True Freedom - A Sermon for Reformation Day, A+D 2022

Reformation Day, (Observed) 
October 30th, anno + Domini 2022
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
True Freedom - John 8:31-36

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.                    

   Freedom.  The Jews who had believed in Jesus have a freedom problem.  They think
they are free.  They think they have always been free, and so they resent anyone, even this miracle worker Jesus, who dares suggest they are not free. 

   Freedom.  How free are we?  We are citizens of the United States of America, where freedom has been a central topic since the founding.  And it still is.  Many today worry that we are in danger of losing fundamental freedoms.   Others warn that the excessive exercise of freedom is leading us down a path to chaos, chaos that could even lead us into fascist dictatorship. 

   The Supreme Court recently returned the question of abortion to the various states, to be determined by them.  The justices could not find where the Constitution sets them free to determine for the whole nation this fraught question.  Abortion rights advocates scream to high heaven that every woman’s fundamental freedom to govern her own body has been stolen.  God the Author of Life is not listening to their cries, and Christians and others celebrate the opportunity to restore to unborn baby girls and boys the freedom to be born.  But the battle is only beginning.  The goal of changing hearts and minds so that abortion is unthinkable is a very long way off.  One thing is certain:  this fundamental struggle over values, life and the definition of freedom does not make anyone feel free.

   Here in West River South Dakota, we cherish the freedom of self-sufficiency.  Which can seem like a winning project, unless your self-sufficiency is tied to the stock market, and your retirement nest egg is suddenly much smaller than it was last year.  But no worries, you gather, cut and split your own firewood, so at least you’re free to be warm.  Unless a back injury ends your ability to wield a chain saw.             

   Freedom is tricky.  We might even ask the question: “How free do we truly want to be?   No one wants to be literally locked up and held in bondage.  But to be truly free in all aspects, to be a self-made man or woman, responsible to make all your own decisions, judge situations and people based on your knowledge and wisdom, and be totally responsible for your own outcomes?  This is actually quite frightening.

   We used to outsource a lot of this self-governance work to institutions and affinity groups, tribes if you will.  It used to be that we said things like:  I do this job for a living because everyone in my family does this for a living.  I approach life this way because my church tells me to do so.  I think this way about politics or act this way in society because I work in this industry or sector, have this ethnic background, or am a member of this or that organization.  And that’s how my kind of people think and act.  Sure, those old institutions made a few demands on me, pretty minor, usually.  But I got a lot in return, including freedom from having to make all those difficult judgments and choices on my own.

   But these old institutions, such as the family, churches, unions, political parties, civic organizations and a hundred other traditional institutions have fallen on hard times.  Today we are free to reject their guidance and influence.  But we’re still tribal creatures, to be sure.  And the new tribes that have risen up to replace the old tribes demand more.  No matter whether you ascribe to “woke-ism,” “environmentalism,” “feminism,” “conservatism,” “liberalism,” or “Trump-ism,” these new tribes demand to influence every part of your life, and offer less freedom to think and act your own way.  One-hundred percent tribe loyalty is the new expectation.  Any deviation from the tribal stance is verboten.  If the tribal stance on a person or an issue flips 180 degrees tomorrow, well, you better make an about face, without asking why.  Because you can quickly become the ‘enemy’ and lose your status as a good tribe member.  Nevertheless, many people sign up for a side, preferring to be a less-than-free insider, rather than a free outcast.    

    Many sign-up for these new tribes.  And many others withdraw.  The same electronic gadgets that make these new tribes seem real and powerful also provide a means of escape.  To disconnect and lose oneself in another reality feels very freeing in the moment.  But does this freedom last?  Is this freedom real?  As many do with a variety of chemical substances, legal and illegal, so also gaming, binge-watching, internet pornography and the hopefully never-to-be-fully-realized “meta-verse” offer illusions of freedom, the sensation of being commander of one’s own destiny, as long as you stay plugged in. 

