Sermon for the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity - Ex 32:1-20

 

Trinity 25

                                                                                      Ex 32:1-20

                                                                                      11/17/24

 

          Forty days. We come to expect that things are going to take forty days in the Bible.  Prior to our text we learn that Moses went up on Mt. Sinai for forty days.  When Elijah travelled to Mt. Sinai as Jezebel sought to kill him, he travelled for forty days.  Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted for forty days. The risen Lord was with the disciples for forty days until his ascension.

          Yet what seems obvious to us, was not apparent to the people of Israel. Yahweh had brought them out of slavery in Egypt as he sent ten plagues upon the Egyptians.  The last of these was the Passover as God killed the firstborn of the Egyptians, but spared Israel which was marked with the blood of the Passover lamb.

          He had brought them through the Red Sea on dry ground, as the pursuing Egyptian army was drowned in the water.  Israel had journeyed to Mt. Sinai where God had descended upon the mountain in an awesome display of thunder and lightning, as the mountain trembled and was wrapped in smoke.

          Yahweh had taken Israel into a covenant with himself.  Moses had read the Book of the Covenant to the people and they had said, “All that the Lord had spoken we will do and we will be obedient.” Then Moses took blood from the sacrifices that had been made and them it on the people as he said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” Israel was now God’s covenant people. They were as God had told them, “my treasured possession among all peoples.”

          After these events we are told, “Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.”  Now as readers of Scripture, we know that Moses was going to be gone for forty days.  However, the Israelites did not know this.  They did not know how long he would be gone.  Moses had disappeared up a cloud covered mountain and as week after week passed he had not come back.

          Our text begins with the words: “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’” 

          The people became impatient.  So they gave up on Moses. And more importantly, they gave up on Yahweh.  They told Aaron to make for them gods who would now go before them.  So Aaron collected gold from the people and made a golden calf – a common religious idol among the cultures of that area. Then he announced, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”  Then he built an altar and the people offered sacrifices to their new gods.

          Like the Israelites, we become impatient.  We know how we want our life to go.  But when setbacks occur, or when illness becomes part of our life and things are not going as we want, we are tempted to doubt God.  Or we become impatient because we don’t know how things should go.  We don’t now what our future should be and we are looking for guidance and direction but none seems to arrive. This too can lead us to doubt God.  We can begin to question whether he really is in charge; whether he really does love and care for us.

          And of course, in the golden calf we see an example of the false gods that always threaten to occupy our lives.  We don’t make golden images.  Instead, we find other things that we value more than God. We find things that give us our real sense of security and worth.  We find other things on which we would rather spend our time.  Money and wealth become our real source of confidence.  Hobbies and sports occupy our time and attention in a way that God and his Means of Grace do not.

          Yahweh announced to Moses what the people had done.  He said, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them.”  Forty days had been too long for the people to remain faithful.  Already, they had ignored and forgotten the awesome demonstrations of power that God had carried out in redeeming Israel from slavery in Egypt.

          Yahweh said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”  And in this, we see God’s reaction to sin.  God is the holy God.  All sin is sin committed against him.  It evokes his wrath and judgment. We just confessed that we deserve God’s temporal and eternal punishment because of our sin.  Those aren’t just words. Because of our sin we deserve judgment right now, and we deserve the eternal punishment of hell.

          God had said that he would destroy Israel and start over with Moses.  But Moses implored Yahweh and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?”  Moses called God back to the mighty work that he had just accomplished for Israel. Next, he pointed out that the Egyptians would say that God’s purpose in bringing Israel out in the exodus was in order to destroy them. 

And then Moses employed his most powerful argument.  He used God’s own word.  Moses said, “Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’”

          Moses held before God his own promise. It was the promise that he had repeated to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  It was the promise that God had sworn by his own self – the ultimate affirmation that it was true. Yahweh had promised to give them numerous descendants.  He had promised to give them the land of Canaan.

          And in speaking this promise, God had said one more thing.  He announced it the first time he spoke the promise to Abraham.  He said, “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

          Repeated in the word spoken to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the promise that through their offspring all nations would be blessed.  God promised that he would send through their descendants the Savior – the answer to sin that had entered into the world in the fall of Adam.

