April 5, 2026 — Pastor Christopher Warneke
Text: Matthew 28:1–10
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.
It is a great joy to preach the resurrection to you this Easter morning. But before we get into the joy of Easter morning, I want us to again imagine the sorrow of Good Friday. Imagine the sorrow of Holy Saturday again. Everything that Christ’s ministry had been leading up to seemed to have been put to an end for the disciples. Their Lord was dead and placed in the tomb. It seemed like His ministry at this time was over.
And furthermore, what was going to happen to them? Was the same thing going to happen to them? Would they be put to death as well? What is going to happen to me in the future? I do not know. To the disciples, it seemed like there was great reason to fear at this point.
Imagine then the initial feeling on Easter Sunday morning when, as we heard from our Gospel reading from Matthew chapter 28, the women go to the tomb and see the empty tomb and the angel. There’s a lot of great excitement at this point. Could it be that He has risen from the dead?
At the same time, there’s a lot of fear wrapped up in all of this. There’s the dazzling experience of what is going on, and there’s a little bit of fear that comes with that as well. There’s also a little bit of fear that comes from the feeling that all of this is too much for me, all of this is too great for me.
When the angel comes down and rolls away the stone and sits on the stone, I can’t be in the presence of this holy angel. You see how the guards fell down like dead men when they were in the presence of the angel.
We see this feeling all throughout Scripture. At the beginning of the book of Isaiah, when Isaiah is brought up into the throne room of heaven and says, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” He can’t stand in the presence of God because he is a sinner. We see this feeling in the book of Revelation, where John sees the risen and exalted Christ right before his very eyes, and he too falls down like one dead and is terrified.
It is terrifying for us sometimes when we see the beautiful majesty of our Lord because it feels like it’s too much for us as sinful humans.
But then, in that moment, when they are in the presence of that holy angel, the holy messenger of God, when they fear, what does the angel say to those women?
“Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. For I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for He has risen as He said.”
And then later, what did Jesus say to the women?
“Do not be afraid.”
There’s so much packed into that little statement, “Do not be afraid.”
You don’t need to be afraid that your Lord is dead. He is risen. He is victorious.
You don’t need to be afraid to be in the presence of the holy God or to be in the presence of the holy angel, because your sins have been forgiven. That’s what happens to Isaiah, too, at the beginning of the book of Isaiah. He gets the coal pressed to his mouth, and it says that his sins are forgiven and atoned for, so he can be in the presence of God.
The angel announces the same thing to those women, to the disciples, and to you as well—that your sins are forgiven and atoned for by the blood of Christ. So you can be in Jesus’ presence. You can be in the presence of a holy God.
Do not fear.
And then also, you have no need to fear whatever’s going to happen in the future. Whatever this life may bring, wherever God will take you in the coming years, you do not need to fear because He is living, He is reigning, and He has all things under control.
And furthermore, He has promised you resurrection and life. He has promised you life from death. So no matter what you face, even if it’s death itself, you have heaven. You have the resurrection of the dead. And no one and no thing can take that away from you.
And that’s what St. Paul was telling us in our epistle reading from Colossians chapter 3:
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
Because, dear Christians, as we all know, it’s so easy to get fixated on just the things of this earth, just the worries of this earth. It’s so easy to forget that Christ is living and that Christ is reigning. So easy to fixate on these things and forget about the things that are above.
So this Easter, and in the days to come, set your mind on the resurrection, not the fear of this world.
That’s the message that we have for you this Easter day. In this Easter day and in the days to come, the years to come, set your mind on the resurrection, not on the fear of this world.
Because the resurrection of Christ on that Easter day changes everything. It changes everything for your life, it changes everything for the entire world, because all of God’s promises have been fulfilled on that morning when Christ came forth from the tomb.
He is risen just as He promised. He is risen and has crushed death under His feet and conquered Satan, just as God promised from the beginning in Genesis 3:15, when He said that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head.
All of God’s promises throughout the Old Testament—that He would send His Son to redeem the world—are proven true in the resurrection of the dead. It truly changes everything.
When Jesus says, “It is finished” on the cross, it is true. Your debt has been paid for. Your sin has been atoned for. He has taken on the full wrath of God and paid it all. It is finished.
And then on Easter morning, He crushes death under His feet forever.
Therefore, you know that all of God’s promises to you are true because of Christ’s resurrection.
As St. Paul says to us in Ephesians 1:7, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.”
As Jesus Himself said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
As St. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4:14, “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep.”
All of God’s promises are fulfilled in Christ.
And these promises are true and sure, even when it seems like what’s going on right in front of your eyes doesn’t reflect those good and gracious promises of God.
Go back to Good Friday and Holy Saturday for a moment and put yourself in the mind of the disciples. They had sorrow. They had despair. What they saw in front of their very eyes was that their Lord was dead, and the movement seemed to be over.
But they too had received the promise of the resurrection from Jesus Himself. He said in Luke 9:22, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
They had the promise.
But at that moment, when all they could see was their Lord dead, when all they could see was Him placed in the tomb, they had despair. They fixated on that and forgot the promise.
But He is risen just as He said.
So that means you have the assurance that everything that He has promised, everything that He has said, is sure to come true.
And in a certain way, we live in a Holy Saturday of sorts.
We live after the resurrection, where we know that the promise of the resurrection of Christ has been fulfilled. But we live before the time when Christ will come again and raise our bodies.
So we live in that in-between time.
We might say: I haven’t seen with my own eyes the resurrection of my loved ones. I haven’t seen with my own eyes the resurrection of my body. I haven’t yet received the healing of my body.
And in that time, we might despair. We might ask, “Is it really all going to happen? Will it really all be just as He said?”
And in those times, we might fear.
But in those moments, we must remember: Christ is risen just as He said.
So since He is risen just as He said, He will come again just as He said, and you will rise with Him just as He said.
That’s what it means in this life to set your mind on the resurrection.
Jesus says, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
So set your mind on your living, victorious King, who has everything under control, who has you in His arms, and who will deliver you through it.
Even if it doesn’t seem like it right now—even if you go to your grave—He will raise you up on the last day and restore all things to you in the kingdom of heaven, which no one and no thing can ever take away from you.
When in this world you are ridden with guilt, set your mind on His forgiveness. When you face the trials of this world, set your mind on the resurrection.
And in all things and at all times, remember that Christ lives in you and His Spirit dwells within you.
As St. Paul says in Romans 8:11:
“If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”
Did you catch that?
The Spirit of Christ who raised Him from the dead now dwells in you.
He gives you life now.
And He will give you life on the last day.
Christ is risen.
Do not be afraid.
You do not need to fear death.
You do not need to fear the future.
You do not need to fear that your sin will not be forgiven.
Because Christ is living. He is reigning. He has all things under control. And He has promised you resurrection and life.
So this Easter day, and in the days to come, the years to come, set your mind on the resurrection—not on the fear of this world.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Amen.
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