[Sermon Archive]

This Week's Sermon THE GREAT VIGIL OF EASTER 11 April 2009 "Jesus' Resurrection Promises Our Own Resurrection to Life" LSB Series B Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

"And I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church,
I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins,
and I look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life + of the world to come."

Thus we confess our faith in the Nicene Creed. That segment of the confession is all one sentence. In the holy Christian and apostolic Church there is Holy Baptism which forgives all sins because it is connected to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The one baptized is baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ [Romans 6.1-4]. The death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ always go together, just as our Lord Jesus had foretold on three separate occasions in the Holy Gospels [Matthew 16.21; 17.22; 20.18-19].

You have been baptized for the forgiveness of your sins because Christ died in your place. He carried your sins in his body to the tree of the cross where he offered up an eternal sacrifice for them so that nothing more need be paid nor can be paid. And when he had taken his Sabbath rest in the tomb, he rose from the dead as the proof that the Father in heaven accepted his sacrifice for your sin and for the sin of the whole world. His resurrection is the seal and guarantee that his atonement is eternally effective for you and for all sinners.

Your Baptism connects you to this same Jesus who died and rose. Tonight we celebrate a living Savior, not a dead martyr. Tonight we celebrate the death of death because Jesus conquered sin, death, and hell itself. Tonight we celebrate that the old evil foe has been defeated-for us!

Our Lord Jesus arose in the same flesh he assumed when he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary. He was not ashamed to call us brothers. In this human flesh our Lord Jesus arose from the dead. He brings back the wounds, takes on again the holes from the nails and bears witness by this body that he lives. He did not despise this flesh but glorified it by his rising from the dead. Therefore, my friends, be sure that when you rise from the dead it will be in your own body, just as Job confessed centuries beforehand:

"For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another." (Job 19:25-27, ESV)

Your Baptism into the life of Christ is the pledge of your resurrection. Your baptism is the promise of the life of heaven. It is the guarantee that you belong to Christ, and if you belong to him by grace then you have forgiveness of sins and eternal life.