The Meaning of Jesus’ Historical Resurrection

Rev. Rolf Preus| Easter Sunday| April 5, 2026| St. Luke 24:1-8

Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.  But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.  Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’” And they remembered His words. 

They loved Jesus.   And no wonder.  They had seen and experienced his love.  God’s love shone through his every word and deed.  In love he cast out seven demons who had possessed Mary Magdalen and set her free.  In love he healed the sick, fed the hungry, and preached the gospel of the kingdom.  It was a kingdom of grace where the king sought out the lost and brought them back to God.  He showed divine power over the wind and waves and even raised the dead.  Power and love combined.  They loved him because he loved them.  They watched him die.  It broke their hearts.  They wanted to show Jesus the respect in death that he had not received when he was living.  They were there during his final hours.  Most of his disciples ran away.  They stayed.  They heard the cries of bloodlust screaming for his death.  They saw the cruel savagery of the soldiers.

Why, what hath my Lord done?

What makes this rage and spite?

He made the lame to run,

He gave the blind their sight.

Sweet injuries!  Yet they at these themselves displease

And ’gainst him rise.

They watched him die.  He was most surely dead.  Blood and water flowed out of his pierced side.  He was dead.  So, they went to anoint his dead body.  But he was no longer dead.  Had they been paying attention to what Jesus told them they would have known that he would rise from the dead.  Had they listened to Jesus, they would not have gone to anoint a dead body.  Their emotions clouded their minds.  But they hadn’t entirely forgotten Jesus’s words.  When the angel reminded them, they remembered.  Jesus had said more than once, “The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.”  On this day when Christ’s church celebrates the resurrection of her Lord, let us take to heart the words that Jesus spoke about his crucifixion and resurrection.

“The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified.”  Jesus calls himself the Son of Man.  He does not say that the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified.  He says that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified.  He must be.  Why?  Because God said so.  Jesus had to die for the sin of the world.  The Revelation of St. John identifies him as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”  Jesus repeatedly spoke of the necessity of his death.  He must be crucified.  The physical suffering of Jesus on the cross is described in detail in Psalm 22.  The nature of his suffering and its benefit for us is thoroughly explained in Isaiah 53.  Way back in Genesis 3:15 God foretold that the devil’s destruction would come only by the suffering of the promised Savior.  God had decided.

“And be crucified.”  Look at the punishment he received from men.  Crucifixion was a particularly cruel way to die.  If the convict hanging on the cross could not push up with his feet, he’d suffocate and die in a short time.  So, the Romans deliberately nailed their feet to a support that would enable them to push up, thus gaining desperately needed oxygen for the lungs, but prolonging the agony.  You may recall that when the soldiers came to Jesus to break his legs, to hasten his death, they found him already dead.  There was no shortening of his suffering at the hands of men.

And there was no shortening of his suffering at the hands of God.  It was God’s love that punished Jesus.  For it was necessary for Jesus to suffer and die for the sin of the world in order that the world might be forgiven of its sin.  True love, eternal love, powerful love that can save a soul from hell, is the love God displayed when Jesus suffered and died.

God spare us from the weak love that refuses to reckon with sin.  Reckon with sin!  Reckon with your own sin!  Listen to the words of St. Paul in today’s Epistle Lesson, “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened.”  The purging of the leaven of sin takes place only by confronting our sin, confessing it to God, and finding refuge in the sacrifice of Jesus for us.  It was necessary that he die for me if I am to experience God’s love in my life.  It was necessary.  Don’t talk of God’s love while ignoring or denying the power of his death.  In his agony, suffering God’s punishment of all the sin of all sinners, Jesus took our sin away.  He pacified God.  He silenced the judgment of the law against us.  He forgave us all our sin.  God the Holy Spirit joins the blood Jesus shed to redeem us to our baptism so that in our baptism we are washed in the blood of the Lamb.  It was necessary that Jesus die the death he died so that we would be forgiven.

Do not deny its necessity!  God’s love is no sissy kind of love that ignores sin and pretends it’s no real problem.  Listen to the playwright describe God’s love for us.

Of what the paltering world calls love,

I will not know, I cannot speak;

I know but His who reigns above,

And His is neither mild nor weak;

Hard even unto death is this,

And smiting with its awful kiss.

