Just As He Said

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 28th chapter. Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

His appearance was like lightning, his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.

He is not here, for He has risen, as He said. Come and see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead. And behold, He is going before you to Galilee.

There you will see Him. See, I have told you. So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell His disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, Greetings. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshipped Him.

Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me. This is the gospel of the Lord. Hallelujah, Christ is risen. What a glorious day this is.

It's warm for a change. Can you believe that? It's almost as if, well, the resurrection has brought us new life. But that's really not the whole point of it. But I have to make a comment about the weather because it feels like Jadus' power has been broken.

And the snow is about to melt and Aslan will appear, right? That's what it feels like here.

It's glorious.

And to have it happen right at Easter is just doubly great. So in our gospel text today, we hear an eyewitness account of what took place at the tomb. And you'll note the tomb is empty. And why is the tomb empty?

Because Jesus rose bodily from the grave. Make no mistake about it. He actually rose bodily. Well, what do you mean by bodily? Well, touch yourself. Pinch if necessary. That's what I'm talking about. Flesh, bones, stuff like this.

That's what we're talking about. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If you hear some nimcompoop who's opposing the word of God tell you that, well, what Christ really was doing was rising spiritually within our hearts and that the resurrection is merely a metaphor how the flowers come back in the spring, don't listen to that fellow.

You might even consider if he's your pastor. Toss him out and get a pastor who's faithful, who will preach the word to you. Here's what our gospel text says. Now, after the Sabbath, that's right, Christ was crucified on the eve of the Sabbath.

He had his Sabbath rest in the tomb. You'll note Jesus did zero work on the Sabbath day after he was crucified. He didn't even burn a single calorie. That's how restful he was. So the day after the Sabbath, the women who wanted to give their final respects to Jesus, and you're going to note here, one of the things I love about the gospels is they tell us the truth, and that is that Mary Magdalene, Mary, Peter, John, all the rest of the disciples, they were a little slow on the upload when it comes to the words of Christ.

And it helps me, by the way. It really helps me. It gives me some hope because when it comes to things that my wife notices need to be fixed around the house, I'm a little slow on the upload myself. I'll find something that's wrong in the house, and I'll say to my wife, did you know that this was broken?

And I think I better fix it. And she says, I've been telling you that for months.

That's right.

I have some hope here because you'll note in our gospel text, in the scriptures, it's clear that Jesus, from the time that Peter confessed that he was the Christ, the son of the living God, Jesus was openly, very frankly, simply explaining, we're going to Jerusalem, boys.

Guess what's going to happen? I'm going to be betrayed, handed in to the Gentiles. They're going to crucify me. I'm going to die and rise from the dead. And they all went, right? They had no clue what he was talking about.

All right.

Just a little bit slow. You'll note that they didn't go to the tomb thinking, oh, man, it's Easter Sunday. The sun has risen. Jesus has got to be up by now. No, that's not what was going on. They didn't understand it.

So Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, I love this account.

There was a great earthquake, right?

For an angel of Yahweh, the angel of the Lord, descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and he sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, his clothing white as snow. And by the way, standard operational procedure if you're ever in the presence of a holy angel in his glory, you are going to become like a dead person.

Don't talk to me about having conversations with angels and stuff like this. I won't believe you. So for fear of him, the guards, the guards that were there to keep the disciples from stealing the body, the guards trembled and became like dead men.

And this has got to be a disconcerting thing. But there's that angel sitting all proud of himself at the top of the stone that he just rolled away. And he had words of comfort to give to the women who came to give their last regards, their final respects to Jesus.

And he said to them, do not be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He's not here. He is risen, as he said. Now there's a lot to unpack here. And I remember for years when I was doing my podcast on a daily basis, and thankfully I don't have to do this anymore.

One of the things I kind of really kicked myself for like putting into gear and having to do year after year, I did these things called Worst Easter Sermon of the Year Contest. And if you want to be suicidal after just a week of listening to sermons, just listen to all the candidate submissions for the Worst Easter Sermon of the Year Contest.

Talk about adventures in missing the point. But what I would do in the lead up to give me enough time to listen to all these terrible sermons, the week after Easter I would play nothing but good sermons.

So people kind of knew what the good sermons were like. And I remember a very good sermon, an Easter sermon preached by Pastor Brian Wolfmuller. And he made a very good comment regarding one of the things that the angel said here.

He says, I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. And his point was this, is that Jesus now is forever the one who is crucified. He bears in his hands and his feet the marks of his crucifixion. These are the tokens of the great victory that he won over sin, death, and the devil for you and for I.

And so for us, Jesus is always our Lord who was crucified so that we can be forgiven and pardoned of our sin. And to which all of this we say, Amen, Alleluia. But then he notes, he says these things. He says, he's not here, he's risen, and these are the words, as he said.