          The Old Testament is the history of how God fulfilled this promise.  He identified that this One would descend from the tribe of Judah.  Then he said it would be through the descendants of David.  And finally, in the fullness of time, he fulfilled this promise as he sent his Son into the world.  Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.  Mary’s husband, Joesph, was from the line of David and when he took Jesus to be his own, Jesus became the son of David.  He became the fulfillment of God promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  As St. Paul told the Galatians, “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ.”

          Jesus Christ was the promised offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God sent him because as sinners we could never have fellowship with God.  We are unable to live according to his law – we cannot keep his will perfectly.  Paul said, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’”

          However, Jesus has freed us from the curse. The apostle went on to say, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us--for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” Christ took our place when he died on the cross.  He freed us from the curse – from the wrath and judgment of God. Because of his death we now are forgiven before God.  We are justified through faith in Christ.

          Jesus was buried on Good Friday as the One who had been cursed by God.  He had died in weakness and shame.  He had been killed by the Romans and so it was obvious that he was a false Messiah.  But on Easter, everything changed.  God raised Jesus from the dead.  He vindicated Jesus as the Messiah.  He demonstrated that the curse had been God at work in Christ in order to redeem us from sin.

          For forty days the risen Lord was with his disciples. He ate and drank with them. He was even seen by five hundred disciples at one time.  And then Jesus ascended into heaven.  This was not merely the withdrawal of the Lord’s visible presence.  It was his exaltation, for Peter tells us that he “has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”

          In our text we see that Moses spoke with God on behalf of Israel.  He interceded for them.  We learn, “And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.”  As Moses carried out this role, he pointed forward to what Jesus now does for us.

          St. Paul told the Romans, “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died--more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”  The Lord who died for our sins has been raised from the dead.  He has been exalted to the right hand of God.  And now he intercedes for us.  He continues to declare to the Father what he has done for us.  He pronounces us justified – righteous – for that is the verdict he has won for us, and that is the verdict he will declare when we appear before the judgment seat of Christ.

          In our text today we are reminded of how we grow impatient and fail to trust God. In the golden calf we see all the ways we fail to fear, love, and trust in God above all things.  And so we repent and confess our sin.  We turn in faith to Jesus Christ who bore the curse for us on the cross and then rose from the dead.  Because of Christ we are justified – we are innocent before God.

          But forgiveness is not the end.  Instead, it is a new beginning as we struggle against sin.  St. Paul told the Romans, “So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” 

          As we return to our baptism in faith; as we read and study God’s Word; as we receive the Sacrament of the Altar the Spirit enables us to be patient in faith as we trust God.  He prompts us to recognize those things in our life that act as false gods and to put them in their proper place.  He leads us to make God our true source of worth, security, and value.  For God is the One who has revealed his love in his Son Jesus Christ.

 

         

         

 

 

  

 

    

 

         

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark's thoughts: The end of the year?

 

The Church Year and the secular year move to different rhythms.  This difference emphasizes for us the unique importance that Jesus Christ has in defining our entire life.  His life, death, and resurrection orient our life in ways that are completely different from the world. 

 

For the world, the end of the year is December 31.  However, for the Church this is the time of beginning.  After preparing during the season of Advent, on December 25 we celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord.  We rejoice that God the Father sent his Son into the world as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). December 31 finds the Church in the midst of the season of Christmas as we celebrate the incarnation of our Lord for twelve days.  We celebrate the beginning as the Son of God enters into the world in order to carry out his saving work for us.

 

For the Church, the end of the year is November 24. This is the Last Sunday of the Church Year. The world reaches the end of the year because 365 days have passed.  However, the Church reaches the end of the year because we have spent the year recalling what Jesus Christ has done for us.  During Epiphany we celebrate the ministry of Christ and his miracles, such as turning water into wine (John 2:1-11), by which he revealed his glory.  During Lent we enter into a time of repentance as we prepare to remember the Passion of Our Lord. 

