Mark 16:1-8
From Days of Old
Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! From the beginning, God has desired to walk with man in the garden. God made paradise and blessed it. He made man and woman and placed them into the garden that they may walk with God hand in hand. And though God created sun and stars, it was always the case that God was the greatest light, the one who was meant to guide our way and our deeds. But then sin came into the world and yes, it ruined God’s good and gracious plan. But you want to know something? Have you seen how God has acted in the past? That good and gracious plan was still there all throughout our sin and its reign. For we have read how God preserved Noah and his family for the faith they had. God didn’t destroy the world in the flood but guided it, continued creating and blessing its growth. This is what brings us to Abraham, a man whom God foreknew to become a great nation! God would promise to raise up Abraham and his descendants after him to the point that Abraham believed so firmly to offer up his own son. And consider Israel, who constantly went astray, yet by the anointing of kings and prophets, God would keep them as his people to raise up a new leader from their midst. He would come down to be with them through the tabernacle and temple; he would deign even to walk with them through the desert that he may bring them to the promised land. But of course, death became the issue. Sin caused death and through death came division. But God would continue to create, to be our creator that he may gather again his people into his midst in the perfection of paradise!
This is what brings us to Jesus... God’s plan from long ago. Before Moses, Abraham, and Noah ever walked the earth, God had a plan to create a world where God and man could walk together hand in hand again. Let us see God’s fingerprints throughout our history, as we learn:
THE HAND OF GOD HAS RAISED JESUS FROM THE DEAD THAT HE MAY CREATE ANEW!
I.
There was no time to wait for those women. It was imperative that they hurried out to the tomb as quickly as they could. They could have been like all the disciples and hid for fear or in defeat. But of course, they didn’t. They couldn’t. It was the custom of the Jews that the dead are to be treated with respect. They’re bodies are to be prepared to meet God in eternity. This is what the women went to do for Jesus. But had they considered their own history, the way that God had worked in the past, even what Jesus had taught and said during his time with them, they would have expected differently. As we read, “When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him,” Mark 16:1. These women, faithful as they are, failed to see God’s grand design in all of this. It was God’s hand behind the redemption granted to creation in the flood. It was God’s hand in the calling and testing of Abraham to make a new nation. It was God’s hand in the anointing of King David, the sending of the prophets especially the visions and messages they spoke. Every step of the way, God asked from his people one thing… watch. Wait and watch the hand of God come down in mighty ways for you. God’s hand stayed the rain in the flood. God’s hand pushed back the armies of Pharoah in Egypt. God’s hand moved mountains, opened graves, gave rain upon the earth, and sustained life.
For this is the purpose of our vigil tonight. We’re to be still and know that God is still in control even in the darkest of nights. As we’ve waited in the silence of the Sabbath, the divine rest of Jesus in the tomb, this is our test like Abraham. God waits patiently to see if we’ll listen and watch… watch for his mighty hand to spring forth as he has foretold, or shall we take matters into our own hands. The day is far over and the night is at hand. The darkness of our world closes in on us as we wait and watch. It eggs us on to rise up on our own. But just as Moses told the people of Israel, “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent,” Exodus 14:14. The Lord will fight… for you, you only need be silent.
II.
On this night, we remember that there was no band present, no heavenly chorus, no parade, nor any greeting party for our Lord’s resurrection. In the darkness of the night, the stone was rolled back and our Lord was raised from the dead! He who was dead was alive again… and he came as a light into a world of darkness. Jesus Christ is the light of the world, a light no darkness can overcome. As God spoke in the beginning and said, “Let there be light,” so too now God has spoken forth the light of our world, the dawn of a new day of creation! By the hand of God, Jesus was raised from the dead, so that by Jesus’ hands, a new creation may be brought forth. A creation of righteousness and purity and holiness forever! As Zephaniah prophesied, “Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout; O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil,” Zephaniah 3:14-15. Jesus has come to make creation anew. A place where there shall be no more sin, no more pain and suffering, no more death!
Just as God has been, so is he now, and will be forever! God has worked our redemption from the beginning, from the fall, through Noah, the patriarchs, the kings, the prophets, so that now he may bring about our eternal redemption through his own Son. Jesus was given over to suffer on the cross for us. He died for our sins, that he may cleanse us, remake us, create us anew in his image. As the women found out on that first Easter, “And he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here,” Mark 16:6. Jesus is our Lord of creation. Just as he formed us from the dust of the ground, so may he remake us, raising us from the dead that we may live eternally before him in the new creation!
May we look to the past to see what our Lord’s hands have done for us. May we wait for the Lord and his mighty deliverance… and especially on this night, praise him for the mighty victory he has granted to us by raising Jesus from the dead. So now, Jesus comes among us, our resurrected Lord, that he may forgive our sins, and grant us the newness of life eternal! In Jesus’ name! Amen!