Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed. Alleluia!)
From the womb to the tomb.
That’s a phrase that has been bantied about in recent times, especially in our country.
Some see it as the way our government has intruded into our lives, controlling them from womb to tomb.
Others see it as how our government takes care of us, from whom to tomb.
At least one insurance company uses it as their advertising slogan. They will take care of all of your needs, from whom to tomb.
In other words, there are a lot of people, agencies, companies and even governments that promise to take care of us from the minute we are born to the moment of our death.
This morning, I would like to look at that phrase in a somewhat different perspective.
109 days ago, on the evening of Dec. 24th, we sat here in this little congregation, some of us in the very same seats, and we sang songs of glory and praise and adoration in remembrance of a tiny little baby whose birth we were celebrating that night.
We heard a very familiar story that evening about two people, Joseph and his young wife Mary, who had traveled from their home in Nazareth to the City of David, which was known as Bethlehem. That night, we heard about a miraculous birth. Miraculous in many ways.
Miraculous because Mary was still a virgin. The child she had conceived was not from the seed of Joseph or of any other man. The child she was to have that night was a gift from God.
And this was the true miracle of that night. That God, our Creator, the Creator of all the heavens and the earth, came down from heaven and became a man. He took on human form, not in some supernatural fashion by just appearing as a grown man, or perhaps, as God is often portrayed, as an elderly grandfatherly type. He came in the form of a baby. Helpless, and, in this case, totally innocent.
Over the course of the past 15 weeks, we have followed the life of this babe of Bethlehem as he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.
We celebrated Epiphany, where, we can see so clearly with our twenty-twenty hindsight, given to us through the writings of the Apostles, that Jesus showed himself to be the promised one from God.
We witnessed Magi from the East come and worship this young child as the King of the Jews.
We heard how the little boy Jesus had astounded those in the Temple with his understanding and answers.
We were privileged to hear again how he had gone to the banks of the River Jordan to be in the company of his cousin John.
We heard how John was reluctant to baptize Jesus because, through the power of the Spirit, John knew who Jesus was.
He said to Jesus: "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness."
My friends, that is what we have been hearing and talking and rejoicing in for these past weeks. Fulfillment.
You can’t really understand the Resurrection if you first don’t understand God. Who He is and why all of this – the birth of Jesus, his baptism, his temptation, his calling of disciples, his teaching and preaching to the multitudes, his many miracles, his very suffering and his death – why all of this HAD to happen.
God, our Father, is holy.
Holy is a word that we Christians like to throw around a lot. We speak of being holy, of acting holy – sometimes we are accused of, or accuse others of being “holier that thou.”
I teach the Confirmands and those who go through instruction class that one of the attributes of God is that he is Holy.
But what does holy really mean? Perhaps I should take this mic and ask a few of you what you think it means to be holy.
Well, here’s the definition, and quite a good one, from Webster’s. To be holy is to be: exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness.
Here’s how God is described in scripture:
Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.
Psalm 18:30 As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless.
I tell you this, because, as the Creator, when God spoke the words; “Let there be…” and there was, there were no imperfections.
Everything God created was perfect. Adam didn’t have and diseases. He didn’t have acne or warts. No hardening of the arteries. And Eve…she was perfect too.
God had created the perfect world. On that perfect world he planted the perfect Garden, and in that perfect garden he placed perfect animals and all other living things, including man and woman.
There, they lived in harmony with God and with His creation. There was no pain, there was no death.
There was, however, one rule, one Law, if you will. God had placed two very special trees in the middle of the garden. One was the tree of life and the other was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Adam was instructed by God that he could eat of any tree, including the tree of life, because that is what God truly desires for all of His creatures, life, but he was not to eat from the other tree.
Theologians and philosophers have debated for eons, it seems, why God would do that. Why wouldn’t God want man (and woman) to have perfect knowledge?
I think the simplest answer I can give you, and I know that it won’t satisfy all of you, is that God is the Creator and we are the creatures.
God does not want us becoming independent moral arbiters, deciding through our logic what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. That is an attribute that God, He who is all-knowing, all-seeing, ever present, faithful, just, merciful, eternal, unchanging, good, and gracious reserves for Himself.
He will be our judge.
Well, as you all know, the “experiment” didn’t work out too well.
