I’m a Lutheran, so I can’t help it.

I have to ask, as did Brother Martin, “what does this mean?”

We over-think, we over-complicate what Easter is all about, Charlie Brown. Does the simple answer suffice? As a preacher, I struggle for something new to say in my Easter sermon every year. It’s a story that takes us in, literally. The feast that has no end, the messianic banquet, is where we take in Christ’s body and blood. We have a share in him. There are many metaphorical side roads to take with that. In a church like ours, Easter is a season that is full of the meaning as we hear of the extraordinary appearances of a man who is also truly God.

Because Jesus is truly Son of God AND Son of Man, he brings both identities into our midst. Ghostly apparitions that you can touch?!?? I mean, come on!! Jesus is and was experienced live, in the flesh, and dwells in our hearts if we accept his truth. It doesn’t “march on” in a quaint, historical sense.

Jesus lives, and he is Lord.

The world is and was forever changed, so much so that we refer to these past two millennia as “the end of the age”. This understanding keeps us from any pretense of claiming that we can deduce when Christ will return. If the doomsday fanatic who paid me a visit in my office on the day of the solar eclipse can be believed, the seven years of tribulation have now begun. 

Back to the main point, being how Jesus is one of us and yet other than us. 100% divine, 100% human. He is a God-man of the past and the future, revealed in His resurrection and rising. It will be likewise with us. Our loved ones who have died remain in our hearts and memories, sometimes vividly and tangibly so. They are gone, until Christ comes again. Both the longing for Jesus and the expectation of seeing him again are real. Dead is dead, but Jesus gave his disciples the “sneak peek” of what will be a forever reality. Goodbyes through death are final – for now! Only an unconditional love that is also omnipresent can give us a heart of resurrection.

          Pastor Art