Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County
316 W Main St, Forestville, WI 54213
(920) 856-6420

Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County serves Sturgeon Bay and other locations in Northeast Wisconsin.

Tomb with stone rolled away. Rising sun. Duck flying overhead. Depiction of Easter morning.

TRANSCRIPT
The following transcript was generated with the assistance of AI.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Alleluia. Christ has risen. He has risen indeed. Alleluia. Christ has risen and sin is tread down under His feet. Christ has risen and death has been put to death by His own death and resurrection. Christ has risen and the lying, accusing tongue of Satan has been cut off. Christ has risen, and the gates of hell have slammed shut. Christ has risen and the doors of heaven have been opened to all believers. Christ has risen and the harvest has already begun. Christ has risen and the new world has risen as well.

The Parable of the Ducks

There once was a family of ducks, and the family of ducks went down to the duck church to hear a sermon from the duck minister. The duck minister told the ducks about how the Lord had blessed them so much. The Lord had blessed them like the mammals, just as the mammals have legs that they can move around on the ground and in the woods. The Lord had blessed the ducks in that way as well, but the Lord had done something even better for the ducks. The mammals couldn’t swim around in the lake, but the Lord had granted the ducks these buoyant feathers and webbed feet. They can move around on the ground but also in the water like the fish. But the Lord had blessed the ducks even more than He had the mammals and the fish. He had granted them also wings. They could move around on the ground like the mammals and in the lake like the fish, but they could also soar through the skies. All the duck family thought that was such a marvelous sermon. They talked about what a wonderful sermon the duck minister had preached to them that day as they waddled all the way back home.

Our Failure to Soar

Aren’t we like those ducks sometimes? The Lord has granted us eagles’ wings so that we can leave the mire and grime of sin behind, and yet we still waddle in it. The Lord has granted us freedom from sin by the death and resurrection of Christ. By His death, our sins are atoned for, our righteousness fulfilled, and by His resurrection, He has granted us new life, which is a life of sonship to Him instead of slavery to sin, a life of freedom from sin. Yet guilt over our transgressions so often still weighs down our hearts. Shame causes us to, instead of fleeing to God for mercy and to lift up prayers and praises and supplications to Him, flee from His gaze. Even worse, by the Spirit of life, the Lord has given us the power to resist sin, but instead of resisting it, we allow it to have a foothold in our life. Maybe even worse, instead of allowing it to have a foothold, we actively invite it in.

Freedom Through Christ’s Resurrection

I’m here to tell you, brothers and sisters in Christ, through the resurrection of Christ, the Lord has granted you freedom from sin. No longer must you have guilt. No longer must you have shame, but instead, you can flee to God, seeking His grace and mercy, lifting up prayers and praises and supplications. The Lord has indeed granted you the Spirit of life. Therefore, I encourage you to keep in step with the Spirit, leaving sin behind, pressing on to the paths of righteousness. Christ, the Good Shepherd, leads you in, and that is the blessing that the Lord has given us in this life.

Hope Beyond This Life

But if our hopes are for this life only, then we are of all men most to be pitied. I tell you, the Lord has blessed us by means of His resurrection beyond this life, but also for the life to come. I have an uncle by the name of Wes Jackson. He’s pretty well known in some circles. His life’s work has been to try to get different agricultural systems, revolutionary agricultural systems, for the Great Plains. He’s been featured in magazines like Smithsonian, National Geographic, all that stuff. But he has his detractors. His detractors say, you know, you haven’t actually accomplished your goal yet, and you’re an old man. His answer to this, I think he got this from church—he was raised in church—is that if your goals are only so big that they can be accomplished in your life, then they’re not big enough.

Christ’s Greater Purpose

He’s talking about a secular project and his secular goals, but by this, he puts to shame so many Christians who hope in Christ for this life only. There are many Christians, or those who claim the name of Christ, who consider Christ a good teacher, and yet they do not look to Him for salvation and eternal life. There are other Christians who consider Him something of a genie in the bottle. Ask Him in the right way, and He’ll give you whatever you want in this life. That is too small of a perspective on Jesus Christ. Christ indeed came to bless us in this world, in this life. But His blessings are so much greater than this, for by His resurrection, He has granted us eternal life. By means of His rising from the dead, He has inaugurated a new creation, a new world, a world with untold blessings that far surpass anything we could comprehend in this age. Christ has opened that new life to us, that new world to us, by means of the forgiveness of sins, which we receive by faith.

