpse.
Whether they in their frame of mind were
able to take it in I don't know.
But John later and Peter you remember they
noticed that the the grave clothes were still
there.
And surely they must have scented something of
the aroma of the spices.
But those were the only things left in
the tomb to show that it had been
inhabited for a little period.
Jesus is not there the body's gone.
Can I intrude there?
You know in one sense the women's very
unbelief serves our purpose and is a blessing
in disguise.
You see there are those who have said
that Jesus is not risen at all.
He died period.
How then do we have people preaching that
he's alive?
All they said people wished he were risen.
And they expected him to rise.
And then they believed it.
They never saw him risen but they believed
it.
They imagined it and they were so enthused
by their own imaginings they told others about
it.
And they managed to persuade others that their
own imaginations were true.
You see you can't say that.
The whole psychological pattern is such that doesn't
hold water.
These women and the other disciples did not
expect Jesus to rise from the dead.
How then ultimately did they come to believe?
How then ultimately did they come to preach
in the Jewish society and the Roman society
that the Christ whom the Jews and the
Romans together had crucified and buried is alive
again?
I'll tell you they saw him.
And they touched him.
And they handled him.
And they listened to him.
And they knew that he was alive from
the dead by many infallible proofs.
So that when John comes to write his
first epistle he says, that which was from
the beginning.
Which we have seen.
Which we've touched.
Which we've handled of the word of life.
And the word for handled is the word
that you would use of a woman that's
gone into the shop to buy some material
for a suit.
And you handle it.
And you find out how thick it is.
Or how thin it is.
Or what kind of material it is.
And you put it between your fingers.
They handled him.
I noticed Greg Scharf's text tonight.
Touch me.
Yeah but not just a touch with a
tip of a finger.
Handle me.
Put your finger in the wounds.
The stone was rolled away.
The sepulcher contained no corpse.
But this the most precious thing along with
these.
Their entire circumstances had been foreseen and provided
for.
The angel tells them everything they need to
know.
Everything they needed to know at that point.
Never was there a friendlier messenger come to
the aid of anyone than that unnamed angel
at the tomb.
He knew that they were coming.
Of course their Lord knew.
He told the angel.
The angel knew their errand.
I know he says I don't need to
ask you.
You're coming to seek for Jesus the Nazarene
who was crucified.
Well he says he's risen.
Just come and see where he lay.
And then he gives them the message the
commission.
But you see he knew all about them.
And he told them everything they needed to
know.
What did they need to know?
One he was not there.
He doesn't need the spices.
Hallelujah.
He wasn't there.
He wasn't in the tomb.
But more than that he's risen.
He's risen.
And he's going before you into Galilee and
there you'll meet him if you want to.
And you'll see him.
I do love those words.
Death cannot keep its prey.
Jesus my Savior.
He tore the bars away.
Jesus my Lord.
Up from the grave he arose with a
mighty triumph for his foes.
He arose a victor from the dark domain.
And he lives forever with his saints to
reign.
Come see.
You see it?
Have you got it?
Does it grip you?
Can you see what really happened?
Does it touch you?
Are you rocked in your seat?
If not it's only because you don't see.
A word about the commission.
Whom God privileges with a spectacle such as
this.
Whom God allows to see his Son or
to know his Son has risen from the
dead and to be Lord of life as
well as of death.
He commands to tell the glad tidings far
and near.
You can't keep these things to yourselves.
If you can then there's something wrong somewhere.
It was a staggering stupefying disclosure when with
wide open eyes those women saw the empty
tomb.
Even though the significance of it was very
slow dawning upon them.
And the recognition of what is meant that
the Jesus who died is alive again.
I say to you it was a most
stupefying moment.
Go tell his disciples and Peter said the
angel that he is going before you into
Galilee.
There you will see him as he told
you.
Now let's just ponder for a moment on
these words.
I want to pose and answer three simple
questions.
Tell what?
What are they to tell?
First of all that the body of Jesus
the Nazarene who was really crucified, really buried,
because he was really dead, is now really
risen again.
And his body is not a corpse.
That was the first ingredient in the message
that these women were commanded to declare.
Now without that you see there could be
nothing else.
This is the foundation of the Christian message.
That our Lord Jesus really died as the
bearer instead of sinners.
And that he was buried and that he
rose again and his body is not in
the tomb.
Without that fact there could be nothing more
of any real significance to tell.
Since that fact is proven then the whole
case that follows is at least a case
that makes sense.
What else could have happened to the body?
Well you say as others have said in
previous ages the Jews might have stolen it.
Or the Romans might have stolen it.
But just pause a moment.
Had the Jews or the Romans stolen the
body of Jesus they surely would have been
eager to show that they had possession of
it.
