Christ Jesus Is the Life and Light and Salvation of Body and Soul

It is evident that Jairus has been catechized by the Word of the Lord, for he comes to Jesus in the hope of His mercy. He worships Him by faith with his prayers and petitions, and with his body, too, prostrate before his Lord in humility. The posture of his body confesses the faith in his heart.

It is evident that he, a ruler of the synagogue, has not only cared for others with God’s Word and prayer, but has catechized his own little daughter, as well; else she would not only be sleeping. The Christian fears the grave as little as her bed, but those who die apart from Christ are swallowed up, body and soul, by eternal death.

Such death is the legacy and inheritance of all the daughters and sons of Adam & Eve. All of you will die — and must die — because all of you sin and fall short of the Glory of God. Indeed, it is necessary that you die to your sin, to yourself, and to the world, in order that you be set free and raised up to newness of life in the Body of Christ Jesus.

But so it is, in Him, that death does not have the last word, final though it seems. Even death cannot end your gladness when you have become a child, not only of man, but of God. By faith in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, you live, even though you die. That is our bold confession, on this day as throughout the year, as we remember with thanksgiving the faithful departed who have gone before us over this past year. They are not “dead and gone,” but alive forever with the Lord.

For the very Son of God has come in the flesh, with a Body and Blood like your own, conceived and born of the Woman, St. Mary, herself a daughter of Adam. He has entered into the house of sin and death where you are. He has crossed over to the other side of the sea in the new and greater Exodus of His Cross and Resurrection, even as He was baptized for you and for all righteousness in the waters of the Jordan River. He made the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to cross over; and, as you are baptized into Him, you pass through death into Life everlasting with Him.

To that end, He now comes with His Ministers of the Gospel, who follow Him and bear His Name, who preach His Word and give His good gifts to the children of men. With His Word and the touch of His hand, He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies you and His whole Christian Church with the Holy Spirit of His God and Father. So does His Word go out into all the world, His Voice to the ends of the earth. And His Word declares that Life and Light and Salvation are found in Him.

Jairus is prompted to seek Him out by his desperate need for the sake of his dear daughter, and by his faith in the Word and Flesh of Christ Jesus he prays and intercedes for his girl, for the life and health and strength of her body. He prostrates himself and worships Jesus with his heart and mind, with his words and actions, and with his whole body, as well. And his prayer is that Jesus would come in the flesh to lay His hands on the little girl, in order to raise her up from death to life again.

You hear the attention that is given here to the body. And at the same time, you know that your own body is afflicted by the curse of sin and death. Your flesh suffers and decays, it perishes and fades like the grass and its flower. There is no lasting life but only sickness and death in your body.

That poor woman with the twelve-year hemorrhage certainly knew and experienced that frailty of her flesh and the weight of her mortality.

For all of that, the truth remains that Christ Jesus has come in His own Body of flesh and blood. He has suffered and died for all your sins and transgressions, and He is risen from the dead in His glorified Body for your justification, in order to rescue and raise you in both body and soul. For all that He has accomplished for you in His Body, He has also given to you in Holy Baptism, and He continues to bestow upon you in the Holy Communion of His Body and His Blood. Already in the Gospel He delivers your soul from death — as He will your body in the Resurrection.

Therefore, do not weep and wail and mourn like those who have no hope.  Rather, pray, praise, and give thanks in the hope and confidence of Christ. Call upon the Name of the Lord, trusting that He hears and answers your prayers and supplications, and that He saves you from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Do not be afraid, but seek Him where He may be found, and so lay hold of Him by the “hem of His garment,” which is to say, by availing yourself of His Word and Sacrament.

Not what your senses, your intellect, or your emotions tell you, no matter how convincingly, but what Jesus says and does for you and gives to you determines what is true and what is real. The world will mock and scorn, it will laugh and ridicule the hope that is in you. But never mind that.

The Lord your God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live by and from Him. And by His grace, by His Ministry of the Gospel, He has delivered you from the domain of darkness, death, and damnation, and brought you into the Kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom you have redemption through His Blood, the free and full forgiveness of all your sins in Christ Jesus.

He raises you up and gives you life, already here and now in your body on earth. As surely as He has purified your heart and cleansed your conscience by the washing of your body with the water and His Word in Holy Baptism, so surely does He enliven your body with His Holy Spirit; so that you rise up and live and walk in His Way — from your childhood into your teens and adulthood.