   But if an internet porn addiction makes me incapable of healthy physical intimacy with my wife, who’s the slave now?  If I can’t finish school or get a good job because I spend 10 hours every day trying to level up in my favorite game, who is the master of whom?  And can I really boast of my personal autonomy and liberty when I look up from a mindless trail of YouTube videos and realize it’s 3:00 a.m., I have to be at work in a few hours, but I’m too wired too fall asleep? 

If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 

   All of our fruitless efforts of finding freedom, or avoiding freedom while pretending to be free, all of these share some fundamental problems.  All of these feature a human definition of freedom at their center.  I may make my own definition of freedom, or I may choose to accept the definition of some cultural leader.  Many of them sound quite beautiful.  Life, liberty and property.  From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.  The pursuit of happiness.  Or, the greatest good for the greatest number.  The unseen hand guiding the market economy.  Freedom in collective equality.  Power to the people.  Long live the Queen!  Some of these ideas may have better historical track records than others, but none of them can truly make you free.    

   Human ideas about freedom see enemies out there, in bad-faith actors that threaten us from all sides.  And they see the key to freedom inside us, in the heart of each individual, if we can just choose the right method, or the right leader, and commit ourselves fully to the cause. 

   Jesus’ truth about freedom and slavery flips this perspective upside down:  “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”  Your lack of freedom is not imposed by some evil master – you are the problem.  You are the problem, unless of course, you don’t sin? 

   But, lest we then simplistically suppose that the solution to slavery is self-reformation, that is, just stop sinning, please notice: this is not how Jesus completes His thought.  “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”  Your lack of freedom is a sin problem.  But the solution is not you overcoming sin.  You can’t; you are its slave.  No, the only solution is the Son, coming to set you free.  

   The Jews who had believed in Jesus do not like being called “slaves.”  Even though the history of Israel is filled with periods of the literal enslavement of God’s people, to Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians and more, and even though at the moment of this conversation with Jesus, the Jews lived without freedom under the harsh rule of the Roman Empire, still they protest:  “We have never been slaves of anyone!” 

   To these self-deluded Jews, Jesus gives His unexpected and unpopular definition of slavery, and of freedom:  “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

   Much like some of you may have been offended when I mentioned your favorite self-chosen pursuit of freedom, these Jews who had believed in Jesus were upset by His words.  Most of them would soon abandon Jesus, as He spoke in every greater detail about His project to set sin-slaves free.  The pure Gospel is strange and offensive precisely because Christ declares that true freedom is only found in complete dependence on Him. 

   The Jews in our Gospel and many people today don’t want Jesus’ kind of freedom.  In fact, He offends them.  So be it, Jesus is not concerned with avoiding offense.  He is concerned with winning our freedom. 

   The radical truth of Jesus’ freedom winning project is the great truth that the Holy Spirit revealed to Martin Luther, and led to the Reformation.  Jesus didn’t do part of what was necessary to set us free, leaving part of the work of salvation to us.  No, Jesus did all of it, 100%, for you.  God’s Son became a man in order to take our place as a slave, so He could break the chains that bind us, once and for all.  Jesus took your sin, your slavery to sin, upon Himself, and carried it to the Cross.  Jesus won freedom for you and me and for every sinner, freedom won through submission, submission to evil, submission to suffering, finally, even submission to death. 

   Too often we foolish humans are tempted to think we can find freedom in death, that is, in our own deaths.  In this we are sadly and dangerously mistaken.  But in the death of Jesus, we do find freedom,  Because the death of Jesus solved our problem with sin, by forgiving us.  Only Jesus’ death is a good death, because only His death leads to new life.  New life, revealed by Jesus in His Resurrection, and shared with all who die and rise with Him through Baptismal faith.    

   Martin Luther and the other Reformers regularly risked imprisonment and death, because they dared to freely proclaim their rejections of the lies of the false tribe that the Roman Church had become.  The Church had fallen into decay, she no longer was about setting sinners free in Christ.  Rather her pastors and bishops sought to control sinners with false laws, for earthly gain.  The true freedom of the Gospel was denied.  The institution of the Church of Rome had become a slave master. 

