Christ is risen! Risen indeed!

I should have warned you last week when I was praising what a marvelous thing Jesus’ resurrection is that we might not feel the joy and reality of Christ’s resurrection this week like we did last Sunday. It’s true, isn’t it? Last Sunday’s high didn’t last the whole week, did it? And as for today, the church’s isn’t packed like last week. That sense of enthusiasm isn’t as apparent. We’re not as certain in our faith. Why not?

Maybe Christ hasn’t risen after all. After all, things seem pretty much the same. Nothing new. This Sunday is supposed to be devoted to considering the fruits of the resurrection. For historically, the second Sunday of Easter was a day during which newly baptized members would be admitted into the fellowship as full members.^[1]

Where are the fruits? Where are the fruits in our lives? Why don’t we feel them? Why don’t we feel the fruits of the resurrection on a daily basis in our lives? Is it possible that Jesus really has not risen?

In trying to sort out this set of problems, in trying to come to terms without doubts or at least our lack of enthusiasm about our faith, the book of Revelation is a good place to start. Revelation was written to Christians who felt some anxiety about their faith. We may not be being persecuted like these early Christians were, but we are experiencing some of the same feelings that these first Christians did concerning God’s absence. And so the book of Revelation’s word of hope to them is as word of hope to us.

Martin Luther said the same thing so well in 1530 when he wrote a kind of introduction to the book of Revelation. He wrote:

Some of the know-it-alls are even doing that very thing. They see heresy and dissension and shortcomings of many kinds; they see that there are many false, many loose-living Christians...

They ought to read this book [Revelation] and learn to look upon Christendom with other eyes than those of [their] reason... A Christian is even hidden from himself;he does not see his holiness and virtue, but sees in himself nothing but unholiness and vice...

In a word, our holiness is in heaven where Christ is, and not in the world before men’s eyes... If only the word of the gospel remains pure among us, and we love and cherish it, we shall not doubt that Christ is with us, even when things are at their worst. As we shall see in this book [in Revelation], that through and beyond all... evil... Christ is nonetheless with his saints, and wins the final victory.^[2]

Let me run those works of Luther by you again: Let evil, sloth, lack of enthusiasm, and doubts do what they can. Christ has won the final victory! Christ has conquered them all.

I spent so long on this quote, telling you what Luther said about the book of Revelation, because it’s a wonderful exposition of our second lesson today. Besides, Luther has spoken to us here about the problems we may be having concerning a lack of confidence or a lack of excitement that we may feel in our faith.

Luther spoke of the fact that our holiness is in heaven where Christ is. He added that Christ has won the victory over all our doubts, over all the sin and evil in the world, over all the things that undermine Christianity’s credibility in the world, like our own and the Church’s hypocrisy. Christ has triumphed over all that.

Our second lesson makes this point. And then after the lesson ends, the author of Revelation reports a preparatory vision he had (vv.9-20). And in that vision, on the Lord’s day, he is whisked in his dream into heaven. And he sees “one like a Son of Man, clothed with a long robe... his head and his hair white and snow, with eyes like a flame of fire... (vv.13-14) This is the risen and exalted Christ!     

That it is Christ we encounter becomes even clearer in the dream. This one like the Son of Man is so overwhelming that the writer of Revelation reportedly faints away, as though dead. But the Lord teaches him, comforts him, and says (echoing the last verse of our lesson): Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last, and the Living One; I was dead and see, I am alive forever and ever... (vv.17-18) No doubt about it. It was the exalted heavenly Christ that we and the writer of Revelation encounter.

Next Christ uttered the punch line: ... I have the keys of death and of hades. (v.19) Christ has died and now will live forever. We see that in our lesson where the Lord God is said to be the one who is and who was and who is to come... (v.8) Christ lives forever, for he has conquered death and hell. This is the message of our second lesson. It says that he has freed us by his blood (v.5). That’s what Martin Luther says, we’ve noticed.

This is the antidote that Revelation and Luther’s version of it offer for our doubts, our apathy, our lack of enthusiasm and commitment to our faith. The formula is a very simple one here: You need encounters with the risen Lord; you need to experience the risen and victorious Christ in order to be assured of his resurrection and in order to be nurtured in a living faith. When we have Christ and his conquest in our hearts, then we can truly persevere and revel in faith — then Christianity truly comes alive for us. Christ is victorious. And he is present with us here. He is present in our fellowship. He is present in the word proclaimed, present in the liturgy, and most clearly present in the bread and wine we eat in the Lord’s Supper. Behold the risen Christ, the victor over sin and death, in our presence.

