Amen, Amen, This Is Most Certainly True
Easter Sunday| Mark 16:1-8| Pastor James Preus| April 5, 2026
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia! Amen.
Amen. Throughout the season of Lent, we have been going over the Lord’s Prayer and the Lord’s Passion during the midweek services, including Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, each service learning about a petition of the Lord’s Prayer through Christ’s passion. For the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, the Catechism states:
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
What does this mean? This means that I should be certain that these petitions are pleasing to our Father in heaven, and are heard by Him; for He Himself has commanded us to pray in this way and has promised to hear us. Amen, amen means “yes, yes, it shall be so.”
Yes, yes, it shall be so. That is what Amen means.
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Amen. That is, this is most certainly true! In Genesis 15, God told Abraham that his offspring would be as plentiful as the stars in heaven. And Abraham believed the Lord, and the Lord counted it to him as righteousness. The word Abraham used for believe in Hebrew is amen. It means that Abraham believed what the Lord said to be trustworthy and true. This is why we say, “amen,” at the end of a prayer. We are saying that we believe that God will give us what we ask for, because the one requirement for prayer is that you believe it! As St. James says, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord” (James 1:6-7) Or as our Lord Jesus more positively states, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:24)
We also say, “amen,” at the end of the Creed. We believe that what we confess is true, that we can hang our hat on it, that we can depend on its truth! And so, it is appropriate that we consider the word amen as we meditate on the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Christian religion hinges on the historical truth of Jesus’ resurrection! If Jesus is not raised, then our faith should be abandoned (1 Corinthians 15:14). If Jesus did not rise from the dead, we should not be Christians. The politically correct world speaks of faith as deeply held religious convictions. Everyone has their own deeply held religious convictions. And it doesn’t matter whether these religious convictions are true or not, because they are deeply held. And no one’s deeply held convictions are better than anyone else’s deeply held convictions. But that is not how Christians think. If my deeply held religious convictions are not true, then I should stop holding on to them! But if they are true, then I should hold on to them so tightly, that not even the threat of death can take them away from me.
Christ Jesus did indeed rise from the dead. Amen. Not only St. Mark, but Mathew, Luke, John, and St. Paul each write accounts of His resurrection, with corroborating details and witnesses. Those who call the Gospels unhistorical myths don’t simply hold differing deeply held convictions. They are lying. They call the Gospels myths, because the Gospels claim remarkable things. But claiming remarkable even seemingly impossible things does not make something a myth or unhistorical. The Evangelists and St. Paul wrote down the record of Jesus’ resurrection, naming the witnesses of this event while those witnesses were still alive. St. Paul writes to the Corinthians that over 500 saw Christ alive after His death at one time, and that most of those witnesses were still alive at the time he wrote his letter! (1 Corinthians 15:6) The resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth from the dead is history, a fact many apostles and other eyewitnesses died confessing.
And since Christ has been raised from the dead, we can never stop learning the significance of it! You can’t be lukewarm about Christ’s resurrection. You can be bored about astronauts returning to the moon after five decades, but no reasonable person can be uninterested in the historical truth that Christ Jesus rose from the dead, unless the Holy Spirit does not abide in that person. So, let us explore the significance of this historical truth.
First, as the women went to Jesus’ tomb to anoint His dead body with fragrant oils and spices, they discussed with one another how they were going to remove the large stone from the mouth of the tomb. They were not strong enough. It would have taken at least a few strong men with levers and ropes to move it. Yet, when they arrived, the stone had already been removed. Now, this does not only relate the details of the event, but it directs our attention to an important significance of Jesus’ resurrection. Why did Jesus die? The prophet Isaiah prophesied that Jesus died for the sins of the people (Isaiah 53:8). Indeed, the iniquities of us all were laid upon Him (Isaiah 53:6). But now Christ has been raised from the dead. What has happened to those sins? They are gone. St. Paul teaches us that the wages of sins is death (Romans 6:23). With His death, Christ Jesus paid the wages of us all. Being true man, He was able to die, yet being true God, His death is of such weight, that it is impossible for the sins of the whole world to outweigh it. If you multiplied sinners by a thousand and multiplied each sinner’s sins by a thousand again, they still would not come near the price Christ paid with His death on the cross. And we know that that payment was accepted by God, because Christ rose from the dead. His resurrection is the receipt of payment for our sins.
