Sermon for the Feast of the Resurrection
Not Just for Palm Sunday
Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!) Grace, mercy and peace to you
from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. In today’s Epistle
from 1 Corinthians, St. Paul declares to you and to your family and your fellow
Christians around you, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the
law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ.”
Dear Christian friends,
Listen to a portion of last week’s Palm Sunday Gospel, from St. John chapter 12:
The large crowd that had come to the [Passover] feast heard that Jesus was
coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet
Him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,
even the King of Israel!” (John 12:12-13)
It was no accident that John included this detail that palm branches
were used to pave the way for the coming King. St. Luke only speaks about how
people spread their garments on the road, and while Sts. Matthew and Mark
mention branches, neither man takes pains to say what sort of branches they
were (Matthew 21:8, Mark 11:8). John is very particular. John says, “They took
branches of palm trees and went out to meet [Jesus].” It is because of John
that the Church has named the Sunday before Holy Week “Palm Sunday.” It is also
because of John that many Christian artists depict our Lord’s triumphal entry
into Jerusalem with large palm branches in the hands of the people in the crowd.
There can hardly have been a better image for the people to have used
in greeting their king. The crowd outside of Jerusalem may or may not have
understood the significance of the palm branches they were laying before Jesus,
but the point was by no means lost on St. John! The ancients believed that a
palm tree could hardly be broken. Among the Greeks, both the philosopher
Aristotle and the historian Plutarch were of the opinion that, the more weight
you place on a palm tree, the more strenuously the tree will rise up underneath
it. In much the same way, your Lord Jesus Christ came into Jerusalem on Palm
Sunday. He did not merely come in the midst of many palms, but He came in order
to be a Palm, as it were. Weighted with your sins, my sins, and the sins of the
entire world, your Lord Jesus bowed His head into death and leaned over into
the grave. But the ancients believed that, the more weight you put on a palm
tree, the more strenuously it rises up
under the load. Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!) The weight
of the world’s sin was not too great for Him, but having defeated death and
sin, Christ our Lord rose up from the grave.
The Greeks were not alone in attaching importance to palm trees. Long
before Aristotle and Plutarch, King Solomon built a magnificent temple in
Jerusalem. One of the chief decorations inside the temple? Palms. The inner
sanctuary—the place where God Himself dwelled upon the ark of the covenant—the
inner sanctuary was decorated round about with palm branches cast in gold (1
Kings 6:29). On the folding doors that gave entry to the inner sanctuary,
Solomon carved “cherubim and palm trees and opened flowers” (1 Kings 6:35;
compare Ezekiel’s vision of the new temple in Ezekiel 40:16, 41:18-24). These
palms were not merely a design scheme or an artistic motif. These palms,
evergreen in their beauty, depicted the eternal presence of God among the
people.
In the same way, our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, came
and made His dwelling among us. You might go so far as to say that Christ’s
human body is the temple of God among us (Hebrews 10:19-22). In His great love
and compassion for us, God’s Son set His eternity aside by dying on a cross. He
momentarily give up His eternity so that He might give that same eternity to
us. Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!) Because He is risen, you
also shall rise. The one and only thing that once caused your death is sin—but
now your sin has been forgiven and your death has been destroyed.
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to
God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the same way that St. John was deliberate to say that the people
used palm branches in particular to welcome Jesus, so St. Paul is also
deliberate today when he states in today’s Epistle, “God… gives us the
victory.” Paul used this word in such a way as to emphasize for you the
complete certainly you have in the victory Christ has won for you over sin and
death. Christ did not merely make victory possible for you; Christ did much
more than give you an advantage over sin and death. Christ GIVES you His
resurrection victory in the same way that I might give you a piece of paper or
a glass of water. In Baptism, in Holy Communion, and in the preaching of the
Word, your resurrected Lord Jesus now places His victory into your hands,
making it yours forever. You might even say that Christ’s resurrection victory
is like a palm branch that you yourself now hold in your hand.
I wonder if it might be a good thing for Christians to use palm
branches, not only on Palm Sunday, but also during the funerals of those whom
they love who have died in the faith. What I mean is this: we have a beautiful
white pall that covers the casket during the funeral, reminding the bereaved
family and all the other worshippers that this person was clothed in Christ by
the water of Holy Baptism. But the pall is for the funeral service only, and
not for the visitation and viewing of the body. Flowers, of course, also
symbolize the resurrection of the dead—but flowers are used also to decorate
the caskets of unbelievers. What about palm branches placed into the hands of
those whom we lay to rest—or even just a single palm frond, pulled from the
larger branch? Even at the visitation, a palm branch in the hands of our
Christian dead would be a visual reminder of what St. Paul declares here today:
“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin
is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ”—victory to hold in our hands in life and in death, as we would
hold a palm branch.
By placing palm branches into the hands of those who have died in the faith, we
will also be depicting how this fellow saint of ours will look when he or she
gathers before the throne of God in eternal life. Why do I say this? Because
St. John takes pains to describe palm branches in people’s hands, not only in
his Gospel account of our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem, but also in his Book of
Revelation. In Revelation, John uses palm branches to symbolize the
resurrection victory that God has given to you “through Jesus Christ our Lord,”
which victory you now hold in your hands. Listen to what John has written
concerning your own victory over death and the grave:
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number,
from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before
the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in
their hands (Revelation 7:9).
Here is the point: The very same palm branches that greeted our Lord’s
suffering and death will likewise greet your resurrection and eternal life.
These palm branches will likewise greet your loved ones’ entry into eternal
life. The victory that your Christ won over death and the grave has been handed
to you, so that you also shall rise victorious. Christ is risen! (He is risen,
indeed! Alleluia!) He has risen and He has given you His victory to hold in
your hands. For this reason, the words of the ancient psalm shall not fail to
be fulfilled for you and in you:
The righteous flourish like the palm tree… They are planted in the house of the
Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God (Psalm 92:12-13)
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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