The King Raised
Easter Sunday, 20 April 2014.
Rev. Bruce Skelton, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Highlands Ranch, Colorado ☩ www.hclchr.org
P: Christ is risen! C: He is risen indeed. Alleluia.
On the Sixth Day of Creation, God made for Himself a king. From the dust of the ground He brought forth His king and placed him in a garden made just for him and for his queen whom God would create later that day. This king wasn’t just someone for an all-powerful God to boss around like a slave or control like a robot; no, he was intended to be God’s representative on earth. This king was not created to lollygag around the garden all day; no, God made him with feet and hands, for he had to get around and do the work God had in mind for him to do. Chiefly, he was to have dominion over or be a good steward of God’s magnificent creation.
But Adam blew it. He blew it big time. A preacher from hell, an angel disguised as a serpent, came into the garden. He was beautiful on the outside, but a liar and a murderer in his heart and Adam let him in. And he went to Eve spewing his poisonous lies about God. Adam should have taken those feet God gave him and planted them right between his wife and the serpent and said, “Eve, don’t listen to him, he’s a liar.” But the snake was a very convincing, smooth-talking and slick, though he spoke with a forked tongue. No doubt we would have been mesmerized by him too, and if the truth be told we often still are.
At any rate, God had told Adam of the tree in the mist of the garden, “the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.” yet, instead of standing up to the serpent and wringing his lying neck, he was caught flat-footed and did nothing. He let Eve eat the forbidden fruit and then, when he saw that nothing visibly happened to her, he ate too, and they both died. No, they did not a physical death right away, but in their disobedience to God they did die spiritually. In their sin and rebellion against God they died right then and there, just as all their children have been been sinning and dying ever since.
Almost all kings leave some kind of legacy, something they are remembered for. King David was the great warrior king, who purchased the land for construction of God’s temple. Solomon is remembered for his wisdom and for building the temple. But King Adam built nothing. His legacy was and is only death. His work brought tombs and graves into the world, funeral homes and obituaries, hospises and hosptials, sickness and disease, and fear, a lot of fear. Before the fall, Adam and Eve revered God with a holy fear. Now they were not only scared of Him, but everything else. Because of the sin of Adam and Eve, the world would now be filled with fear.
Little boys would be afraid of the dark. Teenage girls would live in fear of not being thin or pretty enough. Women would fear the judgment of other women more than the judgment of God. Men would fear conflict in a world where they need to have courage and a willingness to oppose evil, as Reverend Charles F. Aked wrote:
“for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing.”
And then there’s man’s conscience. There’s a saying that says that death and conscience make cowards of us all. And so man even feared telling the truth and being honest about himself. Instead he re-labels his sins. “I’m not stingy or greedy. I’m good with money.” or “It isn’t stealing if the other guy’s got more than he needs.” or “Fill in the blank sin isn’t sin if enough people agree that it is not.” Yes indeed, death and conscience now make cowards of us all.
So God drove His king out of the garden and placed some security guard angels at the door. Angels that stood at attention with flaming swords in their hands, to keep the man and his wife from the tree of life in the garden. The garden was no longer their home. Adam made mankind’s bed and it was a grave, and he would have to lie in it too.
But strangly, God still loved Adam, the king that blew it and He promised one day to send another king. A Seed of the woman. A royal Seed who would be His only-begotten Son, God in the flesh, God with feet and hands. And His feet and hands would not be the feet and hands of a coward, but of a champion, who would restore all that King Adam had ruined. He would crush the head of that false preacher who deceived Adam and filled the world with fear. But this King, who is none other than our our Lord, Jesus Christ, was not caught by the enemy flat-footed. He used His holy feet to be just where He needed to be to help fallen sinners like us. He used his hands to heal the sick, the blind, deaf, and the lame. His hands fed the hungry and his feet walked right into a funeral procession to raise a widow’s son, and to a synagogue ruler’s house to raise his little daughter, and to a graveyard to raise his friend Lazarus.
And not only did Jesus use his hands and feet, but He used his mouth as well. Oh, how he used his mouth. Not only did he instruct the ignorant, but he preached the truth without fear, the truth about a gracious and loving God and his kingdom. A Kingdom that we could never earn or merit, but that God would give to us soley by grace. A Kingdom that He would bestow freely to everyone who would believe in Him.
This King was just the right king. And His feet were just the right feet and his hands were just the right hands that were needed to save us. To open up the entrance to the garden paradise that Adam closed up, this king would have to have nails driven through his hands and feet. He would have to have the courage to bleed, suffer, and die, for rebels like Adam and Eve and us.
Was he tempted like Adam? You better believe he was. That preacher from hell was there to let him know that he could take the easy road.
“Just bend the knee to me Jesus, just kneel down to me and it will all be yours, I’ll give it to you without the cross. Why take the hard road Jesus, why do it God’s way, when my way is so much easier, and let the world be damned.”
But, thanks be to God, Jesus didn’t blow it. His royal feet willingly staggered to the cross as his royal hands carried it with our sins all the way up Calvary. And then, when he died, those royal hands and feet were wrapped in a shroud and he was placed in a borrowed tomb.
“But,” we might ask, “what good is a dead king?” “What good are the feet and hands of a king if they can’t move?” “How can a dead king give out gifts, give out a share in his kingdom, give glory and honor to his subjects?” “How can a dead king share his royal feast of feasts?”
“What good is a Crucified King, if that king is not raised to show His wounds and bring peace to our fearful hearts and guilty consciences?” The answer is, “He would be no good at all.” Which is why God raised Jesus Christ from the dead to be our Ever-living, Everlasting Lord.
The Crucified King was raised from the dead so that we might live and reign with Him forever. And so that we might see that we are no longer in our sins. And so that we might fear no more, because with His resurrection, he shows us that he has defeated death and that it no longer has any power over us. Now, that false preacher Satan’s head is crushed and the teeth in his accusing are mouth kicked in.
Our King was raised on this holy day and what wonderful things our ears hear in the Gospel. We see the sad and scared Marys, a picture of God’s sad and scared church, filled with joy and gladness at the holy angel’s preaching. We see the stone rolled back and in the empty tomb, catching a glimpse of our own future unoccupied graves.
And do you remember how those angels stood and guarded the entrance to the garden of paradise? How different things are on this morning. We see the angel in white. He has no sword. He is not imposing. He has no scowl on his face. He’s not even standing on his feet. He is simply sitting in a garden graveyard and preaches a short but magnificent sermon. “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, as He said.” No need for fear in this fear-filled world, says the preacher from heaven. The King on the cross has dealt with and conquered all that could ever make you afraid.
See how Mary Magdalene and the other Mary take hold of those blessed feet of Jesus, the Second Adam, as He comes to them and preaches the same sermon. “Don’t be afraid.” They grasp and worship at the feet of their Savior and King who took the bed that Adam had made for man, laid in it for three days, and then arose emptying it of its dread and power.
How great was that sixth day when God made Himself a king with feet and hands. But how much greater is what happened on this day, the eighth day, the first day of a new creation, when God placed His King back on His pierced feet, so that he could stetch out his pierced hand and say, “Welcome, my beloved, come to me all you who are heavy laiden and I will give you rest.” And what can we do, but can we do but rejoice and say. “Christ is Risen!”
C: He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
P: Amen.