Sermon -- Easter Dawn (March 31, 2024)

GENESIS 1:1 – 2:3

MEDITATION ON THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD:

A NEW CREATION.

In the name + of Jesus.

     “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).  The world that God created for mankind was flawless.  It was free from disease, from mental disorders, from natural disasters, from pestilence, and from scarcity.  God’s creation is evidence of his glory.  It was filled with beauty, and it supplied mankind with every need in variety and abundance.  God loved what he had created.  He blessed it.  And he created for mankind so that we would benefit from God’s abundant goodness.

     God never stopped loving his creation.  Even when sin entered the world and brought its curse on the creation, God still loved his creation.  The world still has beauty and blessing.  Even though many places in this world are not inhabitable, such as deserts, swamps, and arctic tundra, we still plan vacations to go and visit these places because they display their own beauty and glory.

     God has not abandoned his creation, but it has been corrupted.  St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Romans 8:21-22).  Every natural disaster reflects the creation longing to be set free from its curse. 

     God so loved the world—not just the people in the world, but the whole creation.  God loves what he has created, and so he sent his only begotten Son to redeem it.  Jesus has come to bring forth a new creation.  On Easter Sunday, the new creation breaks forth.  

     Jesus has taken into himself the curse for sin.  That means every curse—the curse that mankind has earned and the curse that has fallen upon the world—every curse has been taken into Jesus.  On Good Friday Jesus bore the full weight of that curse.  Eternal torment was absorbed by the eternal Son of God.  Just before he died, Jesus declared that his work was complete: “It is finished” (John 19:30).  Just as God finished the work of his creation on the sixth day, so also Jesus finished his work of redeeming creation on the sixth day.

     And just as God rested on the seventh day, so Jesus took his Sabbath rest on the seventh day.  He rested in his tomb after finishing his work.

     But today is the eighth day—the day of the new creation.  Jesus has risen from the dead, and he is the firstfruits of the new creation.  Just as Jesus rose from the dead, so you too shall rise from your grave renewed, restored, and righteous.  You are already a new creation through your baptism.  Jesus Christ has transformed your heart and mind so that you delight in God’s word—both in confessing it and in living it.  What you strive for in weakness now you will do and be perfectly in the kingdom to come.

     When Jesus comes again, he will not only raise you from the grave to live in beauty and glory before him, but he will also restore creation to its perfection.  “According to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).  Eden will be restored, and God will dwell with his people in peace.

     Today is the eighth day, the day of a new creation.  Jesus Christ is risen, the firstfruits of the new creation.  The rest of the harvest will follow soon enough.  God’s people rejoice.  Heaven and nature sing.  God sees it, and behold, it is very good.

In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.