He stretches out His hand to lay hold of you in love, to strengthen and sustain your faith and life in Him through the blessing of His Word and Holy Spirit. And it is your faith in Him that saves you, not as any kind of work or merit on your part, but as receiving and relying on His good Gifts.

The Synagogue and Sabbath Rest of Christ Jesus are where He catechizes you with His Word and calls you daily to repentance. Thus He returns you, again and again, to the significance of your Holy Baptism, to your dying and rising with Him. And He feeds you with Himself for the Life everlasting of your body and soul. He comes to abide with you, that you should abide in Him.

So now, in turn, confess the faith to your neighbors, and catechize your daughters and sons with the Word of Christ Jesus. Be as earnest and eager to do so as Jairus was to seek out Jesus for the sake of his dear little daughter; for it is by the catechesis of the Word of Christ Jesus that you give true and lasting Life to your children and preserve them in body and soul for now and forever.

And little girl, or little boy — young woman, or young man — child of God, whatever your age, do not continue to sin with your body, nor give yourself over to the laziness of apathy and despair, but worship the Lord your God — and love your neighbor as yourself — in and with your body.

As a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, follow Him on the Way that leads to Life even in the midst of death. Enter with Him into the House of your true Father and Mother, in which your weeping is turned into joy and your sorrow gives way to feasting. For your heavenly Bridegroom is here with you, feeding you with the Meat and Drink indeed of His holy Body and precious Blood, that you should not die but live, now and forever. He abides with you, and you abide in Him, both body and soul, waking, sleeping, in life, in death, and in the Resurrection to the Life everlasting

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In One Lord, Jesus Christ, the True and Only God

Most of you have known at least some of those dear Christians we will name before the Lord’s Altar on this day, who have gone before us in the faith and confession of Christ Jesus.  And all of you have laid to rest loved ones in the past, whether recently or long ago, from the womb or after many years of life together.  Parents and children, spouses and siblings, neighbors and friends.

Take some time to think about those people, those men and women, boys and girls, all of them sinful and mortal like yourself.  What was important to them?  What really mattered?  What did they treasure in this body and life on earth?  How did they spend their time?  Where did they invest themselves?  With what did they depart this vale of tears, and with what did they enter eternity?  What did they take with them?  And what do they have now?

All that remains forever is Christ Jesus and His Word, His Spirit and His Father.  Apart from Him, there is only darkness, death, and damnation.  Where, then, shall your heart and life be found?  And how shall you live here and now, in order that you may rise and live with the Lord Jesus forever?

To set aside for God a part or a portion of your time would be idolatrous.  To dedicate or offer to the Lord a percentage of your possessions would be a sacrilege.  For how shall you call Him the Lord your God, to whom you would give only a portion of yourself?  And how shall you worship Him, if you presume to assign Him a place as one priority among so many others in your life?

It will not do to subdivide yourself, your time and energy, your heart, mind, soul, and strength.  No, you are to love and serve the Lord your God, and nothing else besides Him, with everything you are and have.  For there is one Lord, one God, not many.  There is one Author and Giver of Life.  Wherever else you might look for life, you would find nothing but death.  Not that God is merely a means by which you get life for yourself, but He alone is your Life and Light and Salvation.

Whatever else to which you direct or dedicate your thoughts, words, and actions — if not the Holy Triune God — that is your idol, your false god and false religion.  Or to suppose that you have ever “done your time” and “paid your dues,” is already to have failed and fallen far short of the glory of God.  For He would have all of you, that you should have your whole life entirely in Him.

Your offerings and your alms are inadequate and insufficient, no matter what the amount, and no matter what percentage of your income and your wealth, if you still withhold yourself from God and from your neighbor.  For you are to love the Lord your God with your entire being, and you are to love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Which is not to say that you should love your neighbor in addition to God, nor alongside of God, for that would be to make another god out of your neighbor.  Rather, you are to love your neighbor under and within your fear, love, and trust in God, that is, according to His Word and after the example of His own great heart of love.

It is for God’s sake that you thus love your neighbor in humility, in faith, in mercy, and in peace.  And that is how you are to live your whole life in the good Land to which the Lord your God has called you, which He has promised you in His Word, and which He gives to you in Christ Jesus.

Where you do not love the Lord God and your neighbor, there is alienation, enmity, separation, loneliness, and fear.  Not peace and rest, but anxiety and hard labor.  Not life, but death, now and forever.  That is the land laid waste by your lack of love for God and man.  That is the kingdom and the city of your own idolatrous self-love.  It is sprawling, unruly, divided, and running amok.