 

Holy Week focuses our attention on the suffering and death of Jesus Christ for us.  Our Lord dies on the cross as he fulfills the words of the prophet Isaiah: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).  Christ offers himself “as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28) in order to win forgiveness for us.

 

The dead body of Jesus is buried.  But on Easter we celebrate the resurrection of Christ.  The angels announced, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen” (Luke 24:5-6).  Then on many occasions during forty days the believers met the risen Lord in Jerusalem and Galilee (Acts 1:3).  On that fortieth day of the season of Easter we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord.  We rejoice that our Lord has been exalted as he “has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (1 Peter 3:22).

 

Before ascending, our Lord promised the apostles, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).  On the fiftieth day after Easter we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost.  The ascended and exalted Lord pours forth the Holy Spirit on the Church (Acts 2:33) to empower her to proclaim the crucified and risen Lord.

 

We arrive at the end of the Church Year because Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, has died on the cross for us, risen from the dead and ascended into heaven.  His Spirit has called us to faith and given us new life in Holy Baptism. These events define our present, and the ascended Lord gives us hope because his final saving action is yet to come.

 

The preceding time of the Church Year prepares us for the end.  It points us toward the return of Jesus Christ in glory on the Last Day as the culmination of his saving work.  And so on the Last Sunday of the Church Year (and in the Scripture lessons for the Sunday that precedes it), we focus on the return of Jesus Christ.  We are reminded that we are to live in ways that are guided by the hope and expectation of our Lord’s return.  Jesus says, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:12).

 

We rejoice in the knowledge that our Lord will return and raise the dead (1 Thessalonians 4:16), even as he transforms the bodies of those who are still alive (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).  All will appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10) as he declares us to be just and innocent – the status that we already have now through faith in Christ (Galatians 2:16).  We will receive vindication before the world for believing in Jesus because every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10).  God will renew his creation to be very good once again (Romans 8:19-23), and we will live with our triune God forever.

 

We do not celebrate the Last Sunday of the Church Year because the calendar has run out of days.  Instead, we celebrate it because we who have received God’ salvation in Christ know that God’s saving work will reach its consummation on the Last Day.  Strengthened and encouraged by this fact, we joyfully exclaim: “Come Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Sermon for the Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity - Mt 9:18-26

 

Trinity 24

                                                                                      Mt 9:18-26

                                                                                      11/10/24

 

          Something new is here. That is what Jesus has just been saying.  Our text begins with the words, “While he was saying these things to them.” This indicates to us that the events in our text are preceded by a conversation.

In the prior section of the Gospel, the disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus and asked, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”  Fasting was a common practice in Judaism, so the fact that Jesus’ disciples were not fasting stood out in the culture.

We learn that Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”  Our Lord describes himself as the bridegroom.  In the Old Testament, Yahweh was described as the bridegroom to the nation of Israel.  Yet here, Jesus says that he is the bridegroom. He is in the place of Yahweh. He announces that something completely new was present.

Something new was present, and this meant you couldn’t take Jesus and try to make him fit into the patterns of religion that already existed.  Our Lord said, “No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”  In Jesus, something new was present as God was at work in their midst.

We see this for as he was saying these things a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.”  We learn from Mark’s Gospel that this man was a ruler of the synagogue.  He was a respected individual in the community. However, his daughter had died.  The reports about Jesus’ healing ministry had spread far and wide.  So he came to Jesus and knelt before him.  He asked our Lord to come and lay his hand on the girl.  He had faith that if Jesus did this, the girl would live.

Jesus rose and followed the man, accompanied by the disciples.  However, there was another person present in need of help.  She too had come with the faith that Jesus could help her.  We learn that there was a woman who had suffered a discharge of blood for twelve years.  This chronic problem not only threatened her health, but also rendered her ritually unclean.

The woman had such great faith in Jesus’ power that she came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment as she told herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.”  Our Lord knew what the woman had done.  He turned and said to her, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was instantly healed.

The event with the woman had not changed Jesus’ destination.  He came to the ruler’s house and found that the rituals of mourning were already underway. There were flute players and a crowed making a commotion as they lamented the death of the girl.