The stone, which is too heavy for us to move, which stands at the mouth of our own graves, so that we cannot escape death or hell, is our own sin. Who can roll this stone away from us? Christ Jesus rolled it away through His death and resurrection.
This means that you are free from the guilt of your sins. You are forgiven. That means that you are free from death and hell. Satan is your vanquished enemy whom you will tread with your own feet! Yet, this also means that you have a new relationship with sin. St. Paul tells us, “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” The Passover Lamb was eaten on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Leaven represents sin. The Israelites would cleanse out the leaven from their houses when they ate the Passover. And so, we who celebrate a greater Passover, with the one true Passover Lamb, must not profane the celebration by returning to our sins. St. Paul writes in Romans 6, “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (vss. 9-11) Having been baptized into Christ’s death, we now live, not in our former sins, but in imitation of Christ.
So, do you have sins? Have you despised God’s preaching and Word, and loved other things more than God? Have you indulged your lust, hatred, envy, and pride? Have you been lukewarm in faith like the ones Christ says He will spit out? (Revelation 3:16) All those sins have been nailed to Christ’s cross. Christ’s resurrection has removed the immovable stone from your grave! These sins cannot condemn you anymore. Yet do not return to them. Don’t go back to skipping church, engaging in sexual immorality, drunkenness, gossiping, and strife. Christ’s resurrection does not give freedom to sin, but it cuts the bonds of sin from you, so that you may live to God.
When Mary Magdalene recognized the risen Christ, she called Him Rabboni, which means teacher. What does Jesus’ resurrection prove about His teaching? It proves that all of Jesus’ teaching is true. The angel told the women that they and the disciples would see Jesus in Galilee, just as He told them before. If a man tells you that He will die in a very specific way, but will rise again on the third day, and He dies in that exact way, and then rises from the dead, then you should believe everything He says. Everything Jesus says is true. That means that everything in the Bible is true, because Jesus tells us that Scripture will never pass away (Matthew 5:17-18; 24:5). And we know that Scripture is true, because everything it prophesied of Jesus came true.
This means that Jesus’ Baptism is not just plain water, but a washing of rebirth which forgives sins, grants the Holy Spirit, and joins us to Christ’s death and resurrection, because that is what Scripture says (Mathew 28:19; Mark 16:16; John 3:3-6; Acts 2:38; Titus 3:5; Romans 6:4). This means that the Lord’s Supper is not just plain bread and wine, but the true body and blood of Christ, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins, because that is what Jesus said. Jesus’ resurrection proves that He is the Son of God, and the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever are His. This means that we who believe in Him, even though we die, yet shall we live, as Jesus promised (John 11:25).
That the teaching of Jesus who rose from the dead is true means that we should listen to His teaching. Jesus has a lot to teach us. And everything He teaches us is relevant and important, because we live in a world that deceives. Through Jesus’ teaching, we too receive eternal life. This is why Christians celebrate Christ’s resurrection every Sunday by listening to His preaching and receiving His body and blood in the Sacrament. This is why you should come and hear His word next Sunday too.
The truth of Jesus’ resurrection tells you something about your faith. Our faith is not simply a deeply held religious conviction. Our faith is not our private opinion or feeling. Our faith is believing and trusting in a sure and certain truth. We believe it, because it is true. Which means we can trust in all of God’s promises, which depend on this truth: the forgiveness of our sins, the promise of heaven and the resurrection of the dead, and eternal life. And it certainly means that God will answer our prayers. Throughout this Lenten season, we learned that everything we ask for in the Lord’s Prayer is won for us by Christ’s passion on the cross. Christ’s resurrection from the dead gives us our Amen, that is, our confidence that this is certainly true. We say, “Amen,” when we confess Christ’s death and resurrection. And so, we say, “Amen,” when we pray as Jesus taught us. As certainly as Jesus is risen from the dead, so certainly will God give us what we ask for in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Amen, that is, so shall it be.
Make strong our faith in You, that we
May doubt not but with trust believe
That what we ask we shall receive.
Thus in Your name and at Your Word
We say, “Amen, O hear us, Lord!”