April 4, 2021
To join the online Easter celebration please join us at 9 am or after at: stmarkknox.org/sermons
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. – 1 Corinthians 15:56-57
Christ is risen! and the great news of the day, is that the fear of death is cancelled by the hope of the resurrection. We live in a society that seems to want to cancel many things these day, but today’s victory is one where celebrating. Death is cancelled, the grave is overcome, For those who call on the name of Christ Jesus, we have seen, believed ,and received the victory by his cancelling of our debt to sin.
If you ever have the chance, you should visit Christ Church in Philadelphia. There, you have the opportunity to be in the place where many of the founding fathers of our nation once sat. Christ Church is a short distance of Independence Hall, and in the cemetery around a block away from Christ church, you will discover the tomb of Benjamin Franklin. On Franklin’s tombstone is a self-composed epitaph, he had written and requested be engraved over his body. The epitaph reads:
The body of Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book its content torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding lies here food for worms. But the work will not be lost for it will appear once more in a new and more elegant edition revised and corrected by the author.
Franklin, before his death understood the truth that awaited, for those who are in Christ, they will rise again, revised, perfected by the creator. For those who live in Christ, they echo the questions of Paul and the psalmists before him: “Where, death is your victory? Where, death, is your sting?”
What follows in Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians is a great truth about the resurrection. He give evidence, talks of its importance the sequence of it, and the value of it; and then speaks the glorious praise in response to the resurrection. The response that we should all have when we understand this truth. In that moment of understanding we join the celestial symphony in praise and adoration to Jesus Christ, Victor over death! Hallelujah!
If there is something this past year has taught us, from our time away from one another, from our unfortunate focus on death, we should understand that great celebration of Easter all the more, for today, we remember that death did not win. Christ is risen, and with him we are risen indeed to a life abundant and eternal. Praise be to God for our victory in Christ!
Grace & Peace,
Sam