However, Jesus put an end to all this.  He said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.”  Those present began to laugh at Jesus.  His statement was absurd. The girl was most certainly dead. The people of the first century world lived at a time of much higher mortality rates. Death – and the death of those we would consider to be young – was a common part of life.  There were no hospitals, so when people died, they died at home. Death was a regular part life, and people knew exactly what it looked like.  There was no doubt that the girl was dead.

However, when the crowd had been put outside, Jesus went in to where the girl was.  He took her by the hand, and the girl arose.  Jesus had raised her from the dead.  The crowd had laughed at Jesus’ statement that the girl was sleeping.  Now, the report about Jesus’ miracle went through all that area.

By healing the woman and raising the girl from the dead, Jesus demonstrated that something new was here. Our Lord began his ministry by proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  When he cast out demons and was accused by the Pharisees of being able to do this because he was in league with Satan, Jesus said, “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

Our Lord declared that in his person the kingdom of God – the reign of God was present.  This was true because Jesus was more than just a man.  Just as Yahweh the God of Israel was described as a bridegroom, Jesus said that he was the bridegroom.  He could describe himself as playing the same role as Yahweh, because he was God.  The angel had told Joseph that the child conceived in Mary was from the Holy Spirit.  He was Immanuel – God with us.

In Jesus, the saving reign of God – God’s end time action – was present.  It was present in the One who was true God and true man.  We have two miracles in our text, and they both involve touch.  The ruler came to Jesus, and asked the Lord to touch his dead daughter.  He said, “come and lay your hand on her.”  The woman said to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.”

According to the Law of Moses, touching the woman with a flow of blood and touching the dead girl would make a person ritually unclean.  But in Jesus, something new was present.  He was not bound by the old rules.  He was the sinless Son of God who could not be made unclean.  Instead, in him was the power of life that brought healing to the woman and a return to life for the girl.

Our Gospel lesson is a “two for one” this morning.  Our one text contains two miracles.  The miracles of Jesus were a crucial part of his ministry.  They demonstrated that in Jesus the reign of God was present.  Matthew tells us in the previous chapter: “That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.’”

Matthew quotes from Isaiah chapter 53.  This is the chapter that talks about the suffering Servant.  We learn that Jesus’ healing ministry was part of his greater work to provide the answer to sin.  Scripture teaches us that sin is the root cause of all that is wrong in our lives.  Sin causes death.  Because of our fallen state – our life that is conceived in sin – we are always in the process of dying.  Our illnesses – both great and small – bear witness to this fact.

Jesus came to overcome sin and all that it causes.  We see this in his miracles as he brings healing and relief.  But the Son of God had entered into the world to provide the final and ultimate answer to sin.  At his baptism, Jesus took on the role of the Servant of the Lord.  He came to fulfill Isaiah’s words, “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Jesus Christ died on the cross in order to receive God’s judgment against our sin.  By his death he won forgiveness for us. He carried out the Father’s will in order to give us salvation.  As Paul says in our epistle lesson, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Death is the final bodily result of sin.  And so Jesus passed through death in order to defeat it.  On the third day, God raised Jesus from the dead.  Because Jesus has risen from the dead, we will too.  The risen and ascended Lord will return on the Last Day in order to raise us up with bodies that can never die again.

When Jesus arrived at the ruler’s house where the dead girl was, he said to the mourners, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.”  Then he awakened her back into life as he raised her up.  Scripture describes death as “sleep.”  It does so for the simple fact that sleep is not permanent.  People who fall asleep, wake up.  In the same way, people who die will live again.  They will not remain dead.  Instead on the Last Day the risen Lord will return in glory and will give us a share in his resurrection.

In our text we see Jesus heal the woman.  We hear about many miracles in the Gospels as Jesus heals people. But Jesus didn’t heal everyone who was sick in first century Palestine.  His miracles were a demonstration of who he was, and what he had come to do through his death and resurrection.