Of course if all that’s true, then we’ve got a problem, don’t we? The problem is that we, Luther, and the writer of our second lesson all proclaim that Christ has conquered, that he is victorious, that he holds the keys of death and hell. Really? Has Christ really conquered? If so, what has He conquered? Why is there still so much apathy, hypocrisy, and doubt in the church? Why are so many turned off by Christianity or live in regions where the gospel has never been preached? Why is there so much evil, violence, poverty, and oppression in our world? How can anybody in their right mind say that Christ has conquered — that he holds the keys to death and hell? Now that is a problem. It is the problem of Christianity’s credibility, is it not? What do you think?

I will tell you how I have sorted this one out for myself. The book of Revelation has helped me think it through. In Revelation you have these scenes, like in today’s second lesson or in chapter 12, where the risen Christ is proclaimed or shown to be victorious over sin and evil. But then in the same book you have many examples like in chapter 20, in chapters 13 and 9, and also in verse 9 of the chapter we consider today where it seems that sin and evil still have their way in the world. Somehow John (the man to whom tradition ascribes the authorship of Revelation) and our Lord felt that the people to whom Revelation was addressed would be comforted in their suffering and doubts by glimpses of Christ’s heavenly glory and by reminders that He has vanquished evil and death. Our faith and enthusiasm for our faith can be invigorated by such glimpses and assurances that in Christ, we Christians are on the winning team. And that seems to be the point of the book of Revelation — to proclaim that Christ has conquered. He sits in heaven enthroned. But the war is not over yet on earth. The war isn’t over yet.

This image of a victor, even though the war isn’t yet over, opens an avenue for understanding the book of Revelation and the reality of our faith. Sometimes in a war, the victory is assured, because one side has won the major and decisive battle. But then there’s still mop-up operations or follow-up battles to be fought. We might consider the American Civil War. It is like the North’s position after that Battle of Gettysburg. The South had been defeated at Gettysburg, the North had effectively won the war by stopping Southern incursions in the North, but there were a lot of battles still to be fought.

Think of the position of the allies after D-Day’s success in World War II. Talk to a World War II vet of the European Theatre. Like my Dad, they will tell you that it was not a cup of tea after D-Day. The fighting was hard. It was for real. And all of these veterans lost buddies. No, the war wasn’t over after D-Day.

And yet historians who study the war tell us that after the success of the invasion, once the Allies had established themselves on the mainland, then Germany had no chance. The war was won or lost on D-Day. The allies were victors. But the war wasn’t over. There were still some hard battles to be fought. Blood, sweat, and tears would need to be shed. Lives would be lost. But the final outcome was certain.

My friends, this is the sense in which Jesus is victorious, the sense in which his resurrection has conquered sin, death, and evil. That is the sense in which the heavenly reality of Christ’s exaltation like our lesson proclaims speaks to us in our earthy struggles with evil, with doubts, with apathy, and with death. Just like the Allies’ eastward march toward the German border was a real struggle, so we are involved in a real struggle with evil and with doubts. It’s that struggle that often makes us uncertain and apathetic in our faith. It’s a real struggle. And sometimes, like those American soldiers in the war, we will succumb.

In a very real sense, though, the die is cast. Christ has conquered. Famed theologian Karl Barth sees this conquest as “the pronouncedly character of his [Christ’s] relationship to the orders of life and value current in the world around Him.”^[3] Elaborating on this point he wrote:

... as long as there is history at all [the orders of life and value] enjoy a transitory validity in the history of every human place... This is how he himself deals with them, not in principle, not in the execution of a program, but for this reason in a way which is all the more revolutionary, as the one who breaks all bonds asunder, in new historical developments and situations each of which is for those who can see and hear — only a sign, but an unmistakable sign of his freedom and kingdom and overruling history.^[4]

Christ rules over all history. Its values and orders cannot outlast him. There is great comfort in this. Nothing, nothing, nothing but Christ can last forever. The uncertainties, the trials, the moments of despair, they will not last. The business upheavals, the family crises, hassles on the job, international crises, they will not last. Knowing that all these trials will pass makes them a little easier to cope with them. That’s the certainty we Christians have. In our struggles with death, evil, uncertainty, and apathy — in all our struggles —  we have the assurance that Christ will conquer. We are reassured that the war may not be over yet, but the major battle has been won.

This is the power of the resurrection. It stems from the knowledge and the certainty that on that first Easter, Christ has won the major battle. There is still a war to be fought. We still have to contend with evil. But we cannot lose! How can we be so downhearted about our faith? How can we fail to be enthusiastic about our faith the way we were last Sunday? Why we must be crazy (going against the ways of the world)? In fact,  we are on the side of the victor! Facing evil, doubt, and pain, we rebel against them. Nothing, nothing, nothing, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. He is victorious!