Mark's thoughts: For the Roman Catholic church, Islam is a path to salvation

 

During his visit to Algeria, Pope Leo XIV issued the statement above on X.  The statement about "communion between Christians and Muslims" should shock any Christian, since communion (fellowship) for Christians is only possible in Christ.  The Pope's language about "living in unity and peace" in the setting of Algeria ignores the fact that this nation is ranked among the top twenty persecutors of Christians in the world. 

This continues an emphasis seen in the Pope's work. During his visit to Lebanon he said, "One of the great lessons that Lebanon can teach to the world is showing a land where Islam and Christianity are both respected, and that there is the possibility to live together, to be friends." The Pope's comment ignored the fact that the Christian church in Lebanon has been devastated by Muslim persecution.

The Pope's statement in Algeria demonstrates two important realities. The first is his willful desire to ignore the persecution of Christians by Muslims. Fourteen of the top twenty nations  who persecute Christians are classified by OpenDoors as "Islamic oppression." 

The second is that rather than acknowledging Islam's opposition to Christianity, he wishes to treat it as an equal partner with Christianity. Muslims are not individuals who need faith in Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord. Instead, they are partners in the rich diversity of life.

The Pope's words and actions demonstrate the actual content of Roman Catholic dogma since Vatican II. The Vatican II document Lumen Gentium (16) states that those who “have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God.”  It begins by discussing the Jews as it says, “In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues.” 

Then it goes on to say, “But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.”  This statement declares that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, as it ignores the fact that Islam denies the divinity of Jesus Christ and rejects the Holy Trinity.

 

As it moves on from Jews and Muslims, Lumen Gentium states: 

Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all men be saved. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life.

This statement explains that salvation is possible for those who do not believe in Jesus Christ.  When through no fault of their own they do not know the Gospel, they can be saved if they “sincerely seek God” and “strive by their deeds” to do God’s will as it is known to them “through the dictates of conscience.”  Indeed, God provides “the helps necessary for salvation” to these individuals who by his grace “strive to live a good life.” 

 

Because Islam is a path to salvation for those "who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church," in truth the worst thing that could happen to a person would be to have Christ and the Gospel to proclaimed to him. According to this teaching, if a person hears about Christ and rejects the folly of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:18-25), this path to salvation in the ignorance of Islam is no longer available.

The Pope's statement in Algeria is not surprising. It is true to Roman Catholic teaching. The question that Roman Catholics must confront is whether they can remain in a fellowship that denies Jesus Christ's words: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). 

 

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter - Jn 20:19-31

 

    Easter 2

                                                                                                                        Jn 20:19-31

                                                                                                                        4/12/26

 

           

“When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.” “They were glad when they saw the Lord.” Every time I see this text I am struck by how incredibly lame that translation is.

Our translation, the English Standard Version, stands in the tradition of the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version that preceded it.  In these translations as well we find, “They were glad when they saw the Lord.”

Now I am glad when I look out and see nice weather. I am glad when I see that Notre Dame, or Michigan, or Alabama have lost a football game.  I am glad when Amy tells me that we are going to grill steak for dinner. But none of these are responses to life changing experiences.

Seeing the risen Lord Jesus in their midst was a life changing experience, and so we need to translate this with a stronger word than “glad.” When the New Revised Standard version came out, it changed the translation to, “They rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” We find the same thing in the New American Standard and New International Version. The New Jerusalem Bible has “they were filled with joy.”

“Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” Of course they did!  Their response marked a great change from how they had been feeling. We learn in our text that on the evening of Easter, the disciples were together in a room with the doors locked because of fear of the Jews. They were fearful – and not without reason.

On Friday the Jewish religious leaders had arrested Jesus, convicted him of violating the law, and then they had manipulated Pontius Pilate into crucifying him. The disciples had been with Jesus all during his ministry. They were well known for being Jesus’ close associates. It was not hard to imagine that the Jewish leaders would come after them as well.

On top of this, as we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel lesson, that morning Peter and John had seen that Jesus’ tomb was empty. It appeared that someone had taken Jesus’ body. And then Mary Magadalene had come and announced that she had seen Jesus risen from the dead.  She had passed on a message that she said came from him.

As they were gathered in that locked room, suddenly Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  The Lord showed them the marks in his body where the nails had been used to affix him to the cross, and where the spear had been plunged into his side to make sure he was dead.

            The marks in his hands and side demonstrated that it really was Jesus who had been crucified.  He had died on the cross and had been buried. But now he stood before them alive.  He had been raised from the dead, just as Mary had said.

            John tells us, “Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” Of course they did!  They had seen Jesus die on the cross. But now he was alive and standing in their midst. The marks in his body demonstrated that it was the same Jesus who had died on the cross.

            In that moment they began to realize that everything Jesus had said was true. On the evening of Maundy Thursday Jesus had told them, “A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me.” The disciples didn’t understand what this meant. So Jesus explained, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.”  Then he went on to add, “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”

            The disciples rejoiced when they saw Jesus. And then Christ once again declared peace to them. But this time it was not just peace for them. It was the commission that the disciples – Jesus’ apostles – were receiving to proclaim that peace to others. Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

            Jesus had declared that God the Father had sent him into the world. He told his opponents, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.” The Father had sent the Son into the world in the incarnation as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And John’s Gospel tells us why he did his. We learn, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

            The Father sent the Son so that the world might be saved through him. He sent the Son as the sacrifice which atoned for the sin of all. John the Baptist had declared about Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” This is what Jesus had accomplished on the cross. Jesus had said it would happen this way.  He had told Nicodemus, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

            Nailed to a cross, Jesus had been lifted up. He had died in the suffering and shame of crucifixion. That death had been confirmed as one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and immediately blood and water came out. But as Jesus stood there risen from the dead it was now clear that his death was more than it appeared. It had not been failure. Instead, it had been God’s powerful work to provide forgiveness. John says in his first epistle that Jesus “is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

            Now, as the crucified and risen One, Jesus declared that they had peace. He had told them on the evening of Maundy Thursday, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” In Christ there was now the peace of sins forgiven. And there was the peace of life that had conquered death. Jesus had said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He had told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life.” The risen Lord had conquered death, and now the disciples could understand why he had 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.”