In our own day as we experience sickness, we pray to the Lord for healing.  Sometimes he answers our prayers in the way we hope.  At other times he does not and we must bear the affliction, or even find that it threatens to bring death.  Yet in our Lord’s resurrection we have the guarantee that he will provide each of us with complete healing.  He will do it on the Last Day when he raises and transforms our bodies to be like his own.

This means that our life as God’s children is one of faith.  In our Gospel lesson, the woman is identified as an example of faith.  She approached Jesus in the confidence that he could heal her. She had faith in his power and thought “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.”  When Jesus saw her, he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.”

We are called to live by faith in Jesus Christ.  We believe and trust that Jesus Christ died on the cross for us and rose from the dead.  We believe in our Lord’s love and care during this life no matter what happens, because we know what the Lord has already done for us.  And we believe that Jesus will bring us the final rescue and healing of the Last Day.

In our text, both the woman and the father had faith in Jesus’ touch.  Our risen Lord may be ascended, but Jesus has not left us without his bodily presence – his touch.  He continues to give it to us in the Sacrament of the Altar.  Here the true body and blood of the risen Lord touch our mouth.  We eat and drink his body and blood as we receive the forgiveness he won on the cross.  Through this gift the Spirit of God strengthens us in faith.  He nourishes the new man in us.  And as we receive the body and blood of the risen Lord into our bodies we have the pledge that our bodies too will know the complete healing of the resurrection on the Last Day.

Something new had arrived in Jesus.  The incarnate Son of God was in the world bringing the reign of God.  His miracles pointed to the great miracle of his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead by which he has won forgiveness for us and defeated death.  Now we believe in the crucified and risen Lord for the forgiveness of sins.  And we have faith that the Lord will return and raise our bodies so that they never know illness or death again.

 

Sermon for the Feast of All Saints - 1 Jn 3:1-3

 

          All Saints

                                                                                                            1 Jn 3:1-3

                                                                                                            11/3/24

 

            On August 31 I conducted the funeral service and committal for Eloise Courser.  I didn’t know Melissa.  In fact, I had never met her in my life.  Eloise was a member at Our Redeemer, Golconda.  However, Our Redeemer is currently vacant. This meant that when she died, there was no pastor to perform these last acts of pastoral care.

            The leadership at Our Redeemer contacted Pastor Holden, the Circuit Visitor for our area.  Under different circumstances he probably would have done the funeral.  However, he was already committed to speaking at an LWML event in the area.  So he sent out an email asking if any pastor in the area could do the funeral.  I knew that I was the closest pastor, and that my schedule was free for that Saturday, so I agreed to do it.

            I learned that Eloise had attended regularly at Our Redeemer until her health prevented her from going to church.  So I preached a sermon based on the fact that I knew Eloise had been baptized, had been taught the faith, and had received the Sacrament of the Altar. I spoke of how she was a forgiven sinner – a saint – who is now with the Lord.  And then I buried her body with the words: “May God the Father who created this body; may God the Son who by his blood redeemed this body; may God the Holy Spirit, who by Holy Baptism sanctified this body to be His temple, keep these remains to the day of the resurrection of all flesh.”

            Today we are observing the Feast of All Saints.  We are remembering the Christians who have died in the faith.  Our thoughts naturally turn to the Christians we have known – our family and friends.  But the example of Eloise reminds us that we are also giving thanks for all of the Christians who are now with the Lord – even those we have not known.  We are rejoicing in the multitude of the saints during the whole history of the Church who have died in Christ.

            St. John begins our text by saying, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” John extolls the remarkable love that God has revealed to us.  We are now called the children of God.  And this is not merely a matter of words.  Instead, it is one of fact.  We really are God’s children.

            This is remarkable because there is nothing about us that deserves this status.  Last week in the Gospel lesson we heard Jesus say, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”  We are certainly in the sinning business.  John says at the beginning of this letter, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

            It is not just that we sin.  We are in fact conceived and born as people who are fundamentally opposed to God.  Jesus told Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  Our Lord said that we need to be born again – born from above. And then he explained why as he said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The flesh – the fallen sinful nature – brings forth more of the same.  And as our natural abilities grow, so does our sin.