   Luther and many others dared to rebel against their tyranny.  And because Christ and His free forgiveness were in the center of their message, because the Holy Spirit went before and behind their efforts, the truth of the pure Gospel rang out again, changing the course of history, and setting millions of sinners free. 

   Will the voice of true freedom continue to sound forth in our day?  I pray that it will.  To help us along that path, there are a few key points we should all remember and live by.   

   The Church is not called to earthly greatness, nor to wealth or prestige or power.  We are called to proclaim freedom, through the blood-bought forgiveness of sins that the Son of God has won for all people.  To proclaim freedom, we must, as Jesus did, speak the truth about human sin.  And then, when the truth of the Law has done it’s work, we are to proclaim freedom.  Freedom from guilt. Freedom from fear.  Freedom from the slavery of seeking identity and meaning in some other tribe. 

   You may belong to many, or just a few earthly groups, and that’s fine, as long as these groups don’t pull your from your real tribe.  For all who trust in the Christ who claimed them in baptism are members of the only in-group that matters – the mysterious Body of Christ, His Bride, the Church, the whole tribe of believers from every time and place, who rest in the freedom that Jesus has won for us.      

   The Son has set you free.  By His atoning blood, you are free from guilt, free from sin, free from fear of God’s wrath.  You are even free from the fear of the scorn and persecution of mankind.  And so you are also free to speak, to sing the praises of the One who died to set you free.  Free to love, as you have been loved. 

   Rejoice, for you are truly free in Jesus Christ, your crucified, risen and truly present Lord and Savior.  Amen

Our Lord Jesus Christ - Sermon for the 18th Sunday after Trinity

Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
October 16^th, Year of Our + Lord 2022
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
Our Lord Jesus Christ 
Matthew 22:34-46, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

    Lord Jesus Christ.  Three words that we use a lot.  The Lord Jesus Christ.  Our
Lord Jesus Christ.  My Lord Jesus Christ.  Christ Jesus, Our Lord.  Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns.  In our repetitiveness we are, whether we realize it or not, copying the Apostle Paul, who in the first nine verses of his first letter to the Corinthian Church names the Savior, using by one or more of these titles, nine times.  Of Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus.  The fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 

    We speak this name and title a lot.  What does it mean?  Are we thinking about what it means when we say it, or do we toss it off as a wrote phrase?   Do we allow Paul’s frequent repetition and our liturgical mimicry of him to dull our ears and chafe our hearts, so that the significance of ‘Lord Jesus Christ’ is lost to us?  I pray that we do not.  But if by mindless neglect you have lost the wonderful, mysterious, joyful significance of ‘Lord Jesus Christ,’ do not despair.  The Holy Spirit today provides us just that part of His Word best suited to break our lethargy, bring us to repentance, and lift us up to God once again, through the right understanding and faith concerning these precious words:  Our Lord Jesus Christ.  In this title, rightly understood, are all the wonders and treasures of God’s Good News of Salvation.  So let’s dive in; the water is invigorating.  

    The Man who bears the Name will lead us into the truth about ‘Lord Jesus Christ.’  The setting of our reading from Matthew chapter 22 is the first Holy Week, those eternity-changing 8 days, from the Sunday Jesus entered Jerusalem to shouts of ‘Hosanna’, through the agony of that Friday we call Good, to the dawn of a New Creation on Sunday morning.  During this week, Jesus’ years long confrontation with the Jewish religious elite reaches its climax.  Just before our reading, Jesus had shut down the Sadducees, a faction of priests who had gone Greek.  They continued to serve in the Temple of the Jewish God; it was a good gig, after all.  But they denied much of what Moses had taught about the living Lord God, preferring the cosmology of Athens, which hated the idea of a physical resurrection of the dead. 

    Now, the Pharisees, another faction of Jewish religious elite, confront Jesus.  Unlike Sadducees, Pharisees loved the writings of Moses.  But their way of interpreting Moses focused so much on the Law, on the things we must do and not do to please God, that these religious lawyers can only ask a Law question.  “Teacher,” one of them asks Jesus, “which is the great commandment in the Law?” 

