Easter Sunday
Colossians 3:1-4
April 5, 2026
Alleluia! Christ IS risen!
There has to be a resurrection – and because there has to be a resurrection, there also has to be a death. From your right to your left, we have death and we have resurrection. Both are necessary for our salvation, and we celebrate our Lord’s death and resurrection with zeal. One does not overshadow the other; one does not nullify the other. When we speak and preach of our Lord’s resurrection, it implies His crucifixion. When we speak and preach our Lord’s crucifixion, it implies His resurrection.
This must be, because otherwise we could not have died and rose again in Him. For we could not have been raised with Christ unless we also died with Christ. In part, this is what Jesus means when He says, “Take up your cross and follow.” A cross is more than an instrument of pain and suffering but of death. To take up our crosses means we die; we die to our old nature, our old selves, our old worldliness and love of worldly things. Paul writes in Romans 6 that we die in our baptisms, that we are buried with Christ Jesus by the washing with water and the Word. And because Christ rose again from His rest in the grave, we rise with Him and now live with minds and hearts set on the things of heaven.
We are hidden in Christ, wrapped up in His garments of righteousness. This is how God defeated the devil, and the devil’s defeat was the only option for the devil. It’s not as if there was a cosmic battle going on between God and Satan and the outcome of that battle was unknown or too close to tell. Satan was slated for defeat the moment he and his demons defied God and were thrown out of heaven onto the earth. There was no possibility, no chance, no secretive war plan or attack by which the devil would fool God or sneak past His ranks. In the end of the day, Satan has always been the Lord’s puppet, he just doesn’t want to believe it.
And since Christ Jesus defeated decisively Satan and his hordes, now Satan goes after God’s people, the church, using the same tactics he’s always used – false information, lies, deceit, false doctrine, subtle half-truths with the intent of damaging the church from the inside.
Great and convincing lies such as synergism where man cooperates with God to earn his salvation. Or double predestination where a sinister God decided, before creation, whom He would condemn. Or Sacramentarianism, where the words of Jesus who says, “This is my body, this is my blood” are changed to “this symbolizes my body and blood,” and the Word which says, “Baptism now saves you” is changed to “baptism doesn’t save you.”
Satan always comes to us with words and asks, “Did God really say…” and he divides the church with appeals to human reason and skepticism and reactionism – but not faith, never faith in the plain words of our Lord. Jesus comes, God comes with simple words, simple truth, simple teaching to which we are called to believe and trust despite what we see. To seek the things that are above means fundamentally that we seek what our Lord says and we abide in it, we trust it, we confess it. It’s why our Lord gave us His Word in written form, so that we have no reason to question or wonder what He says. We have this holy Scripture so that we know the will and mind of God – that will and mind which He has chosen to reveal – in a plain and simple way. If we didn’t have this heavenly Word, this written voice of God, what could we look to in our pursuit of His will? Our emotions, our reason, consensus, history, a pope or person who claims to speak for Christ? No, and if you think the church is divided now, imagine how divided it would be if we didn’t have this holy book, where every person believes his own thing or going his own way.
But we seek the things that are above by going first to the holy scripture. We learn the will and mind and heart of God – as much as He is willing to reveal – by opening this book and reading, or by sitting in these pews and listening. Yes, dear children of God, setting your minds on the things of heaven, the things of God where Christ is seated at the right hand, means that because we are baptized, Christ is now our life. Occasional Christianity really has no place in the life of a child of God. Our lives are wrapped up in Christ who died and who rose again, so to seek the things that are above means our lives change. The worldly things, the things that distract us from the life of Christ, from the teaching of Christ, from the suffering and death, the resurrection of Christ, these things are not in our purview because Christ and His salvation is who we are.
In the rest of Colossians 3, which we don’t have in our pericope for today, Paul exhorts us to put to death in us what is earthly. He doesn’t say it’s optional, but that, as God’s people, people wrapped and hidden in Christ, covered in His blood, buried and raised with Him by water and the Word, we do this, and it’s our response.
We put to death in us sexual immorality which means that the way the world views sex and relationships is not how we think or act. We seek the will of God in matters of how we use our bodies and our minds. We put to death in us impurity or unclean thoughts or actions, passions and defiling things, worldly, covetous desires such as a love for money or fame, all of which is idolatry or the worship of stuff and self. These things bring about the wrath of God, and we who fear and love God, we seek the things that are above, things such as compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, love, forgiveness, faithfulness, peace, thankfulness, using your life and the time you have on this earth not for selfish gain and pleasure, but to pray, praise, serve, and obey God as you dwell in His kingdom, and to serve your neighbor with these heavenly gifts.
Christ is risen for you, so that you no longer have to die a slave to this world. Christ is risen for you, so that you now live and dwell with Him forever. Christ is risen for you, so that the power and clutches of Satan and his manifest lies no longer hold you. Christ is risen for you so that you now rise with Him and live with Him and worship Him and as this world passes away a little more every day, you stand and you live because you have already died and been buried by baptism into death and raised to eternity with He who rose again and will return to usher you to paradise. Amen.
