This is the Day!
Easter as the triumph of God’s covenant mercy
What follows is a manuscript for an Easter Sunday sermon preached at Dover Baptist Church
“This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).
I don’t know about you, but I hear those words so often that they can become almost meaningless. They get printed on mugs, stitched onto decorative pillows, and quoted so easily that they begin to sound like a churchy way of saying, “Good morning!” or “Have a nice day.”
But we do not gather here this morning as shiny, happy people, untouched by this world’s troubles and pains. Some came this morning with fresh grief on their minds. Some came with shame, unsure if they would be welcomed in if people knew the secrets they are hiding. Some came with questions. Some with heavy burdens. And some came simply because it is Easter and this is one of those days when it feels wrong not to go to church.
Believe me when I say, I’ve gone through similar times in my own life. The good news is that Scripture does not ask us to pretend otherwise. Scripture does not tell us to pretend everything is okay or to ignore all of our problems and pains.
It does something better. It gives us something solid beneath our feet that we can stand on.
Our passage this morning is a procession song, a song of rescue, a song for a man who was pressed hard, brought low, nearly swallowed up, and yet delivered by the strong hand of the Lord. And when you come to the New Testament, you find this psalm standing at the very center of the story of Jesus. The crowds use its words as he enters Jerusalem. Jesus quotes its line about the rejected stone. The apostles return to it to explain the resurrection.
In other words, Psalm 118 only reaches its fullness when we read it through the lens of the crucified and risen Christ.
Easter Proclaims The Steadfast Love Of The Lord
Let’s return now to the Psalm.
Psalm 118 begins with God.
“Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Psalm 118:1)
That is where Easter must begin, with the character of God. He is good. His steadfast love endures forever. God is good even when our week was rough. God is steadfast even when we are terrified of what tomorrow might bring. And even if you can’t feel it right now, God’s steadfast love still endures forever.
Now I want to draw your attention to that phrase, “steadfast love,” because it is one of the richest words in the Old Testament. It means covenant love. Loyal love. Love with backbone in it. It is not the affection of a fair-weather friend who is with you when times are good but disappears as soon as things get rough. This is the love of the God who binds himself to his people and refuses to let them go.
That means Easter is good news for weak people.
Think about it this way: if God’s love depended on your strength, your consistency, or your cheerfulness, we would all be in trouble. But God’s love does not rest on us. God’s love rests on something far sturdier than you. God’s love for you rests on the saving work of Jesus Christ and the eternal victory that he secured on your behalf when he conquered sin and death.
Listen again to the Psalmist’s words:
“The Lord is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.
Glad songs of salvation
are in the tents of the righteous.” (Psalm 118:14-15a)
It is the grace of God that gathers us here this morning. It is the grace of God that renews our strength for every spiritual battle set before us. And best of all, it is the grace of God that saves us from an eternity of sin and death.
And what do we do in response to this grace upon grace? We sing! Easter not only declares good news, it also gathers the rescued and teaches them to sing. Please understand that the church is not a place for morally impressive people to gather and pat themselves on the back. It is a room full of sinners who have been shown mercy, now joined together around a living Savior.
I know some people don’t like to sing. However, if you believe that the Son of God came down from glory to live the perfect life you never could, to die on the cross that you deserved, and rose from the grave as a testimony to the salvation he won and the victory he secured on your behalf, and then that he ascended to the right hand of God the Father where even now he makes intercession for you… if you believe all of that then how can you keep from singing.
Listen, I am musically challenged. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but I can make a joyful noise to the Lord. This isn’t a talent show, it’s a house of worship and prayer. Check your pride at the door and give glory to God!
Why, because “His steadfast love endures forever.”
Easter Proclaims Life Through Judgment
Now let’s pick up our Psalm in verse 17 and 18. The Psalmist writes:
“I shall not die, but I shall live,
and recount the deeds of the LORD.
The LORD has disciplined me severely,
but he has not given me over to death” (Psalm 118:17–18).
Now let’s pause there for a moment. This is the speech of someone who has felt the severity of God’s hand and yet discovered mercy on the other side of it.
This is a good word for Easter Sunday, because, as Christians, we can drift into cheap triumphalism on Easter, as though resurrection means real believers never feel pain, never grieve, never suffer, never tremble. However, Psalm 118 speaks of deliverance and discipline in the same breath.
