When Death and Life Battled

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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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

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Luke, the 24th chapter. On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking spices that they had prepared.

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And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body of the

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Lord Jesus. And while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.

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And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead?

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He is not here, but has risen. Remember how I told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the

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Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.

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And they remembered his words. And returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.

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Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles.

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But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in.

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He saw the linen cloths by themselves, and he went home marveling at what had happened. This is the gospel of the

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Lord. Praise to you, O Christ. He is risen. In the name of Jesus.

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So, you ever hear these great epic battles? Well, we had the epic battle of Jesus being tempted by the devil, the devil being the heavyweight champion of the universe.

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Nobody had been able to defeat him up until that point. And in three temptations, three rounds, the devil gets knocked out.

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Now what about death? Death in our passages is described as an enemy.

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The last enemy to be destroyed, the text says, is death.

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And Jesus takes that enemy head on. Life versus death.

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Death versus the author of life himself. Yahweh in human flesh.

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Yahweh, the self -existing one. And so what happens? Jesus is crucified, stone -cold dead, and they lay his lifeless, cold corpse inside the tomb.

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And the mouth of the tomb is shut with a large, large stone.

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I mean, just the picture of this tomb. Like a gaping mouth. There, death swallowed

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Jesus whole. Kind of like Jonah and that big fish, if you think about it. But how'd that go for that fish?

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After three days, that fish got indigestion and decided to vomit Jonah back up.

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And all of that was a type and shadow of the resurrection of Christ. I feel bad for Jonah. Death would have been preferable in such a situation.

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Jesus, though, he goes into death head first. Death swallows him up.

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The stones rolled in front of the tomb, and they... Well, it's not much of a fight, is it?

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Because over and again, when death comes in contact with Jesus, death gives way.

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And so Jesus takes the day off on Saturday. Takes the day off. Can you believe that? I mean, there's his lifeless, dead body, and he keeps the

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Sabbath perfectly. Perfectly. No work at all.

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He wasn't even breathing. No effort whatsoever. Talk about a restful day.

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And then, at the crack of dawn, that wonderful Sunday, Easter morning, boom!

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He comes back. Conquering death. And this is everything for us.

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Because he was risen from the grave, we know then that his death on the cross was so that we can be forgiven.

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That it was accepted by the Father as an acceptable sacrifice so that we can be reconciled to God and pardoned.

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We who are under the dominion of darkness and subject to death. Death visits all too often.

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And we all fear it in one way or another. But see, Jesus here has taken death head on.

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And death didn't even stand a chance. And so because of this amazing hope that we have, because Christ has bodily been raised from the grave,

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Paul writes in our epistle text today, if in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

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It always cracks me up that the tin penny crackpot preachers, the ones who tell you if you send them a thousand bucks,

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God is going to give you a million. These people, they're always focusing on the here and the now.

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You give your heart to Jesus and Jesus will make your children more obedient. That is a total lie.

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I know this for a fact, right? It's not true. You give your heart to Jesus and he'll give you a purpose and you'll change the world and he'll fill your bank account with dollars like you wouldn't believe.

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You'll be healthy on into your hundreds and nobody will be able to say, wow, that person's cursed rather than blessed.

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It's all hogwash. Because Christianity is only for those who are under the sentence of death.

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And that's all of us. Because the wages of sin is death. So Christ takes those wages for us, goes into the tomb, comes out victorious, and so we hear, if in this life we have hope in Christ, then we are of all people most to be pitied.

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But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead and he's the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

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Now, all you farmers here know, I know nothing about farming. But I can tell you this.

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I have a clue about how the first fruits things work. Let me explain. So when

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I was a wee little lad living in Southern California, my mom thought it would be a great idea to put together a vegetable garden.

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So we grew some corn, we had carrots and cabbage and lettuce and zucchini.

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But then she decided that she was going to buy a few tomato plants.

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A few. Not too many. I mean, they kind of circled the garden there.

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And when the first fruits showed up of our tomatoes, she was so excited because she felt like she had accomplished something.

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Here we had these not quite totally ripe, a little bit green, kind of reddish tomato thingies, and they tasted pretty good.

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And so we enjoyed the first fruits. But see, that's the thing about first fruits. Oh, there's always first fruits, and that's the down payment, letting you know that there's more coming.

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And by the end of the summer, every single night, we were having tomato salad.

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We were having homemade spaghetti like you wouldn't believe. If anyone came to visit, they were leaving with one, maybe two bags of tomatoes to take home with them.

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You get the idea. But see, Jesus is the first fruits of the new creation. He's that first ripe...

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I better not call Jesus a tomato. That would be really bad. But you get the idea, right? That Jesus is the first fruits.

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He's the first of the new creation. Because he's risen from the grave, we look to him and we say, ah, that's what we're going to be like when he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead.

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And see, here now we talk about our condition. You see, for by a man came death, and by a man has also come the resurrection of the dead.

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For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.

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And so we see that we under the sentence of death because of the sin of Adam now have that sentence of death taken away from us because of Christ.

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But then each in his own order. Christ first is the first fruits. Then it is coming, the rest of us tomatoes, will come then when

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Jesus returns, those who belong to Christ. And then, listen, then comes the end.

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Even the creation itself will die. Then comes the end. And he will deliver the kingdom to God the

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Father after destroying every rule, every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all of his enemies under his feet.

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And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. And we can be certain of this because the tomb is empty even to this day.