   Couldn’t almost any faithful Hebrew child have answered this question?  Jesus certainly could:  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  100% dedication, commitment and loyalty to God is the first and main thing.  Then, when you’ve given yourself perfectly to God, follow this similar commandment:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  Just two rules, simple in form and easy to understand. 

   Not so easy to do.  But there you have it, a Law answer to a Law question.  And, as it does for us if we truly open our ears to hear it, this Word of God shuts the Pharisees’ mouths.  They have no response. 

   Now, if we treat the Law of God as an abstract idea, holding it out at a distance in our minds, then we can cogitate and pontificate about it, marveling to each other about how sublime and good it is.  But, if the Holy Spirit brings these words close, like a mirror in front of our eyes, so close we can’t look anywhere else, well then we can either run away, or we can confess that we have nothing to say to this Law’s judgment of our lives.  Because we do not love like the Lord God requires.

   Into the silence of the Law, Jesus asks a Gospel question, a good news question.  It doesn’t seem like good news, it seems confusing.  But it is, once the meaning of ‘Lord Jesus Christ’ is revealed.  In the silence generated by His Law, the Lord, the God of Israel, can only be understood as a demanding judge, before whom we sinners must quail.  And He is.  And we must.  By the way of our works, by the way of the Law, the Lord is good, just and all powerful.  And He is our Destroyer, our Condemner.  Every tongue, sooner or later, will be stopped before the Holy Fear that is the Lord God, who demands that we love Him, and each other, 100%.  All means all. 

    Lord willing, our mouths will be shut sooner, not later, sooner, before it is too late to hear Jesus.  Because the Lord Jesus Christ comes to us in the silence of the Law, and speaks a word of hope, a word of peace, a word of rescue. 

    Now, says Jesus to the Pharisees, let me ask you a question:   “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” ⁴³ He then asks them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, ⁴⁴ “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’?  ⁴⁵ If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”

    The Pharisees’ Law question uses two titles, Lord and God, and so reveals a strict judge who demands perfect love.  This is good and right.  But it leaves us exposed, naked before the condemnation of our failures to love. 

   Jesus’ Gospel question brings in more names.  The son of David.  The Christ.  The Spirit.  Both first century Hebrew children and 21^st century Lutheran listeners might need a bit of help sorting these out. 

    The Christ, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew title ‘Messiah,’ simply means ‘the anointed one.’  It refers to the savior promised by the Lord.  Promises of the Christ are found throughout the writings of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.  These promises reach their apex under King David, the mighty king of Israel, a flawed man whom the Lord nevertheless used to lead Israel to greatness.  To David the Lord promised a son, a descendent, who would rule on his throne forever, a savior who would restore Israel.  This promised immortal son of David is the Christ, the anointed one to come. 

   The Christ is to be a descendent of David, which to the Hebrew mind meant that David was greater than the Messiah.  Fathers are always understood to be greater than sons.  That the source of a person is greater than the descendent reflects the reality that God is the Creator and we are creatures.  This is why we are to honor our father and our mother, not the other way around.  For dad and mom are God’s chosen source for our procreation, our existence.  A father does not worship his  son, he does not call his son Lord.

    And yet, David, speaking of the Christ, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, says this: “the Lord said to my Lord.”  Go study the Psalm in question, Psalm 110, and you will see that David is talking about the promised Messiah, the Christ, the coming savior, who is to be David’s descendent, his son.  The Pharisees certainly understood this.  So why, asks Jesus, does David call his son, his future descendent ‘Lord,’ as if this son were greater than himself?  It doesn’t make sense.  But there it is, right in the first verse of Psalm 110. 

   First Jesus shut their mouths with the Law.  Now He creates a greater silence with the mystery of the Gospel.  None of the Pharisees, nor the Sadducees, nor any other self-important religious leader, dared to ask Jesus anymore questions. 

   The Good News in all of this is this:  Jesus Christ is the Lord.  The Lord, the Almighty God of Israel who revealed Himself to the Hebrew people through His servant Moses, the One who laid down the Law that shuts our mouths and condemns us, this same Lord is Himself the Messiah.  The Christ.  The anointed Savior, sent not so much to save God’s people from earthly oppression, but rather to save us from the oppression of our failure to love.  The Lord Himself would come and Shepherd His loveless people, and save them. 