Because you see when once it grips the
disciples that Jesus is alive from the dead
they go out to preach and they charge
all those involved in the death of our
Lord Jesus Christ with the greatest sin against
God in condemning him and in crucifying him.
They indict the Romans and they indict the
Jews very especially.
They put it like this, the stone which
the builders rejected has become the head of
the corner.
God meant his son to be the most
important stone in the building of his work.
You disowned him, you threw him aside, you
cast him aside as an unwanted stone.
But God has raised him from the dead.
The stone which the builders rejected has become
the head of the corner.
God has turned your whole concept of things
upside down.
I say had the Romans or the Jews
had the body of Jesus they would have
shown it they would have brought it out
and said no no your charges don't stick
against us.
Here is the body we have it.
What happened of course was the exact opposite.
Some Romans and many Jews when they were
when they were given the opportunity of hearing
the full tidings of the good news repented
of their sin and turned for pardon and
for peace and became Christian men and women.
Just imagine it, proud arrogant Romans calling Jesus
Lord, the very title they gave to the
Emperor.
Persuaded that he was now none other than
the Son of God and the destined Savior
of men and as such they trusted him
as their own.
So they were to declare in the first
place tell what?
That the body of Jesus the Nazarene who
was crucified and buried is no longer in
the tomb, he's risen.
Tell what?
Tell that he planned to keep his promised
rendezvous with his disciples in Galilee.
I guess I see things very simply but
this simple fact really grips my soul whenever
I read it.
You see Jesus planned, we were we were
studying it, Mark's record of it just a
few Sundays ago in chapter 14.
Jesus said to them you will all fall
away for it is written I will strike
the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.
He told his disciples that before his death.
You're all going to be scattered abroad he
says like a crowd of frightened sheep.
The Prophet in the Old Testament foresaw that
and foretold that but then he said he
ended his statement but after I am raised
up I will go before you into Galilee.
I mean to rise from the dead and
I mean to go before you and I'm
telling you where I'm going to I'm going
to our beloved Galilee where I called you
in the first place and where we spent
most of our time together and I'm going
before you into Galilee so you know where
I'll be and you can meet me there.
Now the cross and the death and the
ignominy and the burial has not caused him
to change his plans one iota.
That's the glory of it.
He bore the anguish.
We saw the mangled form on Golgotha's brow.
We see the blood flowing.
We see the crown of thorns placed upon
his head.
We recognize the ignominy but listen my friend
his plans needed no changing no revision.
He says tell them I'm going to Galilee
just as I told them.
The cross was no tragedy in his estimation.
It was an event ordained of God accepted
as a necessity by him as the will
of God and now the plan continues and
the program goes on.
What a heartlift that was when those dear
women really had time to take it in
and the grace.
Tell who?
If that's the message they are to tell
then tell who?
Well tell his disciples and Peter.
Oh there are so many precious things hidden
there but the one thing as far as
the disciples are concerned is this you see
Jesus still cared for his disciples.
The last few we have of them is
of as a crowd of frightened sheep that
have scattered everywhere when he was crucified.
They didn't know what to do.
They were nonplussed as if he hadn't told
them anything at all about it.
They're frightened and bewildered and scattered.
You can imagine the kind of talk that
went on among them.
I don't know the Bible doesn't say this
and I allow my imagination perhaps too much
reign here but don't you think they would
have been a little bit angry with Peter?
And don't you think that they said to
themselves that they could kick themselves that Judas
had been with them so long and they
didn't recognize him to be the traitor he
was?
And don't you think they wanted to kick
themselves that they did not recognize some duty
that they could perform to their Lord and
did perform right up to the end?
They hadn't done it.
They did nothing that he asked them.
They did everything other than that but he
cared for them.
The most unworthy among them.
Now these three women have come out so
early in the morning with their spices to
pay their respects so they evidently show their
affection for him and their love of him
if not their faith in him.
But you know a way back there in
Jerusalem in an upper room there's a seven
or so of them huddled together and they
will not come out into the streets for
any money.
They're ashamed to look men in the face
and they're afraid.
What are they to say about one who
was crucified as a scoundrel and the off
-scouring of society?
What can they do?
What are they to say?
Whether they loved him anymore or not is
a question.
But he loved them.
That's what I want you to notice.
Whatever their thoughts of him he wanted them
to be blessed.
He loved them still.
And the capstone to that of course is
this.
That he tells these women to go very
especially to Simon Peter.
Tell my disciples all of them all of
them who sinned and forsook me and fled
but especially Peter.
Tell my disciples and Peter.
Why?
You see this proved to the women that
he was exactly the same person as he
was before he was risen from the dead.
They had known him in those days as
the great pardoner of sin.
He not only touched the physical leper he
gathered the moral lepers into his arms and
he said thy sins are forgiven thee.
Go in peace.
And here he is telling the very one
who denied him with oaths and curses.
