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In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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

            That’s not what the women were thinking when they got up early on that first day of the week, after the Sabbath was over. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. They went to look at it. We know from the other Gospels that they brought ointments and spices for Jesus’ dead body. So they went to look at a grave the same way that any of us might look at the grave of someone who has died. They went to see Jesus’ grave.

            But while they’re on their way, or maybe as they’re arriving, an angel descends from heaven, rolls away the stone that was in front of the grave, and sits on it, to laugh at death and a stone and some guards. And when he does that, the guards are so afraid, they become like dead men. Which is a little ironic at the grave of someone who was dead, but now is alive. So afraid, they fall down as if dead. But the angel says to the women, “Not you! You, do not be afraid. I know you’re looking for Jesus, who was crucified. You came to see the grave, but now see this—which is, at first, not something, but nothing. See this empty space where there used to be a dead body. He is not here, because He is risen from the dead. Go tell His disciples that He is risen, and that He will go ahead of them into Galilee, and they will see Him there.” But when they go, in fear and great joy, they do see Jesus. They fall on His feet and worship Him. And He tells them the same thing: Go tell My brothers to go to Galilee and there they will see Me.

            The women went to see a grave and a dead body, but instead they saw an empty place and a risen Jesus. The disciples did go to Galilee and they saw Jesus. But what are we here to see? We are not in Jerusalem to see an empty tomb. We do not see guards or the empty place, or the angel sitting on the big grave-stone. We do not see Jesus in Galilee with the disciples. We haven’t seen Jesus at all, not in that way. We sometimes think that if we could just see Jesus, then we and everyone else would believe. And Thomas said something similar: I will never believe unless I put my hands on the actual wounds in the flesh of the risen Jesus. But those women went from the tomb in fear and joy. The disciples on the mountain in Galilee worshiped, but some wavered. No, believing isn’t in the seeing. Seeing is in the believing.

            But what do we see? If we’re honest, all we see is death. Even on Easter Sunday, even with alleluias. When the women went to the tomb, they saw it empty, with an empty space where Jesus’ body had been. But we can go to as many graves as we want, and they are all still full of bodies, or bones, or the dust that is left over from dead humans. What do we see, except death? The thing we want to see, life, is hidden from us. That’s why Easter never feels quite as real as Good Friday. All the things we say today never hit quite right. Life is hidden. But, of course, everything depends on where life is hidden. Everything depends on where your life is hidden. Most people think it’s hidden in themselves: if they just live up to their potential, or they just live a full life, do all the things they want to do, all the things on their bucket list—which is to say, before they kick the bucket. Maybe they think it’s hidden in the things they do, and if they do enough things, or do them well enough, or accomplish them, they will make visible their hidden life. Or maybe it’s hidden somewhere in the world: you just have to go find it, go get it, grab life by the horns!

            But whatever you find in all those places, in yourself, in your actions, in the world, if that’s your life, it will never last. It will hardly last at all, but certainly it will not last beyond death. You may find good things, even good things of God—and everything is a gift of God—but to try to hang on to those things, keep them, find your life in them, means that you will lose your life. Jesus says that as certainly as He says anything else. Everything depends on where your life is hidden, and if it’s hidden in yourself, your work, or the world, you will lose it. Your body, your actions, this world, it’s all passing away. It’s like all those things that you’ve lost. I sometimes think of things I haven’t seen in a while, things I like, or would like to use. And maybe I go looking for them, but most of them are gone. It still happens to me that I sometimes can see something in its place—until I realize that place is at a previous house. We never find so many of those hidden things.

            Paul, also, says your life is hidden. But it’s not hidden in you, or what you can do, or in the world, where you have to go get it, find it, make it happen. Your life is hidden in Christ. And that is the only safe place for it. That is the only place where you cannot lose it, where it cannot be taken from you, where it cannot die. In fact, the good news is that you have already died. You died with Christ when He joined you to His death in baptism. And if you have been joined to Him in a death like His, then you will certainly—certainly, without even the shadow of a doubt—be joined to Him in a resurrection like His. Everything depends on where your life is hidden. If it’s hidden in Christ, who has been raised from the dead and cannot die anymore, then your life cannot die either. In fact, now, there is no separation between your life and Christ: when Christ, your life, appears—when you see Him, as really and physically as the women or the apostles saw Him—when He appears, then you will be appear with Him in glory. Then you will see your life, which cannot die. Then what is hidden will be revealed. And then you will see both Jesus and yourself as He and you really are.

            That is why the angel is sitting on the rock. That is why he says to the women, “You! You do not be afraid! He is risen from the dead!” And He’s gone ahead of you into life, and when that life appears, when He appears, there you will see Him. But the one you will see, the one in whom your life is hidden, He is not keeping that life from you just because you cannot see it. He has it for you here, where He has promised to be. Because—it should be obvious—if Jesus’ words of forgiveness are here, then He must be here. Even more, if His body and blood are here, He cannot be far away somewhere else. He who is life is where His body and blood are, and eating that body and blood means that you have life here and now. It may be hidden, but it is more real than you know. In fact, as Paul says elsewhere, the invisible things are more real, more eternal, than the things we can see. Everything we see right now is passing away. Even death is passing away, because Jesus has destroyed it in His body, and He will destroy it forever on the day when He appears. But everything that is hidden in Jesus—the resurrection, the new creation, the life everlasting—those are the eternal things, and they never pass away. Do not be afraid. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. But you will see Him.

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

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 4/3/26