But over His good Land the Lord your God has raised up and established a good King, who is the Christ, the Lord’s Anointed, with whom He has made an everlasting Covenant for your salvation.  Indeed, He is the royal High Priest who has redeemed you with His Life-Blood by His Sacrifice upon the Cross and reconciled you to God in His Resurrection from the dead, in order that you may live with Him in His Kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

Who is this King of Glory, who does such great things for you?  He is Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and He is both David’s Son and David’s Lord because He is the Word-made-Flesh, the incarnate Son of God, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Word and Spirit of His Father.

In the great Mystery of His Holy Incarnation, the Lord your God has thereby fulfilled the first and greatest commandment — and likewise the second — for you and for all people.  For the Son loves His God and Father with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength, also now from and with His own human Body of flesh and blood like yours.  And in such love for His Father, He has made Himself your Neighbor, even your Brother in the flesh, in order to love you with His whole Body and Life.

Thus, the one true God, beside whom there is no other, has come beside you, and He has placed you beside Him, so that you might share His Life and abide with Him in His divine and holy Love.

He has held nothing back.  He has humbled Himself, poured Himself out, and given His whole self to God, even unto death upon the Cross.  That is His Priesthood and His Sacrifice, which He offers to God on your behalf.  His Life is in His Blood, and He gives His Life entirely in love for God and in love for you.  For by the shedding of His Blood, He has atoned for all your sins, and not for your sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.  He has redeemed you for Himself forevermore.  And He has established the New Covenant between God and Man in His own Flesh and Blood.

His own Body is the new and greater Tabernacle, wherein God abides with you and you abide with God.  For this Son of David, this true King of Peace, this Word and Wisdom of God in the Flesh — He replaces the old Tabernacle and the old Temple in Jerusalem with the new, eternal Temple of His crucified and risen Body.  And by His holy and precious Blood, you enter with Him into the Holy of Holies, which is to say, into the very presence of God.  You are brought to God the Father in Him, in order to receive the eternal inheritance that belongs to the Son of God.  That is what He freely gives to you by grace in the Holy Communion, which is the New Covenant in His Blood.

Here there are no contingencies, nor is there anything lacking or amiss.  There is nothing “iffy” or uncertain about the Life that is here given by the one true God, who gives Himself to you.  For He has offered Himself as the perfect Sacrifice, once-for-all.  And this same Lord Jesus has risen from the dead, and has ascended to the right hand of the Father where He lives and reigns forever.

Therefore, with His Gospel, which is the “sprinkling” of His Blood, He cleanses your conscience of all sin and shame and every stain.  As He was crucified for your transgressions and raised for your justification, so now He daily and richly forgives you, reconciles you to His God and Father, and sanctifies and purifies your body and soul with His Holy Spirit.  All of this by His Blood, with which He gives to you His Life.  He thereby raises you from death to divine Life in and with Him.

The Law commands you and requires you to love the Lord your God, but here the Lord your God loves you.  The Law tells you to cleanse your heart and draw near to God, but here by His Gospel the one true God draws near to you in Christ, in order to cleanse you by His grace and forgiveness.  He comes to free you from the devil’s kingdom, from the slavery and prison house of sin and death, and to bring you into the Kingdom of God.  The King Himself, the Christ, the Son of God, shares with you His faithfulness, His faith and holy love.  He fully gives to you His relationship with His God and Father, so that the true and only God is now your God and your Father in Him.

That is what the dear Lord Jesus Christ has done for those who have gone before us in the faith, whom we rightly remember with thanksgiving to God in Christ.  We do not worship them, but with them we worship God.  And loving Him above all things, we love them also for His sake.  For they belong to us in Him, and we belong to them.  They are not dead and gone, but alive forevermore.  Not by their own wisdom, reason, or strength, but by the grace of God in the Gospel of Christ.

So does He likewise give Himself, His Life, and His Love to you and all His children, and to His children’s children from one generation to the next, even to the close of the age.

It is in the Temple of His Body, the Church, on earth as it is in heaven, that He bestows Himself and His Gospel upon you, His Life, and His Salvation.  His Word is spoken to you from His Holy Altar, from which He also gives to you His Body and pours out for you the New Testament in His Blood.  For since the Word has become Flesh and tabernacles with us, the Word is never without His Flesh, but He always brings you to His Father in His Body and with His Blood.  He gives you not a part or a portion, but His whole self, perfect and complete.  He withholds nothing from you.

