"THE MAJESTY OF THE LORD"
Second Sunday of Easter
April 8, 2018
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
Let them praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted; His majesty is above earth and heaven.
Psalm 148:13 (ESV)
It's always interesting (and entertaining to me) to go to stores right after a holiday. You see a lot of holiday items on sale and a lot of other holiday items in various stages of being packed away (or perhaps thrown away) to make room for the merchandise that will be promoted for the next holiday. Right after Easter, for example, you can see Easter lilies with withering blooms priced at about a third of what they cost a week earlier; you can see empty shelves in the greeting card section waiting for the Mothers' Day cards; and (my favorite) you can see a lot of Easter candy at bargain prices. It's amusing, to be sure, but at the same time I feel sad about all of this--perhaps even more sad than I do when I observe the same thing at Christmastime. As irritated as I get over people and businesses shortchanging the twelve days of Christmas, it strikes me as being even worse at Eastertime. After all, the Easter season is fifty days long--"a week of weeks"--but for the majority of people it's only one spring day.
Maybe it's just an occupational hazard for me, but something else that makes me feel sad as I see all of this is the thought that this is a holiday celebrating a crucified Lord who didn't just rise for a one-day encore; He rose for good and He still lives today. His grave is still empty, and over the past two thousand years His followers, despite their sins and shortcomings, have demonstrated the resurrection power of their Lord. How else can you explain the fact that a handful of frightened and timid disciples somehow came up with the courage to proclaim His Gospel in the face of intimidation and persecution as the government and the religious establishment joined forces, vowing to eradicate Christianity from the face of the earth? And yet, two thousand years later this Jesus who was crucified is still worshiped and the promises that He made are still finding fulfillment. Why? According to the passage before us this morning, it's because of the majesty of the Lord as it is revealed in the exaltation of His name and the praise of His people.
The exaltation of the Lord's name is seen in His love--particularly the love that He has shown toward lost sinners like us. Nowhere is the love of God more evident than in the redemption of sinners that He accomplished in the life and ministry of His Son. Love is intangible, to be sure, but it can be seen in action. What a person will do for another is the outward evidence of that person's love for the other. When we consider the love of God for us sinners, we need look no farther than the blood-stained cross of our Savior, for there we see God's love for us--love that would stop at nothing, gaining for us the forgiveness of our sins and the assurance that God accepts us as His dear children in spite of our sin. This redeeming love of God in Christ trivializes everything else that we call love, because there is no love that is deeper than this.
The majesty of His name is evident also in His power. And where do we see His power? I suppose that we could cite such fearsome things as thunderstorms, floods, and earthquakes or we could point to the beauty and majesty of such things as mountains, oceans, and waterfalls. But if we really want to behold the awesome power of our God, the place to look is in a quiet garden, in a tomb carved out of the rock on a hillside. What do we find in that tomb? --Nothing! And that's the whole point. The power of God is the power that makes the dead alive again. The resurrection of the Son of God--the One who suffered and died to accomplish our salvation--is our receipt, if you will--our proof that we truly are forgiven--accepted--saved. It is our proof also that we who are bound to die because we are sinners will nevertheless rise and live again forever in the power of Jesus' resurrection. What's more, our loved ones who have died in the faith--who we have tearfully laid to rest in the bosom of the earth--will live and laugh with us again in the Lord's presence forever. That's power--the kind of power that exalts the name of the Lord.
The majesty of the Lord, which is evident in the mighty acts through which He has revealed His love and power, ought to be seen also in the praise of His people. He who has done so many great and wonderful things for sinners at such great cost to Himself is certainly worthy of a response of gratitude from those for whom He did these things. The people of God in Jesus Christ are to praise their Savior with their words--words of praise spoken and sung in worship and words of proclamation as they share with others the riches of His grace, revealed in the Gospel. The Lord Himself has commanded and commissioned us to proclaim this Gospel as He has entrusted it to us in the means of grace--His Word and Sacraments. In addition to His command, He has also promised that wherever these means are in use, His Spirit is present and working, creating faith in the hearts of those who receive them and causing that faith to grow.
But it's not just with our words that we praise the One who has redeemed us with His own blood. The words of grace that we speak in His name will be either confirmed or denied by the way we live. It is particularly important that we don't negate His love for sinners by our own less-than-loving attitudes. If we tell people all about the love of Jesus while we treat them with contempt, will anybody bother to listen to what we say? If we extol the wonders of forgiveness while we ourselves hold and nurse grudges, will anybody even hear what we are saying? If we staunchly defend our doctrine because it is based on the Word of God while we habitually avoid Bible Study, will anybody be impressed with our arguments? If we sing the glories of Christian fellowship while we malicious gossip about our brothers and sisters in the faith, will anybody be able to look at us with a straight face or take seriously what we say? It is true that we can't do the Gospel; it has already been done--perfectly--by our Lord and Savior. But we certainly can--and unfortunately we frequently do--obscure that Gospel by living in such a way that more attention is drawn to the sinful things that we do than to the perfect things that Christ has done for us and for all sinners.
Easter is not just one day on a calendar of 365 days of varying significance. It's not just a weekend in which the Church observes its Savior's death and resurrection while the rest of the world dyes eggs and buys new clothes and candy. It's not even a season of fifty days in which we recount the numerous post-resurrection appearances of Jesus through which He proved to His disciples that He really was risen from the dead and assured them of His continuing presence with them and care for them. No, Easter is more than all of this--infinitely more. It is the revelation of God's majesty through a one-time historical event: the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead twenty centuries ago--an event that is still felt today and will continue to be felt until He returns at the end of time as Judge and King. For those of us who really believe that He who lived, suffered, and died for us is alive, Easter is forever because, by the power of His Holy Spirit--the Spirit we received in Baptism--we are Easter people, who are able, by His grace, to face every big and little trial with confidence and hope, knowing that "[we] can do all things through Him who strengthens" us (Philippians 4:13).
Amen.
May the God of peace, who brought again from the dead that great Shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus, by the blood of the everlasting covenant equip you thoroughly for the doing of His will. May He work in you everything which is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.