   The Lord surpasses our understanding in this endeavor.  For this Christ, God’s eternal Son, the Lord come to save, is also the son of David, a physical descendent in the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah.  Finally it was revealed that the Christ is to be a child of the House of David.  And that child is this Jesus from Nazareth, the child of Mary, born under suspicious circumstances.   Jesus is the Lord, the God of Israel, come to save His people from their sins.  God and man are one, in Christ. 

   Jesus asks the Pharisees a question that leads to this mysterious Good News.  But at the moment, there is no more debate.  It is impossible to respond.  Jesus knows God’s Law, and He knows the mysterious promises that also come in the Word of God, given to Israel through Moses and the Prophets.  The Pharisees have no Word to respond to Jesus.  They do not understand, and their only thought, word and deed is to crucify Him.  And thus Jesus reaches His goal.  Thus the Messiah fulfills His anointed calling.  Thus the Lord God saves.  Those who hate Jesus for claiming to be equal to God are lost in hate and rage.  Those who hope to find in Jesus a savior, or a warrior king, or at least a new prophet from God, these hopeful souls now can only watch in silence, as the one they thought might be the Christ submits to evil. 

   Jesus is executed on the trumped up charge that He claimed to be a king, over and against the Roman emperor Caesar, who would brook no rival.  Caesar, by the way, wanted to reserve the title ‘Lord’ for himself.  But that’s a theme for a whole other sermon. 

   On Good Friday it seems that Jesus is just a sham.  Weak, pitiful, crucified, he cannot be the Savior, he cannot be a new king, he certainly cannot be the Lord God Almighty.  The deadening silence of Friday afternoon is broken only by the jeers of his enemies, who think they have won. 

   But of course, the Lord Jesus Christ has won.  Hidden under the suffering, the blood, the shame, there, from out of the deepest darkness shines the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Lord God Almighty, the Son of David and also the eternal Son of God.  This victory would remain hidden in a tomb until Sunday morning.  But the Good News is this: as He died, Jesus became our salvation.  Which is the meaning of the name ‘Jesus:’  The Lord is our Salvation.   Jesus’ victory, and the fact that He is God of God and Lord of Lords, is revealed in His resurrection on the third day. 

   Your Lord Jesus Christ did not make a way of salvation that set aside God’s Law of Love.  Nor did He make a new kingdom by utterly rejecting every sinner who ever rejected Him.  Which is all of us, by the way.  No, our Lord Jesus Christ saves by going right through the Law for us sinners.  God’s Son became a man to  fulfill the requirements of the Law, in our place.  He paid the debt we owe to the Law, and swallowed up the death our lovelessness has earned from the Law.  All of this, the Lord Jesus Christ has done for you, for me, and for all people. 

   God’s way of salvation is always a surprise to us sinners.  That life should come from death, glory from shame, joy from suffering: what a wonderful, unexpected gift.  So also, God’s way of delivering His salvation to us today is unexpected.  We sinners are still capable of rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ.  For reasons of pride, or logic, or our concept of fairness, or the material limits we see in the creation, we have so many ways to reject that God must do the whole work of salvation, right down to this day.  We protest, but He is still coming to shut mouths and deliver forgiveness through the means and in the way He chooses: through the weakness of words spoken by sinners, through a meager bath, and through a meal that fills no one’s stomach, but gives eternal life.  The Lord Jesus Christ pours Himself into all of these forms of His Good News, His Gospel, in order to save you. 

   And then what a change.  Because He loves you, you also love Him.  And His love spills over in you, resulting in you sharing love with your neighbors.  Our love to God and neighbor is still imperfect.  But it is made perfect by His love.  For we have been called into the fellowship, the communion, the Body of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, in whom we have forgiveness, life and salvation.   