As he said. Now note, what book am I reading this from, by the way? The Bible, right? He is risen as he said. Now important to note here. Jesus in the Gospel of John chapter 10, I think verse 35, somewhere in that neighborhood, says these simple words, the Scripture cannot be broken.

The Scripture cannot be broken. There are people today within the visible church who on Resurrection Sunday, the day of Easter, do everything they can to oppose what these words in Scripture say. And they attempt through their bizarre and delusional machinations to somehow break the Scripture.

Let me give you an example. Years ago, I had coffee with Nadia Bowles Weber of the ELCA. Nadia Bowles Weber, the woman who wrote Pastrix. I was doing research on the emergent church movement. She was still kind of hanging out in that group.

She had just recently come back from a clandestine, almost secret society kind of meeting with Brian McLaren and a few other people. And she was rattled by it. And she asked me partway through our conversation together, and she says, So I've got to ask you a question, Chris.

Yeah, what's the question, Nadia? If they found the bones of Jesus, would you still be a Christian? Absolutely not. If they found the bones of Jesus, Christianity is a sham. It's a flam. It's a skim-scanned flam.

And you shouldn't be believing it. I better things to do, by the way, on a Sunday if they find the bones of Jesus than coming to Kong's Vineyard and telling you that he's risen from the dead if he hasn't.

You get the point? Well, now, a little bit of a note. She thinks she's a Christian.

She ain't.

She's as apostate as they get.

And so I asked her, I said,.

Well, what would you do if they found the bones of Jesus?

She says,.

Well, I would still be in the church.

Uh-huh.

And I said,.

Why would you do that?

It says in the scripture he rose bodily from the grave. Well, I would just come to the conclusion that the word bodily meant something other than what I thought it meant.

Uh-huh.

We're now playing word games at this point, right? And the reality is this. Is that if Christ has not been raised, we ought not to be Christians. The Apostle Paul, of all people, says that very thing in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

Listen to these words from the Apostle Paul. If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there's no resurrection of the dead? Yeah, you'll note where those people were. They were in the church at Corinth.

I make this point. I'll continue to make it. Talk about a messed up church. I mean, you had a church where the rich people were keeping the poor people from having the Lord's Supper by even getting drunk on the communion wine.

You had a guy who was sleeping with his stepmom.

Ew.

Then you had all kinds of weird things going on with the mismanagement and misuse of the sign gifts of the Holy Spirit. And here you have people in the church at Corinth who are Christians, who are baptized and saying, there's no resurrection from the dead.

And you're sitting there going, uh, right? Now, note, who's writing this again? The Apostle Paul. And we know about his beginning. It wasn't really a good start, was it, when he first makes his appearance in Scripture?

He's not the Apostle Paul. He's Saul of Tarsus. And he hates, absolutely hates, loathes, detests, and goes after to make suffer those people who confess Jesus Christ as Lord, as Savior, and as one who was risen from the dead.

And he is persecuting them all over the place, rounding them up, having them arrested, flogged, and beaten, and things of this nature. And it just so happens that Jesus decided that he was going to schedule a face-to-face appointment with Saul of Tarsus while he was traveling on his way to Damascus.

And how did that go for him?

Right?

Not so well. He went from being a hater of Christians to being not only a believer in Christ, but one who was appointed by Jesus himself to be Jesus' personal apostle sent to the Gentiles in order to proclaim the good news of Christ and him crucified for our sins and raised from the dead.

Because the Apostle Paul, too, is an eyewitness. I think that's pretty convincing stuff, if you think about it. And so he says, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there's no resurrection from the dead?

But if there's no resurrection from the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain. And your faith is in vain. For we are found to be misrepresenting God because we've testified about God that God raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised.

For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You're still in your sins. And then those who have fallen asleep in Christ, they've perished.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people to be most pitied. I think that's a pretty compelling case, right? I think that makes a lot of sense. Let me kind of put it another way.

When you compare Christianity to all the religions of the world, and I can't say that I've studied every single religion, but I can say that I've spent time studying all the major world religions, and the one thing I can tell you is that none of them have a truth claim like we have.

None of them do. If we were to travel to India today and maybe sit down with some Hindus and ask them about Shiva and Vishnu and the deities that are discussed in the Vedas and basically ask a Hindu today, so these stories in the Vedas, did they actually take place?

Is this a historical narrative that we're reading here about these deities? They'll say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't history. These are real stories. These are stories that are told in order to convey a deeper, a spiritual meaning.

Aha.

Got it.

Okay, so there is no evidence for the existence of Shiva, Vishnu, or any of the deities of Hinduism.

Correct.

Now, what about Siddhartha Buddha? Did he exist? The answer is yes. He's a historical character. He actually existed. But let me ask you this. Can we with certainty say that Buddha achieved nirvana upon his death and that he was released from the wheel of reincarnation?