As there is one Bread and one Cup, one Spiritual Food and Drink — of one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all — so there is one Holy Communion in heaven and on earth, which is the one Body of Christ.  He is not divided, but the many are united and become one in Him, just as the many grains of wheat become one Bread, given for you, and the many grapes are united in one Cup of wine, poured out for you and for the many.  So it is that, in His one Body and Blood, all of the faithful of all times and all places live and abide in perfect Peace forevermore.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glorifying Christ Jesus in the Lives of All His Saints

When the Reverend Wilhelm Löhe sent his first colony of Lutherans from Germany to settle in this country, having prepared them to establish the church and community of Frankenmuth (Michigan), he was hopeful that those faithful Lutherans would be able to evangelize the Native Americans: “You are my ‘epistle’ to the heathen,” he told them.  “For by your Christian way of life, and by your piety, the heathen will come to recognize how pleasant it is to have fellowship with Jesus.”

Pastor Löhe correctly understood that the Gospel is proclaimed — not only from the pulpit to the people of God already assembled around it — but also in the lives of His people out in the world.  For hearing and receiving the Gospel of Christ Jesus in the Liturgy, His dear people then also live that same Holy Gospel to the glory of His Holy Name in the midst of their neighbors on earth.

Throughout the history of the Church on earth, that is the most fundamental and important way in which Missions and Evangelism happen.  And so it was that a good number of American Indians were baptized as a direct result of the Frankenmuth colony.  But even apart from any such outward and observable “success,” the fact is that the Gospel of Christ Jesus is lived and confessed in the lives of His people.  And so do their bodies and lives continue to be His “epistle” to the world.

Thus are those 19th-century Lutherans of Frankenmuth part of the great cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded, along with Dr. Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, and all the Lutheran Reformers of the 16th-century, and the faithful Christians of all times and places, including those we remember with thanksgiving at the Lord’s Altar here at Emmaus this morning, who with us are members of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the Right Hand of the Throne of God.

So reads the Letter to the Hebrews, concluding its commemoration of the Old Testament Saints who lived and died by faith in the promise of Christ Jesus.  They are set before us as examples, that we might find in them — and in all the faithful departed — a living demonstration of the Christian faith; that you should be encouraged in the race you still run, looking with them unto Christ Jesus.

The Feast of All Saints and the commemoration of those who have gone before us in the faith are not only appropriate and salutary observances, but they are very much in keeping with the Word of God.  As the people of God, belonging to the Body and Bride of Christ our Lord — as members of His Holy Church — we do not forget our fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, who have fought the good fight and finished their race on earth; we remember and give thanks for them.

We do not worship the saints who have gone before, nor do we have any command or promise of God concerning any sort of prayer to or for the faithful departed.  We put no faith or trust in them, but fear, love, and trust in the one true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and find our hope in the one Lord, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer — just as all the saints have ever done.

But we do remember the faithful departed to the Glory of God in Christ Jesus, in accordance with the Holy Scriptures, and in the ways that our Lutheran Confessions attest and affirm.  Though we do not pray to the Saints for their assistance, we look to their faithful example for encouragement in our Christian faith and life.  We give thanks and praise to God for His grace and mercy toward them, and for all that He has granted to His Church on earth by way of their words and actions in this body and life.  And we rejoice in the living fellowship we have with them in Christ Jesus.

In all these ways, it is a given that our focus is fixed on Christ Jesus, who alone is All in All.  The saints are rightly honored when we look on them as living “stained-glass windows,” through whom the Light of Christ now shines upon us.  For their steadfast faith and good works are not a product of their own reason or strength, but the presence of Christ and the work of His Holy Spirit in them.

That is precisely to the point of the Beatitudes (or Blessings) of this morning’s Holy Gospel, those beautiful Words of our Lord from His Sermon on the Mount.  For they are first of all a description of Christ Jesus.  He is the One who, though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that He might obtain for you the Kingdom of Heaven.  He is the One who is truly gentle, meek, and mild, who by His death redeemed the entire earth.  He is the Merciful One, who is Mercy itself; He is the Peacemaker, who has accomplished a true and lasting Peace between God and man.  He is the only-begotten Son of God, who was reviled and persecuted for the sake of righteousness, that He might earn for you a very great reward and freely bestow all the blessings of heaven upon you.

By the same token, the Beatitudes are also a description, not only of Christ Jesus, but of those who find their life and hope in Him.  He speaks in the plural throughout, thereby revealing that all of His blessings are given to His people, as well.  And so, for example, in the faithful departed we see that blessed reflection of Christ Jesus Himself, because He lives His divine and holy life in them and through them.  We follow and draw strength from their example, because it is His.

