1 Kings 17:17-24 - Trinity XVI - September 15, 2013
Jesus’
Words Give Life
Let us pray: “In the midst of life we are in death. Of whom may we seek comfort but
of Thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased? Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty,
O holy and most merciful Savior, deliver us not into the bitter pains of
eternal death.” Amen.
These words from the rite of Christian
burial we pray at the gravesite of our loved ones who confessed the faith as we
commit their bodily remains to the earth whence they were taken in the certain
hope of the resurrection to life. In
this prayer, we speak of three different deaths that are of course each related
to the other. The most obvious death is
the bodily death. It’s what we see, and
it saddens all people alike. We are in
the midst of it. The second is the actually
cause of the first. It is spiritual
death. It is the sin that justly displeases
God. We are in the midst of it. The third is eternal death. It is God’s final judgment. It is damnation. It is hell.
We are not in the midst of
this. We pray to be delivered from it on
the last day. Right now is the time of
grace when God does just that. He does
so through his word.
Christ Jesus our Lord, who is himself the
Word of God made flesh, delivers us from eternal death by delivering us from
our spiritual death. He does this by
forgiving us our sins on account of the fact that he took them away on the
cross. Through this forgiveness, we have
the certain hope that he will deliver us from our physical death as well when
he raises our bodies to eternal glory. God delivers us from all three deaths by one
and the same word, because all three deaths are really the same.
