Ain't No Grave Gonna Hold This Body Down
Text: Mark 16:1-8
Grace and Peace to you from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Standing over a grave is
like standing over a black hole. It is
dark. The deep soil brings coolness to
the air which chills your feet. The depth
of the grave brings a biting to your bones as the grave seems to draw all hope,
joy, and optimism from you into itself.
The dark cruel grave seems
to chuckle in victory as the body of a loved one is lowered into its jaws.
There the body will stay,
held in the grasp of the grave’s claws.
O grave, it appears that you
have victory! O grave it appears that
you have had the final word with many of our loved one.
O grave, it also appears
that you had victory on Good Friday, for you devoured up Jesus. “You took His lifeless body into your
jaws. You captured God in the
flesh. You brought the Creator so low
that you stopped His breath, broke His heart, cut Him off from the light and
the land of the living. You exacted a
terrible price, the price of all the sins of all men, of the Law’s full
stricture, upon the sinless and perfect Son of God, [Jesus Christ].”[1]
Is this your victory
though? Is this all you could do to the
Christ? If this is your power and if
this is your victory, why is the tomb empty?
Why is the Christ not found among the dead? Why did Jesus rise to life?
Hear us laugh at you o
grave, for the angel of the Lord rolled away the stone to show us and the
entire world that you are not as powerful as you might think. The stone was rolled away to show us that
your threats of death are really a facade, for Christ escaped your jaws. Did you hear that grave, you could not keep the
Christ contained.
On Friday night it seemed
that you were the one that was alive as you consumed the lifeless Son of God
into your deep cavern. Today though we
hear that the Christ has risen, which leads us to conclude that you are the one
that is lifeless and dead, for Christ is alive and well, seated at the right
hand of the Father.
“Where is your victory, O
grave? Show [us]. Where is your sting? What has happened to your power? Have you so soon forgotten how you made us
cower? Don’t you claim to be the [common
denominator of all of mankind] . . . Aren’t you the ruler of the battlefield
and cancer ward, the constant threat against young mothers [with child]? . . .
[Don’t you lean inward on us] every time we fall asleep, [quietly whispering to
us] that you are the master and will take us when you [well please]? . . .
Don’t you claim that you make our bodies fail, grow weak and old and contract
diseases, that you make this living death a pure misery of pain, dying, and
loneliness, while you strive at all times to take away our dignity?”[2]
O grave, you may claim all
of this, but we shake our heads at you in disgust. We chuckle with the laugh of victory at your
overinflated self-assessments. We taunt
you not once, but we taunt you a second time, for Christ our Lord and God has
risen out of your so-called power. Do
you not see o grave, He is not in your lair of death. He is not with you, but He is with us, His
church—ALIVE.
“And what of our deaths and
caskets,” you may ask?
O grave, do you not know
that by Jesus’ three-day rest in the tomb that He made the burial places holy
of all who believe in Him? O grave, do
you not know that those who are baptized into Jesus were baptized with Him in
death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of
the Father, we too might walk in newness of life? O grave, you’ve got nothing
on us, because we have been united to Jesus with Him in death and we shall
certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.
O grave you will not get
us. You will not keep us in your
clinching jaws. It is true that at the
end of our lives we are put six-feet under, but there in your midst, o grave,
we will sleep with peace, for our places of burial are made holy by Jesus. We will sleep in your midst in peace until we
are awakened to glory. Behold, o grave,
we tell you a mystery, we shall all sleep when we are put six-feet under, but
we shall all be changed. In a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet we will burst forth from your
midst with resurrected bodies, and we will see our Lord face to face.
“And what of our sin,” you
may ask?
It is true that our sin puts
us in a casket. Our sin unites us with
you o grave; however, have you been so quick to forget about Good Friday? The Gospel puts us in Jesus’ grave and raises
us anew daily, for Christ bled and died for us, accomplishing forgiveness,
life, and salvation.
O grave, I ask again, where
is your victory? Where is your
bite? Where are the fangs of your
jaw? You have no answer o grave, for they
are all gone, they are worthless, and they are nothing, for Jesus died and
Jesus lives. In fact, since Jesus lives
and you are nothing, this conversation need not continue.
Baptized Saints, this Easter
Morning, just in case the grave still attempts to speak its lies to you, hear
now:
Jesus Christ was crucified and was raised from the grave for
you. This is your present reality. Do
not be afraid of the grave today.
Jesus Christ was crucified and was raised from the grave
for you. This means that your sins have
been truly paid for, that God’s wrath was appeased, that death is powerless,
and that the devil is a defeated foe.
Jesus Christ was crucified and was raised from the grave
for you. This means that you have a
living Savior and a victorious Savior; a living advocate.
Jesus Christ was crucified and was raised from the grave
for you. This means that your Christ
trampled over death by death. No scheme of man and no power of evil could hold
Him down.
Baptized Saints, “there is
nothing in [the entire] world that you can be more sure of, than Jesus
crucified for you, risen for you. [As
they say,] “Ain’t no grave gonna hold this body down.”[3]
Baptized Saints, “Jesus
lives, and by His words and Spirit He puts His death and His life into
you. You are baptized. ‘Your life is hid with Christ in God.’”[4]
You are buried deeply in the
wounds of Jesus; the Gospel has put you into Jesus’ grave, a grave that could
not hold the Messiah down, but a grave that leads to the resurrection.
The Lord is risen!
The grave is empty!
Because He lives, you live
as well![5]
The peace of God, which
passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Comments