No, there's no evidence to that effect. How about Muhammad of Islam? What about that fellow? I mean, he claimed to be a prophet of Allah. Is he now in the presence of his 70 virgins and stuff in the Muslim version of heaven?

I have no way of knowing. But what about Jesus Christ? Crucified under Pontius Pilate, he rose again victorious from the grave. And as a result of that, we actually have confidence. We have proof that God exists beyond a reasonable doubt.

And the reason for this is actually quite simple. Because, well, Jesus claimed to be none other than God in human flesh and proved it by raising himself from the dead. But on top of all of that, we also then know that we who are in Christ have the very things that Christ promises to give us.

You'll note that never in the history of humanity has anyone ever raised themselves from the dead after they've been dead for three days. That's never happened. In fact, Harry Houdini, the great escape artist, hasn't figured out how to unbind himself from death.

Although it is believed by those who kind of follow in his footsteps and who perform a particular seance every single Halloween that someday he's going to reappear having escaped death itself. So far, not so good.

It's not looking good for Harry Houdini. But Jesus did rise from the dead. And that means that we have all the things that he has promised us. That his death truly was for the forgiveness of your sins and mine.

That through Jesus we are reconciled to God the Father. And that death itself has been destroyed in the life of Christ and his resurrection. And we who are in him, we will rise again from the dead into eternal life in a world without end, in a world without pain, in a world without suffering.

All of this is promised to us and we can have confidence because Jesus rose from the grave just as he said. Now, we live in a day where I've already noted that people within the visible church seem to be on a tear.

Thinking that somehow they have figured it out. The whole church has got it wrong for two millennia. Jesus didn't really rise from the dead. You can't trust the scriptures, they say. And you people who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, you have turned the Bible into an idol, they claim.

I sit there and go, if you are thinking that I've somehow made the Bible into an idol because I think it's the inerrant, inspired, infallible, trustworthy word of God, you don't know what idolatry is.

Because in the scriptures, this is where the voice of God itself is recorded. And these people, they attack the word of God constantly. Now, let me give you an example. This is a very deadly game that they are playing.

And so, think of it like the world of chess. You all have played chess, right? Now, some people like playing chess. I've tried my hand at chess a few times in my life. And all I can say is that because of the age of the internet, my chess skills never really flourished.

And I did not enjoy the smack downs that I would get on a regular basis with online chess. This is just a terrible thing. But in applying myself to learn about chess, I learned that there are standard openings, right?

You got your white pieces, you got your black pieces. White always goes first. And then there are kind of like standard openings. If you've ever seen the Netflix series called The Queen's Gambit, do you remember that came out while we were all in lockdown?

You know, we watched a lot of weird things when there was lockdown. You know, that lockdown kind of messed with our brains. We actually thought that the Tiger King was good entertainment. That was nothing but a slow motion train wreck.

And we all just watched it and gaping and eating lots of popcorn because we weren't allowed to go outside of our houses, right? Well, the story of The Queen's Gambit is about this female chess savant.

She starts playing chess as a young girl. But I quickly became disillusioned with The Queen's Gambit for this very reason. Because it seemed that her magical abilities at chess were fueled through her drug addiction.

And I had a hard time dealing with that. So I only made it through a few episodes of The Queen's Gambit. But all that coming back to it. Different chess players use different openings in chess. King's Gambit, Queen's Gambit.

Defense is known as the Sicilian Defense and other things like this. These are standard things. But I would note, if you were to think of those who are attacking scripture as those who are playing a game of chess.

I call what they do the apostate's opening. Or the apostate's gambit. And the apostate's gambit doesn't begin with an actual moving of any chess pieces. The apostate's gambit occurs. The first move is when somebody dares to sit opposite of God and His Word.

And decide that they are going to wage war against God and what is written in scripture. Just by sitting down as God's opponent. That is the first move of the apostate's gambit. And when you see them trying to take God's chess pieces off the boards.

To undo what the scriptures say. You know you are dealing with an agent of Satan. Who has not come to lead you to a proper understanding of scripture. But to lead you away from Jesus Christ. And what He has done for you.

And lead you and drag you back into the dominion of darkness. When you see somebody playing that game. The apostate's game. Don't listen to them. The Word, the scripture cannot be broken. Christ rose bodily from the grave.

Isn't that really the whole subtext of our first reading for today's celebration of the Lord's resurrection? Here again the words of the Apostle Peter. Peter knows a thing or two about whether or not Christ rose bodily from the grave.

And in our text today we find the Apostle Peter talking with Cornelius. A Roman centurion. And his family and preaching the gospel to them. And it's such a momentous occasion because Jews and Gentiles don't really get along.