Telling the women go and tell Peter I'm
alive.
He's thinking of Peter.
He loves Peter still.
You know some of us here this morning
may need precisely this word.
You've denied him.
You've run away from him.
You're not in the post of duty.
If you were where you ought to be
this morning you wouldn't be here.
You might be in Japan.
You might be in the Middle East.
You might be somewhere.
But you've betrayed your post and you've run
away.
But I want to tell you my friend
he loves you still who set his eternal
love upon you.
It does not wax and wane.
Who tell these things?
And I find this almost as thrilling as
what we've encountered already.
Who are to be the emissaries of such
glorious tidings to the disciples and to Peter?
None other than that small insignificant group of
women folk whose names had never set them
apart from others on any account whatsoever.
And whose credentials were simply that they loved
their Lord enough to get up early in
the morning with a few spices that they
had bought to go to the tomb and
desire to pay their respects to him as
a dead Savior.
They were the preachers.
They were the heralds.
They preached to the men that Jesus was
risen.
They announced the glad tidings that the crucified
was no longer in the tomb.
They became the heralds of the fact that
we have an undying, unconquerable Savior.
A handful of nobodies.
But you see with a message such as
this you don't need anybody with considerable excellence
to declare the message.
And this is why it is a principle
in the New Testament.
God chooses the foolish and the ignorant and
the nobodies to confound the wise.
How can he do that?
Because the message is so great.
He can do with fools in his name
because the message is so wonderful.
Were it not for that many of us
would never have been called.
There are men and women who are too
wise to preach the gospel.
They would take the glory to themselves.
But our Lord, because he's the risen, reigning
monarch of all the ages, can afford to
take nobodies out of their places and say,
go and tell.
He can do that because of the glory
of the message.
And despite the weakness and the frailty of
the messenger, he does his work nevertheless.
And he saves and sanctifies men and sends
them out in his name.
Hallelujah.
He is risen indeed.
And has appeared to Simon, as one of
the Gospels tell us later on.
Now I conclude.
This is the exciting fact that lies at
the base of the Christian faith.
Jesus Christ is not simply a figure in
history, much less a character in mythology.
He's no mere subject written about in a
book, nor even an ideal for living.
Oh, he's much, much more than that.
He is the ongoing, ever-living Lord of
life and of death.
He died, really died.
He rose, really rose, and he lives on
in the power of his endless life to
save those who trust in him.
Now you see, one consequence of that is
this.
You can't play fast and loose with a
man, with a person like this.
He's too great to be trifled with.
And if having heard that this is so,
and it is so, you dismiss him as
if he were but an ordinary person, I
say to you in all sincerity and with
all honestness of heart, honesty of heart, you'll
have to answer for it.
The stone which the builders rejected has become
the head of the corner.
So the Jews are rejected who rejected him.
And the Romans are rejected who rejected him.
And you and I will be rejected if
we reject him.
And my final word, and it may sound
strange to you at first hearing, dare I
put it in these terms, a word of
advice in the light of this passage.
You and I do well to get to
know his angels a little bit better.
Now this is not a familiar theme, but
I want you to know this, that our
Lord thinks very highly of his angels, and
he entrusts some very important matters to their
care.
Now lest you think I've gone off my
theme, hang on one minute.
One day he's coming back again with his
angel train.
And he has told us in his word
that he will command the angels to gather
in bundles the tares, the wasted lives of
men that have come to naught despite the
fact that they've heard about him.
And he has already commissioned his angels that
on that day they should gather the tares
to be cast into eternal fires, and to
gather the wheat into his barn.
May the Easter fact meet with a corresponding
Easter faith in your heart and mine.
And when at last we shall hear the
sound of the archangel and the trump of
God, we shall be glad that having known
that he was crucified for our sins and
risen for our justification, we not only believed
but we became the heralds of glad tidings
to old and young, near and far.
And we got involved not only in person,
but as far as our positions are concerned,
and to us to live was Christ.
So that to die is gain.
Let us pray.
Father in heaven, we bow before you before
the great mystery of this momentous event that
we remember today.
Forgive us for our folly in unbelieving faith
wilts in this world if left to itself.
And in many of our lives it has
become like a wilted flower.
Oh Lord, grant us to see the firm
foundation upon which you ask us to repose
our faith in Christ.
And having so done to discover for ourselves
that he is indeed the contemporary one who
is always ahead of the edge and of
the time, with whom we shall never catch
up until he takes us up to be
with himself.
Hear our prayers and receive those among us
who come to you with penitence and come
perhaps to acknowledge Jesus as our Lord and
Savior for the first time.
Oh Lord, receive us this morning and seal
the work of your grace in each of
our hearts, that we may be worthy of
the privilege with which we are entrusted in
Christ our Lord.
Amen.