What was the answer of God’s love

Of old, when in the olive-grove

In anguish-sweat His own Son lay;

And prayed, O, Take this cup away

Did God take from Him then the cup?

No, child; His Son must drink it up!

His Son must drink it up.  As Jesus said, “The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified.”  It is necessary.

First comes suffering and then resurrection.  First Jesus faces our sin on Calvary.  Bearing our sin requires that he die.  It is necessary.  Announcing forgiveness to us requires that he rise from the dead.  It is necessary.

Just so, facing our sin in sorrow and contrition is necessary.  And believing God when he forgives us our sins for Christ’s sake is necessary.  This is where the new life begins.  It always begins in repentance.  Repentance is not a seasonal thing.  It’s a daily exercise.  Every day we confess our sins to God.  Luther’s evening prayer is a good prayer to pray before you go to bed at night.  In that prayer we say, “I pray that you would forgive me all my sins where I have done wrong, and graciously keep me this night.”

Repentance entails two things: contrition and faith.  Contrition means we die to sin.  We abhor it.  We hate it.  We don’t want to do it again.  We confess it.  Faith means we believe God when he tells us that Jesus took away our sins on the cross.  St. Paul gives us the Christian interpretation of Christ’s death and resurrection where he writes, “Who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.” (Romans 4:25)

This is the chief benefit of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.  Think about it.  What was he doing on the cross?  Dying for my sin, you say.  Why die for your sin?  To take it away, you reply.  Did he?  Did he take away your sin?  If he didn’t, he’d have stayed dead.  But he didn’t stay dead.  He rose from the dead.  That, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, is our absolution.  The resurrection of Jesus is God saying to you, “You are forgiven of all your sins.  The power of sin and death are destroyed.  You are justified in Christ’s blood.”  The fact of the resurrection is the foundation of the declaration of absolution that you hear every time you confess your sins at the beginning of the church service.  The authority to forgive is based on the historicity, the historicalness, of the resurrection.

The resurrection is as historical as your life is historical.  You live in space and time.  You experience all sorts of things.  You know that you’re headed for the grave.  Perhaps not what you want to hear on a day like today when we’re celebrating Christ’s resurrection.  But think about it.  As surely as you were born, as surely as you came to church this morning, as surely as you’re going to have a wonderful ham dinner this afternoon, you are going to die someday.  That’s life.  It ends at death.

But not really.  Jesus was born in space and time.  In space and time, he did his wonderful miracles, preached the gospel, went to the cross, and suffered and died, bearing the sin of the world.  That’s history.  Literal history.  And so is his resurrection from the dead.  It happened in space and time.  Were you there you could have taken a picture of him walking out of the grave.  Thomas touched his scarred hands and side.  Mary Magaline clung to him.  All the disciples saw him after he rose.  He ate broiled fish and honey with them.  Over 500 people saw him at the same time.  The Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus, claiming that he rose, not bodily, but as a spirit.  Jesus says in Luke 24:39, “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”  If people would only listen to Jesus, they’d be spared being captured by such antichristian cults as the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

If we listened to Jesus, we would not be burdened down with sorrow.  How the sorrow of those women turned into joy when the angels reminded them of what Jesus said!  Talk about an emotional rollercoaster!  But that’s how our feelings are.  Up and down and everywhere in between.  Feelings often fight against the faith.  As we watch the women go to the tomb we are watching pious unbelief.  It’s set on death.  Faith rises in our hearts by the power of Christ’s resurrection.  St. Peter writes:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (1 Peter 1:3)

Consider the facts of the matter.  Let’s let our emotions rest on faith and faith on fact.  The fact is that Jesus died and rose from the dead.  This is documented history.  The historical evidence proves Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead.  These are facts.  We were all born and we will all die.  These are facts.  Our faith depends on these facts.  But we have more than the historical facts.  We have God’s promise.  God says that Jesus’s death is for us.  He died in our place to pay for our sins.  God says that Jesus’s resurrection is our absolution and God’s promise that we will rise to eternal life on the last day.  We can face life with confidence.  We can face death with confidence.

Jesus lives! and now is death
But the gate of life immortal;
This shall calm my trembling breath
When I pass its gloomy portal.
Faith shall cry, as fails each sense,
Jesus is my confidence! Amen