Trinity 16

Luke 7:11-17 - Trinity Sixteen - September 20, 2015
Death & Resurrection
on the Occasion of the Baptism of Mark Rolf Preus

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Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble.  He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also like a shadow, and continueth not.  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?  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the Law.  But thanks be to Thee, O God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

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One of my favorite Aesop’s fables is the story of the North Wind and the Sun.  They got into an argument about who was stronger.  To settle their dispute the North Wind pointed to a man walking down the road who was wearing a cloak.  He said, “Whoever is able to get that cloak off that man’s shoulders is the stronger one between us.”  So the Sun agreed and allowed his opponent to go first.  The North Wind blew and blew.  But when he felt the cold wind, the man held on to his collar and wrapped himself all the more snuggly.  So the Wind blew even harder and colder.  But the more he blew, even as the poor man was curled over to stay warm, all the more he would not let go of his cloak for dear life.  He clenched onto it more firmly than his feet stuck to the ground. 

Trinity 16

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. 

Trinity 16

Luke 7:11-17 - Trinity XVI - September 23, 2012
Jesus Encounters & Conquers Our Death

God said to Adam and Eve, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  Death is a bad thing.  People will try to call it a part of life.  But it’s not.  It’s the end of life; and we know it.  When God created our first parents male and female, He did not create them to die.  He created them to live.  That’s why God made them male and female.  That’s why God makes us male and female.  When God joins man and woman together to be one flesh he joins them together for the express purpose that they might be fruitful and multiply, that is, that God might through their life-long union create new life.  Life is a good thing.  But, of course, sin affects what God made to be good.  And its corrupting effects are disastrous.  It’s sad to say, and it’s sadder to see, that it is within marriage where the most devastating results of sin are found. 

Just consider. 

Trinity 16

Luke 7:11-17- Trinity 16- October 9, 2011 

  God's Word Has Power to Give Life

Our Gospel lesson begins this morning with a marvelous clash of moods.  There are two groups.  One crowd is following Jesus who heals the sick and makes the lame to walk.  The other is following a dead body in procession to bury it in the ground.  The one group exhibits excitement and wonder and hope. The other exhibits the sadness and despair that accompany the cold reality of death.  All of us here have experienced both of these moods.  We have all found ourselves at various times in one or the other of these two groups. 

Death comes and loved ones go.  We miss them.  We gather together in church in order to celebrate the eternal life and hope that God had given to those we lose, and we commend our grief to God.  We hear the Gospel preached.  We hear words of comfort.  We learn to grieve as those who have hope in Christ.  It is not as though we doubt any of this.  But the bitter reality remains.  No words can change the fact that the body of the one we love must be laid in the earth from whence it came. 

Death is real.  No one denies this.  The pious Christian, as much as the unregenerate heathen, acknowledges this with bitter resignation.  What people do deny is the cause of death.  Theories abound that attempt to exonerate man from any real guilt and due punishment as though death were just a part of life.  But we turn to God’s word to learn the truth.  “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;” God said to our first parents, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  This was no idle threat.  GOD’S WORD HAS POWER.