That somber, that self-sufficient, and in its somberness yet half laughing, half mocking mood of spirits, has not remained without influence upon the church of Christ.

The church is not of the world, but lives in the world. It consists of the same men and women and children who at stated times gather in the house of prayer to honor their Savior, and who at other times mingle with the great masses, in the life of society.

They too who are converted are therefore not yet entirely converted. Converted and transposed in the utterance of life, be it so; but for the rest even converts live far too greatly from the life of the world, live that life of the world, and undergo the constant impression, the continuous influence of it.

So, the dreadfulness of Death has gradually given way even within the walls of Christ’s church; even from preaching the dread of Death and Hell, has for the larger part disappeared; many a dying-bed comes to an end without an utterance of faith; and even among God’s children there have been those, who, ensnared in the bands of Hell, have followed the mocking pessimist in the awful way of suicide.

Thirst after Life and dread of Death have decreased among us. False, unholy ideas and perceptions have found an entrance among us. Freshness and vigorous animation in the life-tone is lowered, and though as one man we still cleave fast to the Man of sorrows, Who overcame Death and Grave, yet in our circles the enthusiasm, the animation, that went forth from Easter, is by far no more what it once was, even in human remembrance.

This is a judgment of God.

In nothing more, than in the Quickening of Jesus from the dead, has He shown the exceeding greatness of His Divine power. The utmost that could be done is done, to cause the breath of Life to go forth richly and abundantly into this world shadowed by death and suffering.

But the darkness has not known the light of Life, has not seen it, has not desired it; at most it has played with it, and God’s children too have remained far behind, in glorifying their God in this excellency of His grace.

Our Easter also has been externalized.

And so came the natural judgment, that the sense, the taste for this triumph of Life over Death grew less; then gradually wore out in the world; and now, as result that was almost unavoidable, in the circle of believers, it has lost, o, so much of its power.

So it has come to pass, that in Death gradually nothing is seen except the dying.

Death, so it was deemed, and so it was said, was the necessity of nature, by which every man, born of a woman, after his thread of life had been cut off, ceased to live, blew out his breath and died.

That was the all of Death.

Result and outflow of a natural law; of something so unavoidable and unpreventable, that every one knows in advance, that that moment awaits him too. But then it is only one moment. One breathes his last, and Death is done. Death is dying. Nothing else. Nothing more.

And what does your Easter amount to?

If your Easter jubilation implied triumph; that a means is offered us to escape from dying, then at least for a time they who are in love with life might accept it. Not for too long. For a man of a hundred years has no enviable lot. And what would it be at an age of two centuries? Then one would wish your Easter joy away, and even long for Death.

But your Easter does not provide this. And you, who rejoice in Immanuel Who arose, die yourself. From the natural necessity of dying you can not get away. Sometimes even the pious die very early, and are taken away before half their days are spent.

All the good of Easter can only come when Death has been executed upon you. Hence Death remains. The grave you cannot escape. Thus all the weight of Easter must lie in what comes after Death. And, of course, with this our self-sufficient age does not bother itself. It scarcely knows whether after Death there shall yet be anything. And when it wants to speak from its height, it speaks at most of a hope of immortality.

This then is the fundamental wrong, that you say: Death, that is when I die, and thus Life is, that I do not pass away into nothingness, but that I still am, and that after my dying, I shall still be.

This indeed is a denial of God’s Word, a bold contradiction of the testimony of the Lord.

No, Death is no necessity of nature, and if man had not fallen, no Death would ever have come upon him.

Death only came in this world upon man, when he fell away from his God, and put himself under the unholy influence of Satan.

Your Savior is come that “He might destroy the power of him, who had the power of Death, i. e. the Devil” (Hebr. 2:14).

Therefore in the Old Covenant God taught His people, that Death makes unclean and that he who had touched a corpse, as one unclean, could not enter into His sanctuary.

Not when you continue in the fear of the Lord, O man, pure when first created of God, but when you violate His high command, you shall die.

Not first when you breathe your last, but at the very moment inwardly, by as much as Death enters into your soul, and inwardly destroys you, that presently he might also attack your body.

First spiritual Death within; then physical Death, when you sink away in the grave; and only after that the real Death, Death in its fulness, eternal Death, standing over against eternal Life.

So Death is not merely to breathe your last, when you die, but an evil, an unholy, a Satanic power, which by sin, and because of your sin, came upon you; which already now you carry about with you in the members of your soul; which presently enters into the members of your body; and only after your dying carries you off as its prey, eternally to corrupt you.