What is more, and most wondrous of all, as you are thus encouraged and strengthened in your faith and life in Christ, you also now find in the Beatitudes a description of the life that Christ Jesus lives in and through you.  For by grace through faith in Him, you also are a living reflection of the Lord Jesus Christ for others, that He might bless your neighbors through your example.  As Jesus clearly says, “Blessed are you when you suffer for My sake.”  For His Life has become yours.

For the time being, of course, the blessed life that you have in Christ Jesus includes His Cross and Suffering, just as it has for those who have gone before us in the faith and confession of His Name.  But you may greatly rejoice even in this, because it is a participation in the Cross of Christ Jesus.  And if you suffer and die with Him, you know that you shall also rise and live with Him, as well.

As you struggle though this life under the Cross on your pilgrimage to heaven, you do well to find comfort and strength in the witness and example of the faithful departed of all times and places.  Not only are their lives and good works a confession of the Christian faith, but their victory in Christ Jesus over death and the grave is a powerful witness, even as you struggle feebly on.

Not only that, but you already share in the heavenly fellowship of that great cloud of witnesses, especially as you are gathered together here at the Lord’s Altar for the Holy Communion.  For here in this place, week after week, year after year, the Lord Himself, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, tabernacles with you in the Flesh.  He is here to feed you with Himself, to join Himself to you and bind you to Himself — not only in some sort of abstract “spiritual” sense, but in the truly Spiritual fact of His own Body given for you and His Blood poured out for you.

Christ Jesus is here present with you and for you; and wherever Christ is, there is the greatest glory and blessing of heaven itself.  Indeed, in the words of one beautiful hymn, heaven itself would be void and bare if not for the presence of Christ Jesus.  But He is present here in the Sacrament of His Altar, granting you the forgiveness of all your sins, and so also His Life and Salvation in body and soul.  And because all those who have departed in the faith and confession of Christ Jesus are with Him forever, you can rejoice in their presence here with you, as well, closer than ever in Him.

As Pastor Löhe expressed it so beautifully: “To me it is such a joyous thought that I am not alone, that I do not travel by myself, but that I am accompanied on my pilgrimage through the valley of the shadow by a communion of believers.  Right in the midst of this life’s barren wilderness, this thought can dissolve all sorrow in forgetfulness.  Yet, this communion of saints is no mere thought but an unshakable certainty.  I know from the mouth of God that I am not alone.  I rejoice over this from the bottom of my heart.  Unfortunately, though, my joy is not unmixed with sorrow, for death takes away many whom I love.  Like candles, one after another in the bright circle of my friends goes out, the empty places turn dark, and seldom does another star fill the dark void.  This brings pain and longing.  But I do not forget that these brethren of whom I speak are just hidden from my sight and have been placed in higher positions in the Kingdom of God.  Those who live in the Lord and those who, while out of the body, abide in Him; those who are still pilgrims and those who are already home; those who walk by faith and those who walk by sight — these are not two separated flocks, but one: one before God, and one according to their own consciousness” in Christ Jesus.

It truly is meet, right, and salutary, therefore, that the Liturgy of Christ here on earth unites us with all the company of heaven, as we are also gathered around the Lamb upon His Throne.  Indeed, He feeds you here at His Altar with a gracious Foretaste of that same Wedding Feast which they eat and drink in His Kingdom without end.  Thus do we rightly sing with All Saints and Angels the majestic hymn that is chanted forever in heaven: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, who was and is and is to come.  Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.  Blessed is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest!”

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sons of Abraham by Faith in Christ Jesus

In His Parable last Sunday, the Lord Jesus depicted a tax collector who confessed his sins, prayed for mercy, and went home from the Temple justified.  And now, in this morning’s Holy Gospel, we hear of the tax collector, Zaccheus, who is forgiven and justified by the same Lord Jesus Christ.  Thus are you catechized by the example of his repentance and faith, and you are strengthened in your own faith and life by the demonstration of the Lord’s mercy toward him.  He is more than just a character in a story or a parable.  As Jesus declares, this wee little man is also a son of Abraham.

That is not simply an affirmation of his genealogy; no one could dispute that, although Zaccheus (as a tax collector) would surely have been regarded as a traitor to his native people.  But, no, as St. Paul indicates in several of his Epistles, the true children of Abraham are those who share the faith of Abraham — faith in the promise of the Christ who was coming — now faith in the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ who has come.  Zaccheus was granted such faith, and by such faith he is a son of Abraham.  Indeed, by such faith he is a son of God, and so is he your brother in Christ.

