Christ is risen!
“O death, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” 1 Cor. 15:55-56
Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Victory! We all seek to win, to achieve goals we have set for ourselves, and to overcome difficulties. However, there is a circumstance, which nullifies all human achievements and makes our efforts and labors futile. It is the finite nature of our earthly existence. It is death.
Today, however, on this joyous day of Easter, we hear words that are amazing and most important for any human being: the main victory has been won—the victory over death!
And we do not deserve any credit for this victory. It is a great gift, for it has been given us by Jesus Christ!
What do those words mean? How is that victory given to us? A very long time ago, after the exodus from Egypt, God’s people received the ministry of the High Priest who would once a year go beyond the veil into the Holy of Holies, the place of the presence of God’s glory, bringing the sacrificial blood to sprinkle the Ark of the Covenant. In the meantime, all the people, in fear and awe, would be waiting for him to come outside again. And if the sacrifice was accepted, he would come out from behind the veil alive and the people of God would start to exult and celebrate—the sin of the people, and therefore my sin as well, was cleansed!
Scripture proclaims that Jesus Christ is the true High Priest of all the nations of the world. He himself became the sacrifice for the sins of every person in this world! On the cross of Calvary, He gave His life for each of us and trampled down our death by His own death. The veil in the Temple was torn in two and, as the Apostle testifies, Christ entered the heavenly Tabernacle, heaven itself, with His own blood to cleanse the sins of the whole world. On the third day, the main thing took place! The High Priest Christ came out of the darkness of the tomb alive, winning a victory over death by the power of the Resurrection! For many centuries, this joyful call of victory has been going out in every language to all the earth—Christ is risen! Death is swallowed up in victory! And as redeemed sinners we received the gift of eternal life. “O death, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory?” Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Christ is risen!
Ivan Laptev
Bishop of The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria in Russia
[Translator’s note: the scriptural quotes are based on the Russian Synodal Bible]