And Peter is not the apostle to the Gentiles. Paul is. But here's the thing. The very first Gentile believers hear the gospel of Jesus Christ from none other than Peter himself. He is an eyewitness to Jesus' resurrection.

Let's listen to the details, shall we? So Peter opened his mouth, it says. And he said to Cornelius and his family. Truly I understand that God shows no partiality. But in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

Great words by the way. Because you'll note that not a lot of Jews here today genetically speaking. We're quite the mix here, right? And as a result of that we know that God shows no partiality. It doesn't matter if you're Jew or Gentile.

It doesn't matter if you're German, Chinese, or Norwegian at all. God loves us all. And anyone who fears him and does what is right. But what is right for us to do? What is right for us to do is to believe and trust in Christ.

Our crucified and bodily risen Savior for the forgiveness of our sins. As for the word that he sent to Israel preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all. You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea beginning from Galilee.

After the baptism of John proclaimed how God had anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with them.

What a great summary statement of Jesus' earthly ministry. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. By the way, that's you and I as well. God was with Christ because he is God.

And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put Jesus to death by hanging him on a tree. But God raised him on the third day and made him to appear. Not to all the people but to us who have been chosen by God as witnesses.

And listen to the details. Who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. You don't eat and drink with spirits.

Right?

Of all the paranormal investigation programs I've watched over the years as I've had insomnia. I've never once seen a phantasma, a ghost eating hot dogs out of somebody's refrigerator. Now, you'll note that what happens in Ghostbusters, that's just pure fantasy, right?

Right?

But all that being said, we don't see any hungry ghosts out there gobbling up our leftovers. That just doesn't happen. You know why? Because ghosts don't eat. Spiritual resurrections don't have food. You can't touch them.

And here the Apostle Peter just very nonchalantly says, yeah, we ate and we drank with him after he rose from the dead. So what kind of bodily do you think he's talking about here? You know, the bodily, bodily kind, right?

Because there is no other kind of bodily, right? And so he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead. Oh, what an amazing thing.

The judge of the living and the dead also is the one who bled and died for your sins. I think he's going to cook the books in your favor, right? To him, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.

And if Christ hadn't risen from the dead, would you have any confidence at all that your sins are forgiven by God because of what he did on the cross? Jesus' death would be no different than your death or mine.

When we crump and we die, we have a funeral, we put the body in the ground, and it stays there. If Christ had just stayed in the tomb, we would have zero confidence of the forgiveness of our sins. But because he has risen from the grave bodily and the eyewitnesses all bear witness to it, we know for sure that everything that Christ said that he would do, he has accomplished.

He went to Jerusalem, he was betrayed, he was crucified for your sins and mine and just as he said, he rose bodily from the grave. And as a result of that, we can have confidence that yes, a sinner as, well, as sinful as you, as sinful as me, as, well, ones who have betrayed God and not kept his commandments as horribly as you and I have, that despite all of that, we have confidence because of Christ's resurrection that even we can be forgiven and pardoned by God and have eternal life given to us as a gift of his grace through faith.

So, having heard what the angel said, he is risen, just as he said, come see the place where he lay, yes, you can investigate, then go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead and behold, he is going before you to Galilee.

There you will see him, see, I've told you. So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and with great joy. Mixed emotions indeed, right? And they ran to tell his disciples and behold, Jesus met them and said greetings and they came up, took hold of his feet and they worshipped Christ.

Indeed, because he is God in human flesh. And then Jesus said to them, do not be afraid, go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee and there they will see me. Beautiful text. So what does it mean for us?

Well, the Apostle Paul puts a wonderful punctuation mark, right? Exclamation right at the end of that question when he says these words in our epistle text. If then you, if y 'all have been raised with Christ, and indeed every one of you has, in the waters of baptism, Christ has buried you with himself, raised you with himself, given you the Holy Spirit, washed away all of your sins, regenerated you.

You have already now been raised with Christ. Therefore, you already have one foot out of the grave. Therefore, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.

I understand that we still have to pay the bills. We still got to go to work. We still have to do all of the hard labor and toil that goes along with the sentence that we are under because of our rebellion against God.

But don't fall for the trickery of the world. Do not follow the lust of your flesh and the lust of your eyes and the pride of life. These will lead you astray. Set your minds on the things that are above.

Everything you see outside of us, from the things you can smell, taste, touch, everything, everything, this is all going away. So don't set your minds on it. Nothing here on earth lasts including you.

Set your minds on the things that are above because you are already raised with Christ. For you have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. But know this then because Christ has risen from the dead.

When Jesus appears on the day of judgment, Jesus who is your life, when he appears, you also will appear with him in glory in a world without end. What an amazing day this is. What an amazing truth. And all of this we can have confidence and certainty because Jesus did exactly what he said he was going to do.

He rose bodily from the grave. Alleluia. Christ is risen.

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And again, thank you for listening.

Amen.