Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! (April 4, 2010)
By Rev. Bert Thompson

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Sadly, not everyone joins us in this celebration. There are people in our world who doubt the resurrection. When someone doubts the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the best thing to do is to ask them this question: “Where’s the Body?”

What are the women looking for that first Easter? The Body of Jesus. What is Peter looking for that first Easter? The Body.

Bodies don’t just disappear. Multiple witnesses, from the professional execution team of Roman soldiers who know death when they see it, to the faithful disciples who wrap His limp and dead body, all know Jesus is dead. The body is wrapped for burial and placed in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. A detail of Roman soldiers is commanded to guard the tomb. The soldiers are vigilant. Dereliction of duty means death. But the body is gone.

If only the enemies of Jesus could produce a body, the entire Christian faith would fall, but they cannot, because Jesus rose from the dead. This is the greatest event in the history of the world. But this is more that the resurrection of one man, more than one death undone. With the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, death itself is being unravelled.

God’s Word calls death the last enemy to be defeated. Christ is the first fruit and at the resurrection of all the dead, we will follow Christ to our own resurrection. We confess in the Apostles’ Creed that we believe in “the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”

Because Jesus’ body left His tomb, our bodies will leave our burial places. Jesus’ tomb is empty, and because His tomb is empty, someday our tombs will be empty, also. We believe in the resurrection of our bodies. We believe in empty graves.

Many false religions downplay the body. Ancient Greeks looked forward to getting rid of the body because they thought the body was bad and only the soul was good. Eastern religions focus on living in a spiritual realm and distancing oneself from the body. Others promote ecstatic spiritual experiences to focus attention away from the physical. Christians even get caught up in this disregard for the body. Some falsely say that we become angels when we die. Actually, when we die, the angels carry our souls to heaven. There, our souls wait. Our souls wait for the Last Day: the resurrection of our bodies.

You see, God puts great emphasis on the body. God hand-made the bodies of Adam and Eve in the Garden. No other part of God’s creation received such treatment. God made them in His image, sinless and pure. But, Adam and Eve lost that pure image when they turned their backs on God. They chose to sin against God. They made the world in their own image, the image of sin.

But God did not leave this world in sin. Christ, the Son of the Almighty God, came down to earth to be conceived as one of us in the womb of a woman. In the womb of the virgin Mary, God put on our flesh and became man. In so doing, God came to save both our souls and our bodies from the deadly effects of sin. He was tempted in every way that we are, yet He never sinned. Then, Jesus was punished for everything that we do wrong.

Now, this Messiah, this Christ of God born of the virgin Mary, will always have our skin and bones from now to eternity.  His physical skin and bones rose from the dead on Easter morning to restore us, renew us and give us His everlasting life.

Both your soul and your body are important to the God Who created you. God’s Word says that the souls of those in heaven wait in eager anticipation for the Last Day, when they can once again be clothed with their own resurrected bodies, real bodies that will be finally be set free from all the effects of sin.

The prophet Job confessed: “I know that my Redeemer lives and that in the end, He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God; I will see Him with my own eyes and not another!” Job has been dead 3,000 years, but his body will rise at the last day and he will see his Redeemer face to face with his own eyes.

Christ came to redeem us, soul and body, because both have been infected with deadly sin. Death is not to be thought of as an escape from the body, but as a doorway to the resurrection of our redeemed and forgiven body. As certain as the resurrection of Jesus is, so certain is your resurrection. The resurrection of your body is even more certain than death and taxes.

But you do not have to wait until heaven to receive the blessings of Christ’s resurrection. Through your Baptism, you are already united with Christ Jesus. Your body has been made into a temple of God the Holy Spirit. He lives in your physical body. Daily, through God-given sorrow and repentance, the Holy Spirit drowns your sin-desiring Old Nature and daily, a New Nature is raised in you to love Christ and serve your neighbor.

“Do you not know,” Scripture says, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him through Baptism into 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.”

Daily, a resurrection occurs in us, as the Old Self is buried in the tomb of Christ and daily a New Self is resurrected in our soul and body to glorify Christ in purity and holiness.

Therefore, we do not just ponder spiritual things in our soul, but we get up and move our physical body to be where the physical Body of Christ is: here in His Father’s house. We sit our bodies in the pew to be here - where Christ gives His gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation. It’s here, in God’s house, where God serves us with the washing of Holy Baptism, with His words of Absolution and with the Body and Blood of His dear Son.

Where is the Body? The tomb is empty; Christ is risen. The old grave-clothes, the old coverings of death are left behind in the tomb and Christ is alive, never to die again.

So, where is the Body of Christ? The Body of Christ is exactly where He says it will be: right here, on the Altar of our God, for us Christians to eat and to drink. Jesus Christ calls us here to His Father’s house so that our physical bodies can receive His physical body, the same Body that died and rose again for us. Through the bread and the wine, His pure and sinless Body and Blood is placed into our bodies, and all the sins committed in and by our body are forgiven. Thank God!

This is Easter. We celebrate the resurrection of the Body of Jesus Christ. It’s the same Body, that was born of the virgin Mary, but now it is glorified. It’s not a ghost. It’s not a vision. It’s a real body. To prove it, Jesus asks for something to eat and eats it in their presence. Jesus tells Thomas, “Come here! Put your hand right into this spear scar in My side.”

Where’s the Body? The Body of Christ has risen. And because Christ rose from His grave, our bodies will rise from our graves when He comes again at the Last Day. And so, we will be with the Lord forever. Comfort one another with these words.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!