This story of Zaccheus, like so many of the stories of Holy Scripture, is the story of real life in Christ — the story that you also share with those who have gone before you in the confession of His Name.  In this respect, the Holy Gospels are not only the revelation of God in Christ, but also a revelation of Christ in His saints, a commemoration of those who lived and died by faith in Him, who now live forever in His crucified and risen Body.  So shall He be glorified in all His saints on the Day of His appearing; and then you shall see Him as He is, and you also shall be like Him.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the Right Hand of the Throne of God.

So does the Epistle to the Hebrews conclude its lengthy commemoration of the Old Testament saints who lived and died by faith in the promised Seed of the Woman who would come in the fullness of time and crush the serpent’s head.  And so do we also remember with thanksgiving the faithful departed on this Sunday of All Saints.  As one Body in Christ, we rejoice in our fellowship with those who have fought the good fight and finished the race, who now rest from their labors.

To avoid misunderstanding and superstition, let us be clear about our relationship with those dear saints who have gone before us.  We do not worship the saints or pray to them for help in this body and life on earth, but together with them we worship and pray to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We do not remember them or pray for them with doubt and fear, but we give thanks in the confidence of faith for the life that is theirs in Christ, our Savior.  Though we love them as fellow sons and daughters of Abraham, we trust not in the saints but solely in the Son of God.

How is it, then, that we commemorate the faithful departed in accordance with Holy Scripture?

If not for abuses that have at times developed in the history of the Church, this would be a fairly simple question.  For though we do not pray to the saints for their help, we do look to their faithful example for encouragement in our faith and life on earth.  And though we do not worship them, we do remember the saints with thanksgiving toward God, who has done such marvelous things for them and us.  And again, we rejoice in the fellowship that we share with them in Christ Jesus.

Our Lutheran Confessions likewise describe a threefold honor that is rightly given to the saints:

First, we should give thanks to God for showing examples of His mercy in the lives of the faithful departed, thereby revealing His will to save both them and us, and at the same time giving these saints to be our teachers and fellow Christians in His Church.  We praise God for giving these gifts to His people; and we praise the saints themselves for their faithful stewardship of His gifts.

Second, we honor the saints by the strengthening of our faith and confession with the witness of their repentance and forgiveness — as in the case of St. Peter following his denials of Christ.

Third, we rightly honor the saints by imitating their Christian faith and life within their callings: first of all their faith in Christ, and then also the good works that flowed out of their faith in Him.

In all of these things, our focus is fixed on Christ Jesus, who alone is All in All.  Just as St. John sees in the Book of the Revelation, the entire host of heaven is circled and crowded around the Lamb upon His Throne, all eyes riveted on Him.  The saints are rightly honored, then, when we consider them as living “stained-glass windows” through whom the Light of Christ is reflected and shines on us.  They all have their own unique colors and patterns within their particular callings and stations in life; but all the while, Christ is the Sun who shines upon them all, thereby casting their colors and patterns upon us.  For their steadfast faith and their good works are not a product of their own reason or strength but exhibit the presence of Christ and the work of His Holy Spirit.

Certainly Zaccheus is a good example of these things, first of all in his desire to see and hear Jesus, no doubt because he has already heard the word concerning this Man from Nazareth; then, also, in his receiving of Jesus into his home; in his repentance and faith; in the forgiveness of his sins; in his reparations for the wrongs that he has done against others; and especially in the declaration of Jesus that he, too, is a son of Abraham by faith.

It is that very same life as a “son of Abraham” that you also have received by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.  And the same thing is true of those whom we remember today, who departed this life in the faith of Christ over the course of this past year.  You will not recognize the names of all these people; probably there are many of them you never knew in this body and life.  But these, too, are the sons of Abraham, as are you.  And together as one body in Christ, as the family of God, we have one-and-all received the inheritance of faith, in which we live and die and live forever.

For the time being, of course, the blessed life that you live by faith in Christ includes the Cross and suffering, just as it did for those who have gone before us in the confession of our crucified and risen Lord.  But you may greatly rejoice even in this, precisely because it is a share in the Cross and Suffering of Christ Jesus.  If you have died with Him, you know that you also live with Him.