In Death dwells sin; to Death cleaves the curse; Death is an instrument of God, which He employs in His judgments, but which in every way stands over against Him and His holiness, because He Himself is the Life and the Source of Life.

It is from Death that all destruction of our inner life proceeds, all self-corruption to which the sinner lends himself, all the devastation of pure human happiness of life.

Your dying, when you breathe your last, is surely part of Death, but it is by no means all of Death. Rather that dying is but a single, very brief, weak utterance of Death.

Death destroys far more terribly before your dying, than in your dying. And most terribly, most dreadfully shall Death cause its awful working to be felt after dying.

Those millions in the days of Noah, that “ate and drank, and thought ‘to-morrow we die’,” fancied that when they sank away into the watery depths, it was done with Death. And now, after four thousand years, they are still “in the prisonhouse of Death” (1 Pet. 3:19). And what are these four thousand years, compared with the eternity that still awaits them?

Thus two representations of Death here stand over against one another.

On one side the representation of the world, which alas is still shared by many Christians, as though Death were nothing other, than that we, according to the law of nature, once must die.

And over against this, on the other side, the representation of God’s Word, that Death is the power of Satan, an unclean, unholy, deeply sinful power, which not as a law of nature, but as a curse of sin has come upon us, already now destroys us spiritually, presently makes us return to dust, and eternally holds us bound in its somber snares.

To which of these will you hold yourself? To the world, which knows nothing of it, and only counts with what it sees of Death? Or to your God, Who knows Death in its bone and marrow, Who first threatened us with Death, then has brought Death upon us, and, unless you convert yourself to Christ, has cut off every means, whereby man might escape now and for ever the terrible power of Death, which is to say, of eternal Death.

And then indeed you have no choice. Then you must believe your God. Then it is, as He declares it unto you, and everything the world prates in its lightsomeness, is nothing but play of imagination and self-deceit.

Deeply impress it therefore upon yourself, that Death is this evil, this unholy, this all your human happiness for ever destroying power. Feel it for yourself, and instruct your children in it, that Death by nothing else than by the unholy tie of your guilt and your sins is anchored in you and to you, and thereby has power over you.

Understand this and ponder over it, that there is no moving or changing of this crushing power of Death, so long as you seek to defend yourself against Death. Is the corpse in the grave able to raise itself, and throw off the stone, under which it lies buried?

If you understand this, and thus know, what Death is, and are no longer mistaken in the nature and the power and the violence of Death, then you will understand your Easter. you will rejoice in the fact that “Immanuel arose”, and with full draughts drink in the comfort and the gladness, when the blessed evangel strikes your ear: The Lord is risen indeed!

For now Christ stands before you, as God’s Hero, Who “took upon Himself the flesh and blood of children”, and, in that flesh and blood, took hold of Death, attacked him in his loins, fought with Death for the prize of all God’s elect, and gave Himself so far over into his power, that the Himself breathed His last, and commended His spirit into His Father’s hands.

Then the earth wept, because it seemed, as though this Hero of God in His terrible Penuel overpowered, overcome by Death, was conquered. And, of course, if in this most awful of conflicts He had gone under, the power of Death would forever have remained unbroken, and every one of us would for ever have been ensnared as his prey in the bands of Hell.

That was the hour of darkness, when all demons rejoiced with Satanic joys, and God’s angels sadly covered their faces.

But after that hour comes the turning-point. On the third your Savior rises. Not seemingly so, not in the imagination of His disciples, but in very deed He rises from the dead.

And now Death is frightened, and Satan trembles, and all the demons shrink back; but God’s angels step in. They rejoiced before any human being was yet able to thank God for Jesus’ Resurrection.

“Why seek ye,” so they ask, “the Living among the dead? Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth. Behold, He is risen from the dead, and goeth before you. We, God’s angels, declare it unto you.”

And so your Savior overcame.

So He lives, not for Himself, but for you, that with the arm of strength He might hinder Death, now conquered and broken in his power, from ever attacking again one of God’s elect.

So He breaks the power of Death, even now in your soul, presently in your dying, more richly after your dying, and once full gloriously, when He returns on the clouds, and you will stand in glory, and in the end will see Death himself cast into the lake of fire. And therefore sing praises unto the Lord, Who is alive for ever more, at this our Easter, that once more returns.

Live it over again in all its depths what it says, that your Savior for your sake sank away in Death, but now is risen indeed.

And with that “risen indeed” raise in your heart and make vocal in your lips, against Death and Grave the triumph call full of holy irony: “O Death, where is thy sting, O Grave, where is thy victory?”

Unto God be glory, “Who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

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