Christ is risen
He is risen indeed!
Slightly expanded version of the homily for Easter Day, 31st March 2024, in Uskedal Church in Kvinnherad, Norway.
Texts: Isaiah 52:7-10; Romans 14:7-9; Matthew 28:1-10. Unless otherwise noted, I use the New Revised Standard Version of Scripture (NRSV).
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The empty tomb is everything. St. Paul puts it this way, in Romans 4:23-25: “Now the words, ‘it was reckoned to him’, were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.” Because the resurrection of Christ changed everything. In Him, and by His works, we are made righteous. We preach, proclaim, that God came to us in Jesus Christ. We call this ‘the gospel,’ good news. And it is Christ who is the gospel. He is good news for you, for me, for us all. As the apostle Peter says in 1Pet 1:3, a verse I quote at every funeral, baptism, wedding and confirmation: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead!” But why did Jesus have to come to us? Why did God have to become man?
Approximately a thousand years ago, in the years 1094-1098, Italian-British theologian and Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury wrote a work to answer this question. The work was titled Cur Deus Homo?, in English: “Why God Became a Man.” There he lays out a doctrine of atonement which deals with the fact that the relationship between God and man has been broken, and that this damage must be remedied.1 His point is not that God is very offended or that God is bloodthirsty, but that we have lost our contact with God, that our relationship is damaged. Furthermore, he emphasizes that God – who is unchanging and completely one with Himself – cannot turn a blind eye when bad or evil things happen. Evil must be expiated one way or another, the damage must be remedied – we must be reconciled to God.
God cannot just forgive, because the point is not that it is just one rule or another that has been broken, but that the relationship itself is damaged. It must be restored, and it must be done by a human being, since it is humans who have destroyed the relationship. Anselm says that when something wrong has been done, this can be atoned for in one of two ways, either by punishment of the guilty party or by satisfaction, given either by the guilty party or someone who represents him. But you do not atone for guilt by punishing the innocent representative. Anselm does not think that Jesus is punished as if He is the guilty one, but that He repairs the damage caused by sin, by living a life as a human being – in perfect obedience to God. Because sin does not concern something external, a rule, but something within us. Again, the problem is not just that something wrong has been done outwardly, but that our relation to God is damaged. And therefore, says Anselm, God had to become man, so that He himself could make amends for us, as one of us.
The gospel, which we proclaim this Easter, is that Christ is risen, and that this crucified and resurrected Saviour did all this for us, because we needed His help. Our calling as humans, created in God’s image, is to live in perfect love, to God and to our fellow human beings. In Matthew 22:34-40, we can read about this, where the Pharisees asked Christ which commandment in the law was the greatest. And Christ answered (vv.37-40):
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
And this is our calling, to live in love. And often it is also the case that our love for God is our for our fellow human beings. Martin Luther put it this way: “God does not need your good works, but your neighbour does.”2 We must love all, perfectly. As Jesus puts it, in Matthew 5:48: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This is the law, this is the deman, as we read in James 2:8-9: “You do well if you really fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.”
This is hard, for it accuses us. Because we do show partiality. We do not live perfect lives. But that is exactly where Christ comes in. This is not the last word, because we get help to get back on track. God became man in Christ to restore our lives, so that we can be conformed to God, conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). And Christ did that by living as a human being, in perfect love, to the point of death.
The point is not that Christ was actively punished by God, as if He were the guilty one, but that He took away our sins, as a doctor takes away an illness, but in this case by taking our illness upon himself.
So we must not look at Christ’s work as a purely legal transaction where a person is acquitted because someone else says that he can take his punishment. Salvation in the Bible is therefore not about punishment but restoration. It is more metaphysical, cosmic, than juridical.
God became man in Christ because in that way he could give the satisication, reparation, or atonement that was needed, by simply living the life we are called to and being obedient until death. Through a life of obedience, Christ gave Himself completely to God in thanksgiving, in worship, in praise. He gave what we could not give – and would not give. He lived a perfect life. The point was not that God is angry and demands death, and that Christ had to appease him, but that He had to go through all parts of the human experience, including death, in order to restore life and existence. Because what God requires is that one is perfect, in obedience and in love. But we do not always live up to the calling we have, to be conformed to God. But it is given us in Christ, freely. As St. Paul puts it, in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” And this he calls reconciliation, as we can read in vv.18-21:
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
We tend to think of reconciliation as something exclusively legal and we use the term in legislation. When we ask for forgiveness, we are asking for reconciliation. And all of this is central to the biblical use of the word. But the legal aspect is not the whole picture, nor the most important. The centre of reconciliation is that we, as creatures, become one with the one true God, by God Himself becoming man. Yesm he even took all we have on Himself, for our sakes. God “made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). It does not mean that Jesus was a sinner, but that He bore all our sin, voluntarily, and made amends for us.
Christ put an end to death and He rose to make this perfect, complete. Our focus must therefore first and foremost be there, on His resurrection. That is our guarantee of salvation. Christ has “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10). He has given us new, eternal, life, if we remain ‘in Christ,’ as St. Paul emphasises in Romans 8. Through Christ we can be renewed to stand before God, in thanks, in worship, in praise. We are given this in the means of grace, in baptism, in the preached word, in the Eucharist. And we grasp in through faith.
We have died with Christ in baptism, we have had our sins washed away, and we have risen from this bath of renewal to new life. This is the day when Christ lifted man up to God. We will be renewed one day, together with all of creation. Our perishable body will be clothed in imperishability, and our mortal body will be clothed in immortality (1 Corinthians 15:53-54).
Anselm has taught us that God became man to reconcile us to Himself and today we celebrate this reconciliation, that we have won because Christ won.
This is given us concretely in the Eucharist. When we receive the Eucharist, we really see Christ as the gift He is. Because in the Eucharist, Jesus nourishes us with Himself. We may, in thanks and worship, receive our crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus Christ so that He can strengthen us and hold us up in true faith, to eternal life. By His death He abolished death and by His resurrection He opened the way to God for us. That is what we call salvation. The gospel, the good news, is that no matter where we are in life, no matter how much wrong we have done, we can find forgiveness in Christ. He gave His life for us, He opened the way into heaven for us. It is this hope we keep going in the Church, day after day, in everything we do. And we can receive this, again and again. So please do, when you go to Mass. Receive the Eucharist. We do not need to perform or be ever so pious. We can only receive, because this is the grace of God, given to everyone.
Christians have celebrated Easter or the Paschal feast for almost 2000 years and we see this already in St Paul, who encourages us to celebrate the feast, linking it explicitly to the celebration of the Eucharist. He writes, in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8:
Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Christ has atoned for our sin, he has repaired the damage and given us new life, reconciled to God. And therefore we can look forward with joy and hope, that even if we die, we will still live forever. That is the gospel, that is good news. So let us celebrate the festival, let us celebrate the Paschal message, that God became man to live, die and rise again for you, for me, for the whole world. Our celebration, our thanksgiving and our praise, can never reach what God has done for us, but we must still continue, in the hope that death is not the end, that if we remain ‘in Christ,’ we will one day be raised to new life, in a new heaven and a new earth.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, who was, is, and will remain, one true God, world without end. Amen.
This is partly based on episode 27 (which must be taken with episode 26) of the Norwegian language podcast Ulest by Peder Solberg, William Grosås, and Tore Hjalmar Sævik.
See Rich Lusk, “The Logic of Luther” (Theopolis Institute, 17th May, 2016).
Indeed, He is risen. Amen