Promised Treasures - Milk and Honey

The Resurrection of Our Lord: Easter Sunday

April 9, 2023

Matthew 28:1-10

 “Promised Treasures – Milk and Honey”

It was Easter Sunday morning and a woman was on her way to church when her car broke down. Not wanting to be late for the special worship service, she used her smart phone to have an Uber come and pick her up. The Uber driver arrived, and she quickly jumped in the back. Halfway through the ride, she quietly asked the driver a question, but the driver didn’t respond. Realizing that he didn’t hear her, she leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. The driver let out a loud scream, swerved into the other lane, almost hit another car, slammed on the brakes, and skidded over to the shoulder. The woman and driver sat in silence for a minute from the shock of what had just happened. Finally, she said very apologetically, “Wow, I’m so sorry. I had no idea that tapping your shoulder would alarm you like that.” He replied: “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just that it’s my first day as an Uber driver. Before this, I worked for a local funeral home driving their hearse.” Hopefully, your drive to church on this morning was a much more pleasant experience than the woman in the story! On this Easter Sunday morning, it’s not death, but life that is before us. We have the great joy of knowing that Jesus has overcome death and conquered the grave. With Jesus’ resurrection, we see life in a new way as we enter into God’s promised land of milk and honey. That becomes the theme for preaching on this Easter Sunday. May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

Throughout the Lenten season, we have considered ways in which the good news of Jesus is conveyed through our physical senses. Over the last six weeks, we have seen, touched, smelled and tasted things like ashes, salt, water, light, stone, palms, water and blood. The purpose of focusing on these earthly elements is to make the eternal love of God more memorable, tactile, and meaningful for the people of God. These elements have served as footholds for renewed hope and strength in our journey of faith. And now on this day of resurrection, Easter Sunday, we conclude this series with milk and honey. That phrase “milk and honey” sounds like the name of a café, or a line of bath and body products, and guest what? If you do an online search, that’s pretty much what you’ll find. But for our purposes, we’re looking at something much bigger than these things. “Milk and honey” was how God described the Promised Land to his chosen people (Exodus 3:8; Numbers 13:27; Deuteronomy 6:3; Jeremiah 11:5). The fertility and beauty of the Promised Land, where God’s people were being led by God himself, must have seemed like a wonderful dream as they trudged along in their forty years of wilderness wanderings (Number 14:26ff). God did lead his people into the Promised Land – so rich, so fertile, so productive, flowing with milk and honey. But a greater fulfillment of God’s promises has come about with Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. In Jesus, we have entered a new Promised Land – Easter land, rooted not so much in a place, but in a Person. In the Person of our crucified and risen Savior Jesus Christ, we enter into a beautiful land, filled with life and joy.

Joshua was called by God to be the successor to Moses, and he is the one who led God’s people across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land (Joshua 3-4). Jesus is the new Joshua – Joshua 2.0, if you will. Jesus’ name is Yeshua, or Joshua, meaning “Deliverer, Savior.” As the angel told Joseph before Jesus was even born: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). And that’s what Jesus has done. He is the One who crossed the river of death, and through his resurrection now leads us on to the promised land of our heavenly home. In Jesus, death is not the final word. The final word is life in Jesus, who is risen from the dead, who lives and reigns to all eternity, we also will rise from death and the grave.

Without this good news, without the strengthening and restoring power of the risen Christ, our lives are quickly overtaken by fear. We fear uncertainty and change; we fear loss and loneliness; we fear what happens when we die. The brilliant colors of life become muted shades of gray. Like the two Marys who to the tomb on that first Easter morning, we see only emptiness. We feel only heartache and pain. We don’t know how it’s all supposed to fit together. Without the good news of Jesus’ resurrection, our outlook and future become bleak and joyless. But the bright light of Easter morning shatters our fear and breaks through the gloom. The message of the angel reminds us that Jesus cannot be held in by death and the grave, nor can he be held back by our fear. Today in the Lord’s Supper, we get a foretaste of that heavenly land of milk and honey. Under gifts of bread and wine, Jesus feeds us with his true Body and Blood, given and shed for us and for our salvation, that we may be strengthened in our journey of faith and have our joy restored. 

In the closing days of World War II – on this very day, in fact – April 9, 1945, the life of German Lutheran theologian and pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, came to an end. He was hanged at the prison camp of Flossenburg, Germany just days before it was liberated by the American Army. Soon after Hitler came to power, Bonhoeffer publicly denounced the Nazi regime. He was one of the leaders of the Confessing Church movement in Germany that opposed any association with the Nazi government. He also joined the German resistance movement, including the plot to assassinate Hitler. Shortly after becoming engaged to be married in April 1943, Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo, court-martialed and sentenced to die. While in prison, he served as a counselor and pastor to his fellow prisoners of all denominations. His many writings include The Cost of Discipleship, Life Together, Ethics and Letters and Papers from Prison (published posthumously). The last words of this faithful and courageous servant of the Lord were, “This is the end – for me, the beginning of life” (Anti-Nazi theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is hanged (history.com). And that is true for everyone who looks in faith to the risen Savior. Death is not the end, but the beginning of life – eternal life – with our risen Savior in that land flowing with milk and honey. He has gone ahead of us and has made ready a place in his Father’s house for each and every person who trusts in him. That is the promised treasure that Jesus offers to everyone.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.