Resurrection Remembrance

Jesu Juva

Luke 24:1-12                                                     

April 20, 2025

Easter C                             

Dear saints of our Savior~

Alleluia!  Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

        Easter is always overwhelming in the very best sense—what with the brass, the choirs, the alleluias, the lilies, the praise, the celebration of Christ’s victory.  There’s a lot going on—and rightly so.  But the angels of Easter—they invite us to do one, simple thing:  Remember.

        That first Easter morning was a swirl of activity and emotion. Tearful women come to the tomb with spices, only to find the stone rolled away and the body of Jesus missing.  They then see and hear angels who declare that Jesus is alive.  At first, the women are perplexed and frightened.   

        But then something happens that changes everything.  Amidst all the chaos, the angels invite those women to do one blessed thing:  Remember.  Remember how he told you that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.  Prompted by the angels, the women did what they were told:  They remembered His words.  And remembering the words of Jesus, nothing would ever be the same again.

        On Easter morning God sent angels to help His people remember.  And today through His Word He helps us to remember as well.  God has made the empty tomb a place of remembrance for us so that we might know resurrection joy.

        You know the power of remembering.  Memories can either transport us into the past; or they can root us more firmly in the present.  That’s the power of remembering. Remembering can change our lives in two ways. 

        On the one hand, remembering can take us away from our present and lead us into a world that is past.  Think of the remembering that happens at a funeral visitation.  Family members and friends gather together and, inevitably, someone simply begins to remember all the special, quirky, ways the departed touched the lives of so many. One anecdote leads to another.  And soon, these mourners are transported from the sadness of the present to another place.  Such is the power of remembering. 

        And then there’s the remembering that doesn’t take you away from the present, but brings you more fully into the here and now.  A soldier remembers his basic training—all the drills, all the training, all those exercises.  But those memories don’t take him back to the past; they bring him more fully into the present, giving him confidence and clarity and courage to fight the battle at hand and secure the objective. 

        Two types of remembering, then:  that which takes you away from the present and that which brings you more fully into it.  Which kind of remembering happens at Easter? 

        For the women at the tomb, remembering Jesus’ words brought them more fully into the present.  Remembering the words of Jesus, they could begin to understand and make sense of the strange new world that surrounded them.  An empty tomb and dazzling angels now make sense.  They see that Jesus’ betrayal and crucifixion isn’t just a mistake or a tragic miscarriage of justice.  They remembered that Jesus said all these things must happen.

        Remembering Jesus’ words helps them see that this was the will of God to save all people and take away the punishment our sins deserve.  Now, the punishment is gone.  Divine vengeance is over.  An open, empty tomb gives a glimmering preview of heavenly joy.  Suddenly, life for these women takes on unbelievable significance; and as they leave the tomb they tell all that they have seen and heard. 

        Easter remembering—remembering Jesus’ words—always brings you more fully into the here and now.  But the world will tell you differently.  Our culture shakes its head at us Christians.  When we remember the resurrection, our culture acts as if we’ve lost touch with reality:  “A Savior rising from the dead?  A world filled with sin and angels and demons?  That’s a world with an old fashioned morality and answers to questions that people no longer ask,” they say. 

        But remembering the words of Jesus always shows us that God’s ways are not our ways.  His thoughts are not our thoughts.  He causes us to remember the resurrection not to pull us away from the present—not to enter a world of make-believe.  No, by remembering the resurrection, God sets us free to experience life today in all its fullness, and to understand things as they really are—knowing that this life isn’t all there is—that things are not as they seem.

        The Easter angels tell us:  If you want answers—if you want real life—remember His words.  And remember them not only at Easter, but throughout the year as Easter is celebrated every Sunday.  Remember the words He spoke and the promises He made.  Jesus has the words of eternal life.  “I am the resurrection and the life,” He says, “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”  “Because I live,” he says, “you shall live also.”  Those who trust in Jesus, who remember His words, they have the answers. 

        Have you ever wondered why Easter began with angels, and not with the Risen Christ Himself?  Why did God orchestrate Easter in such a way that God’s chosen could only hear about it at first, before actually seeing the living Lord?  God didn’t have to do it that way.  It could have been the risen Christ sitting in the tomb waiting for the women instead of angels.  But it wasn’t.  Why not?  So that those women—and all of us—would learn what it means to walk by faith and not by sight—so that we learn to trust and remember the words of Jesus, even when we can’t see Jesus in the flesh—to teach us to trust the Word of God and the messengers of God more than our own two eyes.

        Remembering the Words of Jesus changes everything.  Remembering the resurrection in the past re-shapes the present. Here’s an example from today’s text:  The subject of Luke’s Easter account is the pronoun “they.”  They went to the tomb.  Who is “they?”  We aren’t told the women’s names at the beginning—where you might expect it—but only after those women remembered His words.  Only then does Luke tell us, “Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them . . .” 

        Luke stops—in the middle of the account—to give us their names, because remembering the words of Jesus has transformed these women into something new.  They have now become witnesses to the wonders of God.  God has given their lives meaning and relevance by the power of the resurrection.  They remembered the words of Jesus, and in their remembering they were transformed from fear-filled mourners to living witnesses of death’s demise.

        The same thing happens here this morning.  Right in the middle of your busy, crazy, fearful life, God stops everything.  He sets aside your sin.  And He gives you His words to remember.  And in the remembering of those words—by the power of the resurrection—your life becomes crowned with relevance in the here and now.  You become a resurrection witness.  Your daily “to do” list is now much more than stuff you’ve gotta get done.  Now that list is populated with good works that glorify God and bear witness to God’s Son who was dead—but who now lives and reigns forever.  The tiniest corners of your life are now replete with relevance—the dinnertime conversation, the trip to Trader Joe’s, time in the classroom and on the job—it’s all been reshaped and repurposed by the remembered words of God.  And now, through you, God works the wonders of His love in this world—as you remember His words. 

        Today we remember.  We remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  In Him, your sins are forgiven.  By Him, you have a whole new life.  With Him, your life is destined for resurrection.  And remembering that, we can only say:  Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed.  Alleluia!   Amen.