As you struggle though this life under the Cross on your pilgrimage to heaven, you are able to find comfort and take strength from the witness and example of the faithful departed, the saints of old as well as those who have been near and dear to you in this body and life on earth.  Not only are their lives a reflection of the Christian faith, but even more, their victory in Christ over death and the grave is a powerful witness and encouragement as you struggle feebly on.

Thus, as in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we remember and give thanks for the saints who have gone before us, that we might see in them a demonstration of the Christian faith and life.  And by the testimony of so great cloud of witnesses, you are indeed encouraged to fix your eyes on Jesus.

The confession and faithfulness of the faithful departed, in life and death, are set before you as the evidence of our dear Lord’s faithfulness toward them — and so also toward you and all of God’s people.  That is what the Greek word for “witness” really implies.  It is a legal term, not only for a person who gives testimony, but for the evidence that is brought forward and placed on exhibit.

The saints who have gone before us have thus become the living “exhibits” of the Lord’s great Salvation — accomplished and fulfilled in Christ, and so also manifested in the bodies and lives of His Christians.  Their repentance and faith, their confession and absolution, their words and works of love within their callings, and their persistent prayer and worship in the Name of the Lord Jesus, are the evidence that the Kingdom of God has come and is at hand in the Body of Christ.

What is more, you already share a blessed “communion” with that great cloud of witnesses — a common unity in the one Lord, Jesus Christ — especially as you are gathered here at His Altar for the Lord’s Supper.  In the words of one familiar hymn, “The saints on earth and those above but one communion make; joined to their Lord in bonds of love, all of His grace partake.”  For the “communion of saints” is not some “pie in the sky,” but a Banquet set before you here and now.

It is, indeed, the ongoing, neverending Feast of Christ, which you are given to share with Christ — already here on earth — in the company of angels and archangels and all the host of heaven.

Certainly, it is no coincidence that we are given to sing of this heavenly reality in the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  Nor is it merely poetry when we join with all the saints and angels in singing the “Holy, Holy, Holy.”  For here in this place the Lord Himself, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, is present in the utter reality of His human flesh and blood.  He is here to feed you with Himself, to join you to Himself — not only in some sort of abstract “spiritual” sense, but in the truly spiritual fact of His sacrificial Body and Blood.  Nothing else would be enough, since you also are of flesh and blood, and His salvation is for you, for both your body and your soul.

So Christ is present here with you and for you; and wherever Christ is, there is the greatest glory and blessing of heaven itself.  Indeed, in the words of another beautiful hymn, heaven itself would be void and bare if the Lord Jesus were not present.  But He is here with you in His Body given and His Blood poured out for you to eat and drink, granting you forgiveness for all your sins, and bestowing on you His Life and Salvation.  And because those who have departed in Christ are with Him forever, you can rejoice in their presence here with you, as well — closer now than ever.

It is, therefore, truly meet, right, and salutary, that our worship here on earth should blend with theirs in heaven, as we are gathered around the Lamb upon His Throne.  He feeds us here at His Altar with a gracious preview and a foretaste of that very same Feast which they enjoy throughout eternity in His Kingdom.  And in our grateful response, we sing with All Saints the majestic hymn that is chanted forever in heaven: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.  Blessed forever is the Lamb of God.  Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.”

All glory, honor, thanks, and praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

Exalted in the Humility of Christ

Christ is your Teacher, your Rabbi; and He is your Leader through life and death, into the Resurrection of the Body and the life everlasting.  His God and Father is your true God and Father, who has given you His Holy Spirit for the sanctification of your body and soul in Christ Jesus, for Life with God here in time and hereafter in eternity.

To this end, or, rather, to this divine eternal Life, the Lord Jesus Christ teaches you His Word, which is the good and acceptable will of God, both the Law and the Gospel.  He teaches you to live in love for God and man, as you heard from Him last Sunday.  And He teaches you that such life and love are yours by faith in Him, who is both true God and true Man, your Savior from sin, death, the devil, and hell.  In love for you, He daily and richly forgives you all your sins, and by such forgiveness you receive the Holy Spirit and learn to know your Father in heaven rightly.

To live by such faith in the forgiveness of sins is genuine humility, in which you know your faults and failures, your poverty and need, and, for that reason, you rely upon the mercies of the Lord instead of your own righteousness, reason, or strength.  The Lord humbles you with His Word to know and believe this, in order to exalt you by His grace, by His Word and Holy Spirit.

