20 August 2012 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA
Text: Mark 16:1-7 (Isa 25:6-9, Rom 8:28-39)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Dear Chris and Ellen, Colin,
family members, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, and honored guests, “Peace
be with you!”
St. Paul speaks about the
“sting of death.” The passing away of a
beloved mother, grandmother, aunt, friend, teacher, and sister in Christ
stings. It hurts. And the closer we are to the person who has
fallen asleep in Christ, the deeper that wound is. It is painful and sorrowful.
There is a famous quote from
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” But in the case of death, there is nothing
sweet about this parting. It is bitter. It is hurtful. It causes us to grieve. It is the separation that is so painful. It is a separation, a parting that we are
never really prepared for.
And try as we might, we
cannot make death natural, normal, or some kind of relief from suffering. For according to the truths revealed in the
Bible, death is none of these things. Death
is nothing good. Death is what mankind
brought into the world by sin. Death is
our failure to live as we should. Death
comes to all of us because we are all guilty of sin.
Our dear sister in Christ
Audrey knew this. She heard the Word of
God preached again and again. She
confessed her sins and she confessed the faith.
She studied the Scriptures, she received the forgiving washing of Holy
Baptism as a child, and she received the forgiving nourishment of the Holy
Supper even to the end of her nine decades of life in this fallen and
grief-stricken world. Audrey knew the
sting of death. She endured it many
times. But Audrey also knows that Jesus
has conquered death. She enjoys this in
eternity!
Audrey was created in the
image of God, redeemed by the grace of God, and has now been brought into the
perfect sanctified peace of God. She has
conquered sin because her Lord Jesus has conquered sin. That, dear friends, is why Audrey spent her
ninety years worshiping the Lord in the Lord’s church. We Christians do not gather around altars
because we are perfect, but rather because we are sinners. We come here seeking the antidote to death –
and we find it here! We are indeed forgiven
and transformed sinners.
And yet, when death confronts
us, we grieve. And what could be a more
normal reaction! We are saddened by our
separation from those we love. And would
it be any other way? But, dear friends,
I have good news for you: tombs are only temporary resting places for the
forgiven sinners that we Christians are!
Our Lord Jesus blazed that trail, when after dying to take upon Himself
our death, our punishment, He rose victoriously from the dead!
When the grieving Mary’s
walked to the tomb in their sadness and mourning, they found it empty. The angels turned their weeping into
boundless joy with these words: “He has risen!”
And Christians ever since that first Easter have responded: “He is risen
indeed!”
Dear friends, because He
lives, we live. Because He lives, she
lives. Because He loves us, we have
hope. Because He redeemed us, we have
life.
Life, dear friends! Life that cannot be taken away, life that
never ends, literal life, awaiting the resurrection of the body and the life
everlasting. This is the promise of the
same Jesus who walked out of His own grave.
This is the same promise of the same Jesus who greeted His disciples
after the resurrection with the words: “Peace be with you!”
For though we mourn, we do have
this peace: the peace that passes all understanding. We may not feel it right now, but it is
there. It is the peace of the assurance
of God’s Word, declared by God’s Son, proclaimed through the Son’s
resurrection, who promises our own resurrection.
And even in our sorrow, we
can take comfort that as St. Paul teaches us in the Word of God: “And we know
that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been
called according to His purpose.”
“All things,” dear friends,
are worked by God for our good – even when it seems to us to be hopeless and
beyond repair. “In all things” Scripture
teaches us, God works for the good of those who love Him and who have been
called.”
Blessed Audrey was called at
her baptism, and God continued to share Himself with her, His beloved child,
every time she communed with Him in His Word and in the Holy Sacrament.
“What then shall we say in
response to these things? If God is for
us, who can be against us?” Is there any
more comfort than this, dear friends?
God is on our side – we who mourn, we who struggle emotionally with the
separation from our loved ones. For this
separation is only temporary, and it is limited.
“Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? Shall trouble or
hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?.... No, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through Him who loved us.”
“Through Him who loved us,”
dear friends in Christ. Our Lord loves
us. Our Lord dies for us. Our Lord rises again for us. Our Lord prepares a place for us. Our Lord promises a reunion with us and with
all those whom we love. This is not just
a way of speaking. This is as real as
the empty tomb in Jerusalem and as inevitable as any future event in history.
Listen to these words of
comfort, dear friends. Listen to what
the Lord has to say to you – especially to Chris, to Ellen, and to Colin. Listen to the Lord’s Words anyone who suffers
for any reason in this life. Listen to
the ironclad promise of the One who conquered death and the grave, who defeated
Satan and sin, who breathes new life into men and women the world over through
His atoning blood and mercy, listen to St. Paul comfort us in Holy Words that
are not merely eloquent like Shakespeare, but are true and eternal because they
are God’s promise: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither
angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
For though we feel the sting
of death, death is defeated. Though we
are separated from our beloved Audrey, nothing shall separate her, or us, from
the love of God. Though we are wounded
by sorrow, the wounds of the Man of Sorrows has delivered the free gift of life
and forgiveness to us at the cross. And
though weakened by very real and profound grief, we are strengthened by the
sure and certain promises of God’s almighty Word: “Surely this is our God; we
trusted in Him, and He saved us. This is
the Lord, we trusted in Him; let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”
And so we Christians wait eagerly
for the return of our Lord, our loving Lord, our risen Lord, our almighty
Lord. We wait in hope for our reunion
with those we love, for our mourning to become dancing, for the resurrection of
the body and the life everlasting. We
wait expectantly with the ever-comforting greeting of our risen Lord on our
lips: “Peace be with you!”
Dear friends, peace be with
you, now and even unto eternity! Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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