Now hear me when I say. If you are in Christ, your suffering is not wrath. Your hardship is not a punishment. There may be a Father’s discipline, but never a Judge’s final sentence. There may be seasons of painful pruning, but never abandonment. There may be tears, but never forsakenness.
Some of you need that distinction badly. When life gets hard, you assume God has turned against you. When a door closes and you assume you are being punished. A burden lingers and you feel abandoned by God. But Easter speaks a better word than that. Christ has already borne the condemnation of his people. He drank the cup. He carried the curse. He entered judgment so that those who belong to him would never be given over to destruction.
And Psalm 118 reaches its deepest truth here in Jesus. He is the one who truly passed through death. He is the one who truly entered the darkness. He is the one who could say in the fullest sense, “I shall not die, but I shall live.” Not because he avoided death, but because he entered into death and conquered it on our behalf.
If you miss this, then you miss everything. The bad news is never the final word for those who are in Christ. The Lord may bring his people low, but he will not give them over. The risen Christ is not merely our example in suffering. He is our life in suffering. He is the gate by which we enter into salvation.
So enter again through the opened gate with thanksgiving!
Easter Proclaims The Rejected Stone As The Cornerstone Of A New Day
And then we come to the great Easter chorus of the psalm:
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
This is the LORD’s doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:22–24).
How marvelous and wonderful is our God. What men reject, God enthrones. What men throw away, God establishes. What looks like the end from our human perspective is only the beginning from God’s heavenly point of view.
Let me explain the imagery that the psalmist is using here. In the ancient world, when men set out to build a structure, they would gather and inspect stones. Some they choose. Other they cast aside. But the great surprise is this: the stone they refused becomes the cornerstone. That is the most important stone, the stone that sets the line for the whole building.
If you haven’t put two and two together yet, the cornerstone is Jesus.
The religious leaders of his day assessed him and dismissed him. Rome mocked him and executed him. His own disciples scattered in fear. At the cross it looked as if the builders had won. Their verdict was public, final, and brutal. They cast him out, buried him, and sealed the tomb as if to say, “That is finished.”
But Easter morning is God’s answer to humanity’s rejection. The resurrection is the Father setting the cornerstone in place. Jesus was not simply rescued from death. His eternal throne is established and he is declared the foundation of salvation itself.
And that is why Easter is not a poetic metaphor for new beginnings. It is the announcement that Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, was crucified for sinners, bore the judgment we deserved, and on the third day rose bodily from the grave, so that all who repent and believe in him are forgiven, reconciled to God, and given everlasting life.
“This is the LORD’s doing.” (Psalm 118:23)
That is Easter faith. Wonder. No man would have written redemption this way. No committee would have invented a gospel where the King saves by dying and triumphs by rising. This is the Lord’s doing.
And now Psalm 118 gives us the verse so many know by heart: “This is the day that the LORD has made.” In its first setting, it is the day of deliverance. In the full light of the gospel, it is Easter day. The day the crucified Christ walked out of the tomb is the day that defines all days. The dawn of new creation. The beginning of the world put right.
That means Christian joy is not pretending everything is okay here and now. It is rejoicing in what God has done even while much in our lives remains unfinished. “Let us rejoice and be glad in it” is a call to settled gladness rooted in a fixed foundation. The cornerstone does not move. Christ is risen.
And if he is the cornerstone, then your life must be squared to him. A cornerstone is the measuring point. It sets the line for everything else.
Let’s be honest this morning. Are you building your life on Christ, or merely trying to add Christ to the life you already planned? Do you want him as a comforting religious accessory, or as Lord? Are you asking him to fit into your design, or are you ready to be fitted into his? You do not negotiate with the cornerstone. You align your life to it.
Conclusion
So as we prepare to depart from this place of worship, et us do so with wonder, repentance, and joy.
Wonder, because this is the Lord’s doing.
Repentance, because the risen Christ is not a slogan to admire but a Lord to obey.
Joy, because the day he made cannot be undone.
Believe in him. Turn from sin and from every self-salvation project. Stop trying to build a life that can stand on your own strength. Come to the crucified and risen Christ. I’d be happy to talk with anyone after the service about what it means to follow Jesus and how to receive him as Savior and Lord. Because then, and only then, can we say as a confession of solid hope:
“This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”