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And it's not empty because they stole the body. That doesn't make any sense. It's not empty because he was beamed up by aliens or any such things like that.

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It's empty because he bodily rose, just as he said. And that's why it was silly for them to look for the living among the dead.

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But now because he has risen, we know that we are forgiven. We are no longer under the sentence of death.

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And God assures us now through the prophet Isaiah of what's to come. And what's to come is amazing.

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All because Christ has risen from the dead. Listen to this. God says, Let me do a

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Napoleon Dynamite here for a second. Yes, that's amazing.

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Because this life is hard. The suffering that we are made to go through, the toil that we experience in putting food on the table, the strained relationships because of our sin, all of these things, the sicknesses that we experience, some of them chronic, some of them punctuated.

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And then, of course, don't even get me started about the fear and terror and guilt that we experience because of our own shortcomings considering our lives in light of the law of God.

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But all of these things, none of them shall be remembered or come to mind. It will be far in the past.

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Instead, we will be glad and we will rejoice forever in that which God creates. For God says, Cry of distress.

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We all know what that sounds like. Maybe you've made that cry at the loss of somebody or something.

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One of my first experiences in the cry of distress was from the animal kingdom. You think about this program

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I used to watch when I was a kid. You know, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom with Marlon Perkins.

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And I was horrified. Horrified because they had footage of a lion hunting gazelles.

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And as soon as that lioness goes into that sprint and chases down that gazelle and takes those claws and digs it into that animal, that animal lets out a cry that you can never forget.

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And I remember as a kid thinking, what on earth is this world like? But that will not be what it's like at all in the new earth because Christ is risen from the dead.

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No more shall there be an infant who dies, who lives but just a few days.

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In fact, abortion will be a thing of the past. Or an old man who does not fill out his days.

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Listen to these words. They shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

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They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another eat. You know,

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I think about the fact that the home that we live in is 100 years old next year. 100 years old. It's pretty old as far as houses go,

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I think. It's impressive. And we are only the third owners of that house. And the fellow who owned it previous to us, his name is still at the top of the list at the law firm that he helped found here in town.

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But I always think about the fact that the woodwork, the nice hardwood floors, and some of the decorative ornaments, he put those there, not me.

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And now he's gone. He's dead. And so I'm enjoying the work of his hand.

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And that's one of the inequities, if you would. One of the bizarre things about the curse that we live in because death is such an enemy.

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But God says, in the new earth I'm overturning all of that because the inheritance is eternal life.

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Life without end. You will build houses and you will inhabit them and you will long enjoy the work of your hands.

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For like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

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They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the

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Lord and their descendants with them. And before they call,

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I will answer. And while they are yet speaking, I will hear. And this is a great comfort because here and now it sometimes feels like God isn't hearing us.

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Have you ever had that experience where you pray, Lord, I am in need, I am in danger.

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Please help. Are you there?

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God? Why are you so far from my voice? Do you not hear me,

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Lord? And you read the Psalms. They're full of Psalms like that. But in the new earth it's not going to be this way at all.

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All because Christ is risen from the dead. They will call. Before they call,

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God will answer. While they are yet speaking, God will hear. And we will see Jesus face to face.

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We, with our own eyes, after we are raised from the grave, will see the nail -scarred hands of Christ and the nail -scarred feet of Christ with our own eyes.

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And He will hear our prayers and answer us even before we are finished. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together.

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The lion shall eat straw like the ox. It's amazing if you think about it.

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You don't put wolves and lambs together. It's a bad thing. But in the new earth, no one would even think that way.

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Maybe wolves and lambs would be best buddies. You can't get those two apart. Every time you see a lamb, there's always a wolf nearby.

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And it's a good thing, not a bad. And I love this little line because it talks about still the serpent is cursed.

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Dust shall be the serpent's food. The devil still is in the dirt. And they shall not hurt or destroy in all of my holy mountain, says the

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Lord. And all of this because Christ has risen from the grave.

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He's conquered the last enemy, and the last enemy is death. And when he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, he will throw the devil himself into the lake of fire.

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Flick, gone. He will throw death and Hades themselves into the lake of fire, and they will trouble us no more.

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All because he's already conquered death. Now you sit there and go, yeah, but he's already conquered death.

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But it sure does seem like we still have a lot of that death running around around here. Yeah, I get that.

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In the now and the not yet, things are a little bit, well, bizarre. Have you ever heard stories of Japanese soldiers who years and years after the war ended, they were stationed on some tiny little island, and they thought the war was still going on?

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You think about the poor fellows who had the job of going out and finding these Japanese soldiers and saying, hey, listen, the war's over.

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Put the gun down. Don't kill me. But see, that's kind of the idea.

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We here, this is a foreign embassy. This is an embassy of the kingdom of God.

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Each and every one of us ambassadors to announce to the people here, in town, in Grand Forks, in North Dakota, in northwestern

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Minnesota, to let them know that Jesus has conquered death, that he has bled and died for them, risen from the grave, and that God is giving out full pardons to all rebel sinners, freeing them of the consequences of their sins because Christ has taken that upon himself and is promising them that he is going to make a new heavens and a new earth, and all that is wrong here, and we all know that it's wrong here because we've contributed to that wrong, and we've experienced it firsthand, that all of that is going away, and we'll never recall it to mind, all because Christ went toe -to -toe with death, let death swallow him whole, and yet he came bursting from the tomb, breaking the teeth of death so that we have nothing to fear from it.

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He is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.

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