Addressing the Skeptic and Doubter

Speaking of faith, this morning, I would like to talk specifically to the skeptic and the doubter among us. Easter Sunday is one of those Sundays where, even if you do not believe, even if you consider the things of the faith to be foolishness, even if you think that people could only believe in the resurrection 2000 years ago because they were naive and foolish, this word is for you. This word is also for the doubter, the person who wants to believe but finds it hard to believe, or perhaps has a fledgling faith but still finds many questions welling up in heart and mind concerning the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Reality of Death in Christ’s Time

People in the time of Christ were just as realistic about the finality of death. That’s why Peter was skeptical when he heard the reports of the women that the tomb was empty. A man like Peter was probably far more realistic about the finality of death in this world than any of us. A man like Peter had probably buried multiple aged relatives in a time of high infant mortality. Peter, in all likelihood, had laid to rest one or maybe even several of his own children. A man like Peter knew that the dead in this world do not rise. That’s where the skeptic and the doubter have something right. The dead in this world do not rise, but the skeptic is still wrong about the fact that Christ had arisen.

The Conviction of the Apostles

Peter, this skeptic, became convinced of the resurrection of the Lord, so much so that he was willing to die a martyr’s death for that testimony. Peter’s not known as the greatest skeptic or doubter in the Bible. The greatest skeptic, the greatest doubter we encounter is St. Thomas. What did Thomas do after he became convinced of the resurrection? He was so convinced that he traveled thousands upon thousands of miles to what you could more or less call a different continent altogether. He traveled all the way to India, was so convinced of the resurrection that he, with his own hands, built a church there in India, and he too was put to death for this testimony, run through with a spear.

The Unlikelihood of a Lie

That was the faith of so many of the other apostles. The only apostle of the twelve who did not die a martyr’s death for the sake of this testimony was John, even though he suffered for the sake of his testimony. You can get a man to die for all kinds of reasons. A man will gladly die for the sake of his country, and many have. A man will die for the sake of his family, and many have. But to get a man to die for the sake of a lie, for the sake of a conspiracy, that just doesn’t happen. For eleven to die for such a thing, forget about it. Even unbelieving, skeptical scholars who do not believe the truth of the resurrection still believe that the disciples, the apostles, firmly believed that Christ had risen. It is reasonable to believe there is an empty grave in Jerusalem, and it is on the basis of this that we firmly and confidently believe that Alleluia, Christ has risen. He has risen indeed. Alleluia.

Christ as the Firstfruits

I said a few minutes ago that the skeptic and the doubter have something right, that in this world, the dead do not rise. This is why the Scriptures are clear that Christ is the firstfruits of the new creation. This world is consumed by death and will end in death and destruction and chaos. From day to day, we go from bad to worse. If our hopes of eternal life are just for a continuation of life in this world, life as we know it, as St. Paul says, we would be most pitied. That would not be salvation at all. That sounds more like hell to me. But Christ is the firstfruits of the new creation, a creation which defies our understanding, which goes far beyond anything we can comprehend. So incomprehensible is it that Isaiah didn’t meticulously define it like you might a science issue. He used pictures that confound our understanding: lions and wolves eating grass and hay like the oxen, wolves and lambs dwelling together. That’s not a world like anything we know, and praise be to God for that. It is a world of untold joy, a world of untold order, a world of untold light.

The Light of Resurrection

That light has already dawned with the resurrection of Christ. It is that light which now shines in our hearts, but will shine upon our eyes when it is brought to its fullness and consummation in His return. We are confident in that because Christ keeps His promises. He promised that in three days He would arise, and indeed He did. Alleluia. Christ has risen. He has risen indeed. Alleluia. Therefore, we are glad and confident and hopeful in the world that the Lord will bring about in His return, when He comes in power and might and glory to draw us to His right hand to live and dwell with Him in blessedness and righteousness forever.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please rise for the Nicene Creed.

Sermon: Hope for the Life to Come [Easter 2025]