Man (and woman) decided that it would be a lot more fun to be “god” than to live in perfection. I know, we all sit here and say, “How dumb could they be?”, but we all would have done the same thing.
Huh unh, some of you might be thinking. But look around. Better yet, look in the mirror. How good a job have you done at being perfect in the eyes of God?
And now, I can hear the rationalization starting. “But they only had one rule and look at all that we have to follow.”
And that’s true. God did give His people Ten Commandments to follow after rescuing them from 430 years of slavery in Egypt. He told them that they should follow His commandments and He made them this promise: I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.
But oh, those Ten Commandments. We like to call them the LAW because LAW’s are hard to follow, like driving 55, or not cheating on your tax returns, but we also know that EVERYBODY breaks them.
The difference is, there are man-made laws and then there are God’s Commandments.
Do you remember them?
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother.
Do not kill.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not bear false witness.
Do not covet – anything. Don’t be greedy, don’t be envious, don’t be jealous.
Jesus, during his ministry narrowed it all down to two basics. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: `Love your neighbor as yourself.’
And then good old Martin Luther came along and gave us explanations to the commandments and we learned that not only do they mean we aren’t supposed to do those things, but there’s also stuff implied that we should do.
Stuff like help and befriend our neighbor in every bodily need and help our neighbor to improve and protect his property and business, and here’s a good one, instead of defaming our neighbor, we are to put the best possible construction on everything and speak well of him.
Adam and Eve didn’t do a very good job when it came to obeying God. The Israelites, the descendents of Abraham and Sarah, God’s chosen people, they didn’t do a very good job either. And then there’s us.
We haven’t done such a good job either in fulfilling the LAW’s and Commandments of God.
And God did say that there would be a punishment for not obeying. He told Adam in the Garden…you know that silly snake tried to say it wasn’t so….but God did say that if you break my commandment, you will surely die.
My friends, God demands perfection. Jesus confirmed that when he was on this earth. He said in his sermon on the mount: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
I was reading through some of the “advertisements” for Easter celebrations at local churches yesterday. One promised great entertainment both before, during and after the service. Another said “fun for the whole family.” The one that really caught my attention however, was the one that said, “It’s all about you!”
If it were up to me, at this point I would have to throw my hands up in the air and say, “I give up.”
I can’t do it. I’ve tried. God knows how I’ve tried. But I can’t. And I’m afraid of dying.
That’s why we’ve learned about all those various aspects of Jesus’ life over the last few weeks. It’s why we hear them over and over again, year after year.
Because Jesus did what Adam and Eve could not do. He accomplished what the “children of God” could not do. He did what we can not do. He fulfilled all the requirements that God laid down. He lived the perfect life that we can only dream of.
He truly did, as the psalmist wrote:
I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.
Your statutes are my delight; they are my counselors.
I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your statutes.
Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart.
Your statutes are wonderful; therefore I obey them.
I obey your statutes, for I love them greatly.
This was the life of our Lord. A life lived in servitude to His Father. Living his life according to the will of God.
But, according to God’s plan, Jesus carried it one step further than just obeying the will of the Father.
He became the sacrifice that God demanded. He took on the wrath that God had promised.
Not just the wrath of scouring and insults. Not just the degrading punishment of being hung on a cross. Not just a crown of thorns being placed on his head.
He took on the death that God demanded of those who do not follow His decrees. He became sin for us and suffered the death that we so richly deserved.
That is what Jesus did to fulfill what God demanded. That is what we witnessed on Friday night.
In the past 109 days we have seen Jesus fulfill the prophesies of birth, life, suffering and death.
We have witnessed how Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
But what about today.
If the past weeks have been about fulfillment, today is about Promise.
Today my friends we celebrate the Promise of a new life.
We celebrate the fact that Jesus overcame the death that God had demanded.
God raised Jesus from the dead and gave His stamp of approval for the sacrifice he had given.
He proclaimed with the resurrection that when Jesus cried “It is finished!”, IT WAS FINISHED.
Death has not dominion over us. We can echo the cries of Paul:
"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"
You see my friends, for us it is not a “womb to tomb” covenant with God.
We have been promised that because of Christ’s victory over the grave we too shall rise and have everlasting life with God in His heaven.
Because of the sacrifice of Jesus, we have been made perfect in the eyes of our Creator.
It’s not just about the here and now. It’s about eternity.
Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians: If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.”
For that and to that we say, Alleluia and Amen!