            In our text, John refers twice to what has not yet appeared, and we will certainly talk about that.  But at the beginning of the letter he uses the same Greek verb – here translated as “made manifest” – in order to describe what God has done.  John says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-- the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.”

            What did John and the apostles hear, and see, and touch?  Jesus Christ, the Son of God. John tells us in the Gospel that the Son of God – the Word – “became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Father sent forth the Son into the world as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.

            The Father sent Jesus as the answer to our sin and rebellion against God.  When John the Baptist saw Jesus he declared, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  Jesus came to be the sacrifice for our sin on the cross.  John says in the previous chapter of this letter, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

            Sin brings death.  Jesus died on the cross to provide forgiveness. Yet he had also come to defeat all that sin causes.  He came to defeat death itself. God raised up Jesus on the third day. On the evening of Easter he appeared in midst of his disciples and said “Peace be with you,” as he showed them his hands and his side.

            Jesus gives this forgiveness and life to us through the Spirit.  You have been born again of water and the Spirit in Holy Baptism.  You have been called to faith through God’s word.  It has been God’s doing for John says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.”

            The crucified and risen Lord promises that faith him in brings a life that overcomes death.  He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” 

More than that our Lord promised that this life continues beyond death itself.  He told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”  Faith in Jesus Christ provides a life with God that continues on beyond death.

In our text John says, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”  Those who were baptized and believed in Jesus Christ were children of God during their life.  And they still are now.  Their status had not changed.  Their bodies may be buried in the ground, but they are still the children of God. We know that while they may have experienced physical death, their life with God continues.

St. Paul expressed it this way: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” Those who have died in the faith are now with Christ. Their life continues with the Lord.  We give thanks that following the Spirit’s leading they were faithful unto death. They have finished the course. They have kept the faith. And now they are with Christ which is far better.

It is far better because they no longer face the opposition of the world. John says in our text, “The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”  The world rejected Jesus, and it continues to do so to this day.  Therefore the world does not recognize us as the children of God. 

Instead, quite the opposite, we are the object of its hatred.  Jesus said, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” The saints who have gone before us were chosen out of the world in faith. And now in death they are no longer in the world. They no longer experience the opposition that we do.

In the previous chapter John says, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”  John’s words capture the fact that our lives are lived in the continual battle against sin.  However, for the saints who are with Christ the struggle is over.  No longer do they know temptation.  No longer does the old Adam draw them into sin.

What a comfort to know that the saints who have died before us are with Christ! Their life continues with the Lord as they no longer know the world’s hatred, or temptation, or sickness and pain.  What a comfort to know that, for us, death also means being with Christ.  Our life will continue with him, even as we are freed from the hardships of this fallen world.

Yet on this All Saints’ day, we must also remember that the present life of the saints who are with Christ is not God’s final goal and purpose for them – or for us.  John says in our text, “Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

John says that what we will be has not yet appeared.  We have not yet seen the final outcome for all of God’s saints.  We haven’t because Jesus has not yet appeared. We are awaiting the return of our risen and ascended Lord.  John says, “but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

God created us as the unity of body and soul.  This is what he declared to be very good. This is his ultimate intention for our life.  Sin brought death that rends the two apart and places the body in a grave.  But the Son of God became man and lived a bodily existence in order to redeem it.  Jesus Christ did this through his resurrection.  St. Paul told the Corinthians, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.”

The Lord Jesus will return on the Last Day, and when he appears we will be like him because he will raise and transform us.  Paul told the Philippians that “we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

Not only that, the Lord will also renew creation so that it is very good once again. We will live with our resurrected bodies that can never die in God’s good creation as he intended it.  We will live with the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the way that God desired it.

On this All Saints’ day we thank God for the knowledge that those who have died in Christ are with the Lord.  They believed in Jesus Christ the crucified and risen Lord. They were born again of water and the Spirit.  They were children of God, and they still are today.  They are with Christ as they no longer suffer the difficulties of this fallen world.

And at the same time we know that God’s final saving goal is still to come.  “We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”  He will raise and transform our bodies to be like his own.  He will renew creation.  And so we pray: “Come Lord Jesus!”