Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The text on which this morning's message is based comes from our Gospel lesson (John 20) read earlier.

A Sunday School teacher asked her class on the Sunday before Easter if they knew what happened on Easter and why it was so important. One little girl spoke up saying: "Easter is when the whole family gets together, and you eat turkey and sing about the pilgrims and all that." "No, that's not it," said the teacher. "I know what Easter is," a second student responded. "Easter is when you get a tree and decorate it and give gifts to everybody and sing lots of songs." "Nope, that's not it either," replied the teacher. Finally a third student spoke up, "Easter is when Jesus was killed, and put in a tomb and left for three days." "Ah, thank goodness somebody knows" the teacher thought to herself. But then the student went on: "Then everybody gathers at the tomb and waits to see if Jesus comes out, and if he sees his shadow he has to go back inside and we have six more weeks of winter." (Old Traditional story). Well, it is still pretty early and cold this spring Easter morning, but we can stand here assured that our Lord is not going back into his tomb. As for the weeks left of winter, we'll just have to pray and wait and see.

We find ourselves here looking out over a cemetery, scores of tombstones. I read recently of an eye-catching ad in a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, newspaper's classified section. Big, bold letters advertised "Used Tombstone. " The ad's text read as follows: "Used tombstone for sale. Real bargain for someone named "…." For more information call..." The image of a used tombstone at first seems startling and a bit grim. But then again: a "used" tombstone means that its previous owner no longer has any need for it. It is a castoff, an unnecessary item. Christ's resurrection conveys the same message: The tomb is empty! The stone that closed Jesus' grave is no longer needed! Jesus Christ is Risen! (from Brett Blair, esermons.com)

When I first started considering this morning's Sunrise Service, I came out and wandered through this cemetery. I was struck first by the number of you still living, members of both Immanuel and St. Paul's congregations, who already have your tombstones with your names on them. (I may mention a few of those names of people attending). Now just so you know, I think that sort of preplanning is good, wise stewardship. That sort of preplanning removes the need that loved ones will have to do all that planning for you quickly in a time of grief that will be difficult for them already. While I don't yet have a headstone, Laura and I do have plots down at a family site in Arkansas City. My mother is the president of a local cemetery board there who helps many with this preplanning. But even more so, this sort of preplanning, either here at St. Paul's Cemetery or whatever cemetery you choose shows your awareness of your own need, your own mortality. Everyone who does that sort of preplanning has considered their own death, and everyone here has, I'm confident, considered what happens to them after death as well. That is what we're about today, considering what happens to us after death. That is what we're about today, considering what happened to our Lord Jesus Christ after his death.

We sometimes call graves like those we see out here "final resting places". That is what the disciples and the women thought the tomb was for Jesus. They thought it his "final resting place." Imagine for a moment how you would have felt if you had placed one of your dear friends in their "final resting place" here at St. Paul's and two days later you came out here to find that their grave had been disturbed, dug up. Their coffin was open and their body was missing.

I mean it's even gruesome for us to think about, something out of a bad horror movie. But if you can consider that for even a moment, then you begin to have a sense of what Mary Magdalene and the other women and Peter and John were going through at first. Someone has come and taken Jesus' body from his "final resting place!" A weeping Mary Magdalene even pleads with the one she thinks is the gardener "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away."

But it's at that moment that she learns first-hand that the tomb was not Jesus' "final resting place." He simply calls her by name "Mary" and her life, her views about life and the world and life-after-death are changed forever. At that moment she learns that the "final resting place" of Jesus could not hold him in. In the power of the Spirit, by the power of God's Holy Word, this so-called "final resting place" for Jesus became only a temporary place for him to lay his head.

In the same way and by the same power, these graves that we see out here are not truly "final resting places" either. For those loved ones who are already resting there, or for those of you who have already preplanned and have your names on tombstones, those are not "final resting places!" The word "cemetery" actually comes from a Greek word which means "temporary sleeping place" or "dormitory". As surely as the sun has risen this morning, the Son of God has risen from the grave, as surely then these graves will cease being resting places for these bodies lain here.

From our Epistle text in 1 Corinthians 15: 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. 55 "O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?"   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.

These tombstones we see out here are not truly permanent. These graves we see out here are good reminders of our mortality, but they are not truly "final resting places." Thanks be to God who gives us the victory over death and the grave through the empty tomb of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!