   All of this, and eternal joy, are found in these words: Our Lord Jesus Christ.  To us be the forgiving and life-giving love poured out at Calvary.  To Him be glory, honor and praise, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, today, and forever and ever, Amen.           

A Joyful Funeral - Sermon for the 16th Sunday after Trinity

Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity
October 2^nd, Year of Our + Lord 2022
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
A Joyful Funeral

   That started out really awkward.  I was more than willing, honored really, to serve as a pallbearer for Gene’s funeral.  Sure, I’d be ritually unclean for a while, and I would need to go through the purification ritual.  But that’s o.k., the work had to be done.  Besides, Gene’s mom, the Widow of Nain, has always been kind to me.  And Gene was a good friend.  And Gene was the Widow’s only son.  First she lost her husband, now her son.  She was all alone in the world.  Really sad.  It was not fun, but it seemed good and right to serve as a pallbearer, to show respect for the Widow, and for Gene. 

   So when Jesus walked up, noisy crowd in tow, I was really ticked.  Have a little respect, right?  Who does that?  Wandering preachers are popular, and Jesus more than most.  In the moment, I certainly thought He was out of line, inserting Himself into our procession to the graveyard.  And who tells a grieving mother not to weep?  Since I was carrying the bier, the casket holding Gene’s body, I couldn’t do much about this rude intrusion, except glower at Jesus.  But I wanted to do more.  And then…  

   What started out awkward and infuriating turned strange and joyful really quickly.  What was strange?  Well, beyond His unheard-of interruption of the funeral procession and His seemingly cruel word to the Widow, “Don’t cry,” the Nazarene preacher reached out and touched the casket.  By this touch He joined Himself to the ritual uncleanness of all of us who had handled Gene’s body.  I wouldn’t think that a traveling preacher with healing power in His hands would want to do that.  But He did.  And then of course He preached at Gene.  He commanded my dead friend: “Young man, I say to you, ‘Arise.’”  And Gene did.  I can tell you, I’ve never been so startled, so unnerved, as when the dead body in the casket I was carrying sat up and began to speak. 

    And Gene’s words, what he said?  Well, that was…

 

   We don’t know what the only son of the Widow of Nain said.  Luke doesn’t record his words.  They weren’t essential to what the Evangelist needed to communicate to us.  I’d love to know what he said.   I’ve often wondered if at least in part he complained:  “Why’d you bring me back, Jesus?”  One moment, soul at rest in Abraham’s bosom, set free from the troubles of earthly life, and the next moment, thrust back into this life.  Certainly this was all joy for the Widow.  But for the son?  Was there at least a little regret? 

   I think it’s safe to say your faith and confidence in your place in God’s family would be strengthened by the experience of Jesus’ bringing you back to life.  Exclamations about the power and mercy of Jesus of Nazareth seem likely to have been part of this young man’s words.  But we don’t know for certain.  The Holy Spirit guiding St. Luke did not see fit to share this information with us. 

   We don’t know what the Widow’s son said at his funeral.  But you can make some choices about what you are going to proclaim at your funeral.  And this is a wonderful thing to do.  Now, I’m not predicting that the Lord will bring you back to life during your funeral, on the way to the cemetery, so you can proclaim His praises.  But your funeral is a last public opportunity for you to confess your faith, for you to join your voice to the chorus of Christian witnesses who, down through the centuries, have proclaimed that death is not the end of human existence.  Indeed, by your faith connection to Jesus Christ, God the Father’s only Son, you have a calling to proclaim a strange and wonderful message, even on your final procession out of this veil of tears.  To help you with this joyful task, after the service today you can pick up one of these packets, a funeral planning guide, to help you make choices that will support the proclamation of God’s Good News at the time of your funeral. 

   The Widow of Nain undoubtedly experienced great joy when she received her only son back, alive again.  But her joy pales in comparison with the joy of the whole Church.  For the body of believers, despite the power and seeming finality of death, has received back the Resurrected Son of God.  Jesus is alive, and He’s with His Church.  He is back from the dead, and is ready to share His victory with all of us dying sinners.  And so we Christians deal with death differently than the world. 

