The Third Day He Rose Again From the Dead. He Ascended into Heaven. Preached on June 28, 2026

Outside a small Tennessee town is a cemetery filled with old tombstones. On the stones are names, dates, and verses of Scripture, but one unique tombstone bears the inscription: the fat lady has sung. Some think of death this way. As the end. The shadow falls. The light goes out. The fever of life is over. Our work is done. Once the fat lady sings, our bodies are laid to rest in the ground; six feet under we lie. It’s not over until the fat lady sings, yet once she has sung, we rest from our labor in the darkness of death. Death is permanent, some say. Final. At death, it’s over, many claim, and yet each Sunday, we stand in defiance of death’s power, boldly proclaiming aloud and together, “On the third day, He rose again from the dead. He ascended into Heaven.” That’s what we say each Sunday when we affirm our faith. Today, we are in the middle of a ten-week sermon series on the Apostles’ Creed. We recite these ancient words Sunday after Sunday, yet if we say the words without understanding what they mean, what’s the point? Today, let me tell you that when we say together, “On the third day, He rose again from the dead. He ascended into Heaven,” we rejoice in the truth that the grave could not hold Him. Up from the grave he arose. With a mighty triumph o’er his foes. He arose a victor from the dark domain, And he lives forever with his saints to reign. He arose. He arose. Hallelujah. Christ arose. That’s what we believe, right? There’s is a story about a man who took his wife and mother-in-law on vacation to the Holy Land. It was an expensive trip. It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip. It was a sign of just how much this man loved his wife that he included his mother-in-law in this trip and agreed to pay for her every expense, and yet his mother-in-law complained the whole way through. The food was too spicy. Outside it was too hot, yet because of the air conditioning, it was also freezing indoors. This mother-in-law went from way too hot to way too cold, and she let her son-in-law know about it. She also let him know that the linens on the hotel beds were too scratchy. The accents of the staff were too heavy to understand. It was hard for this man to endure all the complaining, considering how he had paid for the trip, and how he just wanted to take his wife, not both his wife and his mother-in-law. Why didn’t he want to take his mother-in-law? Because this is how his mother-in-law had always been. She complained. She nagged. She wined. Midway through the trip, just when he was sure he couldn’t take it any longer, the husband, his wife, and the mother-in-law were on a tour bus. Amid a fit of complaining about the driver’s inability to navigate the bus safely, this mother-in-law keeled over and died. The man tried to look disappointed. In a sense, he was. His wife was distraught. His wife was far too distraught to handle the details of death and burial with the funeral home. Meeting with the funeral home in Jerusalem, the man heard the estimates. The numbers were large. The largest number was the fee to have body shipped back home to New Jersey. That cost of transporting the body was so high, the funeral home director suggested she be buried there, in the Holy Land. “It would be too expensive to ship the body back home,” the funeral director advised, and yet this man insisted his mother-in-law not be buried in Jerusalem. “Why not?” the funeral director asked. “I heard about a man who was buried here. Three days later, He rose from the grave. I can’t risk that happening with her.” Death was not final with Jesus. The fat lady sang, and yet, it was not over. The shadow fell, and yet, the light was not extinguished. “On the third, day He rose again from the dead.” 40 days later, He ascended into Heaven. Notice the tense with these two verbs: rose and ascended. These verbs are past tense. After these two past tense verbs, the tense of verbs in the Apostles’ Creed shift to present. Jim Speed pointed that detail out in his book. We modeled this summer sermon series on a series of sermons our predecessor the Rev. Dr. James O. Speed preached on the Apostles’ Creed. Those sermons of Dr. Speed were published in a book that I’ve been rereading, and he makes this important point in his sermon based on the lines we focus on today. “He rose. He ascended.” These are the last past-tense verbs used in the Creed, Dr. Speed points out, because what our Lord does now is not confined to the past but impacts the present. That He was raised and that He ascended must impact our present as well, for this knowledge, this conviction, that death did not have the final word, changes the way we live and breathe in our daily lives. The truth of His resurrection and ascension changes the way we think of funeral services when those we love die. Many are in the habit of steering away from calling that service a funeral. Many prefer to call it a celebration of life, and yet, what life are we celebrating? The life lived and now over? Is the highest purpose of the funeral remembering the pleasant moments? Paying respect to the memory of a light now extinguished? Or is the funeral our opportunity to remember again the hope that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, that death has lost its sting, not only for Him, but also for us? That in the coming Kingdom, all our tears will be wiped away at the great reunion of generations passed there reunited? My friends, at every funeral service, we do more than grieve. We do more than mourn. We do more than weep at the life now ended: We rejoice in the promise that as Christ rose from the dead, so will we, and so we live, not as those who have no hope, but as those who know that the Savior broke the power of death and paves our way to the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet, we not only die with such hope; we live with such hope day in and day out. Last week, I stood next to Neill Blake to cut the ribbon of the new NAMI Cobb Drop-In Center. Have you heard about that? For years, our church has been proud to host support groups for those who deal with the reality of mental illness. There are groups for parents of children who are diagnosed with mental illness, as well as groups for those individuals who are in treatment for mental illness. Starting last week, should one of those people need a little support in the afternoons, they can drop by our church to meet with someone specially trained. Neill wondered aloud whether if her son David had known about such a place, things might have turned out differently. Some of you will remember that tragedy. Some of you helped look for David when he went missing. Others of you were at his funeral. To stand next to Neill as she cut the ribbon on the drop-in center, I knew that his death did not have the final world. No, hope did. Moreover, if death doesn’t have the final word, then why would failure? Why would disappointment? Why not pick up and try again? Why not stand up after falling down? Why not anticipate a tomorrow brighter than all your yesterdays? If death doesn’t have the final word, then why would the fat lady? I don’t care if you’ve heard the fat lady sing over your marriage, your job, your dreams, or your aspirations. Why listen to the fat lady singing when, after three days in the tomb, Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sittith on the right hand of God the Father Almighty to remind you and all creation that the light may flicker but it will not go out, for death has lost its sting. So has failure. So has heartbreak. No matter how far you’ve traveled down the road of bitter tears and broken hearts, today is a day of resurrection. Today is a day of hope and of promise. Never give up. Never give in. Your strength may fail, but the Lord of Heaven and of earth has risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven, and He is the One who has a say over you, not the fat lady. Let her song be the background music to your victory in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.