The Resurrection Key

In an age of passwords, locks, and authentication codes, Jesus holds the most important key of all.

Transcript

We live in a world of locks and keys, usernames and passwords, authentication codes and security questions. In other words, a world where so many are trying to steal, we have to keep everything under lock and key. 

When I first came to Ascension I was given a giant key ring for the building, with all the keys on the ring carefully labelled. There was a key for the side door, for the pantry, and for the furnace door. There were three keys to get from the church into the annex: a key from the sacristy to the general office, another for the general office to the pastor’s office, and finally a key for the pastor’s office to the annex itself. There was a key to the balcony, a key to the annex front door, and a key to the archive room. When I became a pastor and received the “Office of the Keys” it wasn’t supposed to be quite so literal. 

Easter is about a key, too. It’s about the most important key of all. It’s about the key to death and Hades, the key to the abode of the dead. Jesus, the suffering servant, is revealed to be the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the firstborn from the dead, the ruler of kings on earth, with hair on his head like white wool, clothed with a long robe and golden sash, like an ancient Roman senator. And he is the one who holds the resurrection key.

Death is a door through which we must all pass. It doesn’t matter how much jogging you do or how well you eat, how many vitamins you take or medications you swallow. Death comes for us all. Certainly, people try and avoid this reality. 

Sometimes I remind people that 100% of the vegetarians who lived in the 18th century are now dead. And that 100% of the people who ate tomatoes in the 1600s are now dead too. Think about it. 

We all have loved ones on the other side of that door too. Sometimes they come to us in dreams, where it feels like they’re back beside us. These are the parents, the children, the friends we wish we could be with again but cannot because they’re behind death’s door. They’re in the abode of the dead – Sheol or Hades – and separated from us. There’s no way for us to get to them, or for them to get to us. 

Yes, there are stories of ghosts and phantoms. There are accounts of children who seem to be long lost relatives who have returned to us. But there’s no final proof for any of them. Just tantalizing stories. 

If you could lock up just one enemy so they would never trouble you again, who would it be? I know some of you have told me it would be Donald Trump. He’s on a lot of people’s minds these days. Others have said “cancer” or “diabetes.” Still others I know would love to lock up “anxiety” and “worry.”

Paul told us last Sunday what his answer would be: “Then comes the end, when Jesus delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.  For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.  The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15:24–26, ESV). That’s the big enemy isn’t it? The real enemy. The other enemies wouldn’t be so hard to face if that one were gone. Besides, Jesus said to pray for our enemies. But here’s an exception: he didn’t mean pray for death.

Jesus is many things. But today he is the Key. He’s not just any key. He is the Resurrection Key. Jesus is the key that opens up the lock to which seemed to be gone forever: those in the abode of the dead. Jesus is the Key that locks up our greatest enemy: death itself. Jesus locks so that no one can open and opens so that no one can close.

Jeremy’s sins, which like our sins is what puts under the sway of death, were put under lock and key this morning. No one can get to his sins anymore. Jesus has taken away your anxiety over them, so you can focus on more important things than your own life and death. And that’s the life of your neighbour. In baptism Jesus has also unlocked the barred door to the presence of God, and thrown it wide open. 

There is no credit in any of this to him or to me! The Lord Jesus atoned for his sins, and yours, and mine. The Lord gave us the gift of Baptism – we didn’t invent it. The Lord claimed Jeremy as his own – it was not him who chose Jesus, but the Lord who chose him. And while it was my hands that poured the water and said the words, it was the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit who were doing the hard work. 

There is an expression in English that we use for someone we don’t want to see anymore. We say, “lock him up and throw away the key.” That’s what’s happened to your sins. Your sins have been locked up by Christ, never to be opened again. And our enemy, death, has been locked up, and he is never getting out.

And so I tell to you, the people of God, washed in the blood of Christ, “Fear not, [Jesus is] the first and the last, and the living one. [He] I died, and behold [he is] alive forevermore, and [he has] the keys of Death and Hades.”

Amen.