   This is the great irony of a Christian funeral.  We still suffer sadness, tears and struggles.  When death draws near to us, doubts try to creep in.  Satan tries to hurl turmoil and accusations at you and your family.  Despite all this, a Christian funeral is a victory celebration.  A good, faithful Christian burial boldly defies all that our eyes can see, proclaiming the victory that the followers of Jesus have been given, through the powerful Word of Christ. 

   We don’t ignore sadness.  Christ wept.  Jesus felt sadness and compassion when He saw the pain that separation from loved ones causes.  God has understood and been dealing with the terrible problem of human death since it began.  So Christians also feel and face the ugly realities of death.  But we can face this reality differently, because Jesus has already faced the reality of death, head-on, in our place.  For the reality of death is that sinners die, and there’s nothing we can do about it. 

   We can live respectable and healthy lives.   We can be good neighbors, and we can take advantage of modern medicine.  We can even try to hide our aging with plastic surgery, and move all signs of death off into nursing homes and hospitals.  But sin and death are two realities we can’t change.   We can try to hide it, but we are sinners, unable to stop sinning by our own power.  And we are headed toward death, because sin leads to death, the end of our physical life, the separation of our spirit from our body.     

   Sin leads to the first death, physical death.  But Jesus by His sinless death saves us from the second death, the far worse death: the eternal separation from the Source of Life, eternal condemnation and expulsion from God’s presence.  As bad as earthly death seems, this second, eternal death is our far greater problem.  But Jesus has solved both problems.  God the Father’s only Son, the eternal Good Son, has much in common with the Widow of Nain’s son, only much more so.  Jesus is the Only Son of God, the Son of hope and promise, who was taken from this life, too soon, unjustly, causing great sadness.  But on the Third Day, Jesus rose from the dead.  And, while we do not know what the Widow of Nain’s son spoke after he was raised from the dead, we do know what the Risen Jesus has to say. 

   Jesus says, “Peace be with you, your sins are forgiven.”  “Do not fear, I am with you always.”  “Death and sin, those implacable enemies, no longer have power over Me,” declares Jesus, “and so I am here to join myself to you, to share my victory and my new life, with you.”  “All who believe and are baptized will be saved, I promise.” “Do not fear death, do not fear your sins.  I have nailed them to my Cross and buried them in my Tomb.”  “You have died and risen with Me.”  “I have washed you clean, and I am happy to cleanse you again and again, as many times as you need, forgiving you all your sins daily.” 

   This victory message, the victory of Christ Jesus for sinners, is the message of a Christian funeral.  It can be proclaimed in a million different ways.  In some funerals, it is natural and easy to point to the ongoing work of Christ in the life of the dearly departed.  But in every case, whether the Christian walk of the deceased was a marvel, or whether it was pretty messy, we point to and focus on the work of Christ.  For in Him alone is a Christian marvelous.  In Christ alone are all our messes cleaned up and straightened out. 

    I will share this funeral planning guide with you, and I encourage you to prayerfully fill it out.  And maintain it, as the Lord grants you more years on earth.  Who knows, next year you may learn a new favorite hymn. 

   Some of the details are very mundane, like cemetery plot numbers or funeral meal preferences.  But handling these details clearly and ahead of time is a real gift to your family and friends.  Some of the details are theological, like Scripture and hymn choices, and I stand ready to help you arrange them in a faithful way.  But all the details are sanctified by the Work and Word of Jesus.  The goal of your funeral is to comfort the believers with the victory of Jesus, and also to reach out to any unbelievers present, with that same Good News, which is for you, and your loved ones, and for all. 

   One last thing.  As we plan a good Christ-proclaiming funeral for our last witness on this earth, it might begin to inform our daily lives, shaping our choices, and giving us words to say today, while we are still alive in this world.  Such words, the faithful confession of Christians in their daily lives, are used by the Holy Spirit to draw sinners to Jesus.  So we see that the joy of a Christian funeral is also the joy of Christian living.  And you are free to enjoy, and to share that joy, today, and every daya. 

   May God grant us all to know and share the joyous victory of Jesus, for us, Amen.