It’s not about intellectual achievement or hard work.  It is the fear of the Lord and a loving trust in Him alone.  There is, perhaps, a temptation to sinful pride in this business of “confirmation,” as though the diligent young Lutheran (but not too young!) could pull himself up by his bootstraps and exalt himself.  But, of course, that is not the point at all.  Confirmation embraces the promises of God and the confession of faith in His Gospel.  It clings to Christ for dear Life in His Ministry of Word and Sacrament.  It abides in the ongoing significance and meaning of one Holy Baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and so promises to continue dying and rising through daily contrition and repentance.  It finds no life in yourself or in your flesh, but only in Christ Jesus.

It is to this humility of repentant faith that the celebration of All Saints and the commemoration of the faithful departed call you.  For here at the Table of the Lord in His House, in the face of death and the grave, we confess that those who have died in the faith of Christ are not dead and gone, but are alive and well in Him.  They are at peace with God, and at rest from all their labors.  Their bodies, although even now returning to the dust of the earth from which they were taken, await the Resurrection of all flesh in the sure and certain hope of the risen Lord Jesus.

They surely do not exalt themselves!  There is no pride in death.  For those of you who have watched your loved ones waste away and die, you know there is no boast in mortal flesh and blood.  There is only the Cross of Christ to cling to, and the Resurrection of Christ to rely upon.  Nothing else can save you.  Yet, there is that which He has done and accomplished for you and for all.

He is your One Leader, who not only shows you the way to go, but is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  He goes before you and blazes the trail.  He enters into your sin and death, and He takes your place in the dust of the earth, in order to open up the way of life for you in His Resurrection from the dead.  He is the One who humbles Himself, even unto death on the Cross, who is exalted by His God and Father and given the Name above every name, with which He has also named you.

As He has died and risen for you in His own Body of flesh and blood, so have you died with Him and are raised with Him through Holy Baptism.  Which is all that your Confirmation confesses and relies upon: That you are baptized into Christ, God’s own child in Him, clothed in His righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, anointed by His Spirit, and fed by His Body and Blood.

Because that is true, the life that you live in your body, even now, actually matters and means something.  The fact that all your sins are freely forgiven for Jesus’ sake is not a reason to go on sinning — God forbid!  Rather, excel more and more in faith and love toward God, and in love for your neighbor.  Flee from sin and every evil, and possess your own vessel, your body and life on earth, in the holiness and honor of the Lord.  Where you have fallen into temptation and sin, repent.  Lay hold of Christ and His forgiveness in the Gospel, and live again according to His Word.

Do not despair, but fear, love, and trust in God.  As He humbles you unto repentance, so does He exalt you in Christ Jesus by His Gospel of forgiveness.  Day by day throughout your life, He raises you up through faith in His Word and promises.  And on that great and final Day, He shall raise your body from the grave in the Glory of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.  This is most certainly true.

This is what it means to be and to live as a Christian, as a child of the one true God.  And all who believe and are baptized in His Holy Name are brothers and sisters in Christ, sons and daughters of one Father, and members of His one household and family in heaven and on earth.  We mourn together with those who are bereaved, not without hope, but in the hope of the Resurrection.  And so do we also rejoice with one another as one Body in Christ Jesus.

The men and women we name before His Altar this morning, and the saints we remember with thanksgiving throughout the year — Apostles and Evangelists, St. Mary, and St. John the Baptist — they are all knit together with us, and we with them, in the Holy Communion.  Death has not severed that connection, nor is it even able to do so, since Christ our Lord is risen from the dead.

So, today, our confirmands affirm the pledge and promise of Baptism: They yet again renounce the devil, all his works, and all his ways, and confess their faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in whom alone true Life is found.  They would die before giving up that faith and confession, for there is no other God.  One is your Father.  One is your Teacher.  One is your Leader and Lord.

Even for these four young men, their day to die will come, whether sooner or later.  But, as also for those who have gone before us in the faith, even death wll not be able to end their gladness.

For now, they labor in love.  Then they shall enter their rest.  Either way, they are the Lord’s.

Their deeds do not lead the way, but Christ their Savior leads them; and their good deeds of faith and love quietly follow after Him.  Men are not impressed by such a life, but the Father in heaven is pleased with them and all His children for the sake of His Beloved Son.  Therefore, He gives to them the place of honor, to be seated with Christ Jesus in the heavenly places, even as they recline here at His Table in peace, and feast upon His Banquet, adorned with His garments of salvation.

So does He also wash your robes and make them white in the Blood of the Lamb, unto the resurrection of your body and the life everlasting.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.