            God had sent the Son into the world to save the world. It was God’s will to give forgiveness and life won by Jesus to all. And so in our text Jesus says to the disciples, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

Jesus set apart his disciples – his apostles – to carry out the continuation of this work. And he equipped them to do so. We learn in our text, “And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Jesus gave the Office of the Ministry to the Church. The apostles who had been with Jesus were limited in how much ground they could personally cover. They were limited by the fact that their death – quite often in martyrdom – would bring their work to an end. But the Holy Spirit breathed out by Christ has continued to place men in the midst of congregations to carry out this work of ministry.  Paul told the pastors gathered at Miletus, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”

Christ sent the apostles forth and told them, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” He sent them forth to speak absolution – the word of forgiveness. The Gospel of John begins in chapter one with the John the Baptist declaring that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It ends in chapter twenty with the crucified and risen Lord sending forth his disciples to forgive sins. 

Holy Absolution can be described as “the Gospel in its purest form.”  The Gospel announces that you are forgiven because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You cannot get a more direct experience of that Gospel than when Jesus himself says, “I forgive you.” The Lord sends forth those in the Office of the Ministry to speak in his place and stead. It is Christ’s Office of the Ministry. It is Christ’s Spirit who has placed the pastor in that congregation.  It is Christ’s word that gives forgiveness. When the pastor speaks, it is Jesus who is speaking through him.

You just experienced this as the beginning of the service. In the confession you admitted what is true of each one of us. We are by nature sinful and unclean. As those who descend from Adam we are fallen people who are sinful by nature – sinful from the moment of our conception. And then in our lives we sin by what we think, and say, and do.  We don’t love God with all that we are. We don’t love our neighbor as ourselves, as instead we act in selfish ways.

This is what you confessed about yourself. But then Jesus forgave your sins. The fact that it was Jesus’ doing was announced when I said that I acted “as a called and ordained servant of Christ, and by his authority.”  “Called and ordained” means that a man has been placed into Christ’s Office of the Ministry.  “By his authority” means that since it is Jesus’ Office and Jesus’ command to forgive, the forgiveness is Christ’s doing. And then I said, “I therefore forgive you all your sins.”  Through these words it was Jesus giving you forgiveness.

Jesus says in our text, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.” That is the loosing key – the word of absolution that frees you from sin. But he also says, “if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” The Lord tells his Church and her pastors not to forgive – to withhold forgiveness.  This is the binding key. It takes place when a person refuses to repent and turn away from sin.

Jesus tells his Church to announce that where there is no repentance, there is no forgiveness.  All Christians are sinners. But we are saints – holy ones in Christ – because we are repentant sinners, and therefore we are forgiven sinners.  You can’t knowingly hold onto your sin and receive forgiveness from Christ.  It is only in confessing sin and seeking to turn away from it that Christ gives his forgiveness to us.

This is true of all of the Means of Grace. In fact, it is the reason that we have Confession and Absolution before receiving the Sacrament of the Altar. There we receive the true body and blood of Christ, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. Naturally, it makes no sense to say that we must receive forgiveness in absolution so that we can then receive forgiveness in the Sacrament of the Altar.

The point of confession prior to the Sacrament is to make sure that those who are going to receive the body and blood of Christ are repentant. They go to the Sacrament of the Altar as people who confess their sin and their need for forgiveness from God. And having confessed this, Jesus forgives their sins in Holy Absolution.

He forgives you in absolution at the beginning of the service. Then he delivers forgiveness as you hear the Gospel in the reading of his Scriptures. He is delivering forgiveness right now as the Gospel is proclaimed to you in the sermon. Next he will give you forgiveness as you receive his true body and blood. And while we’re at it we recognize in the water that flowed from Jesus’ side that through Holy Baptism you have shared in Christ’s saving death, and so are the forgiven children of God.

Our God surrounds us with his forgiveness. He gives it to us through the Word, and through the visible Word of the Sacraments – the located means of his saving action. He leaves absolutely no doubt that those who confess their sin and repent are forgiven before him. As repentant sinners, we are forgiven sinners – we are saints.

On the evening of Easter the risen Lord Jesus appeared in the midst of the locked room and said to his disciples: “Peace be with you.” Because Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, we have peace. We have peace with God because our sins have been forgiven. We have peace knowing that death cannot separate us from God. We have peace knowing that in Jesus our resurrection has already begun. We have peace because we know though we may face tribulations, Jesus the risen Lord has overcome the world. And how do we respond to this? We rejoice, because Jesus rose from the dead.

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

Mark's thoughts: The resurrection and the origin of Christianity

 

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). St Paul wrote these words to the Galatians around 50 A.D. We have heard them quoted so many times in describing what happened at Christmas that it is easy to miss the remarkable claim that they make.

 

Paul is talking about Jesus Christ. In these verses he states that Jesus is the Son of God who existed with God, and was then sent into the world as he became man. The reference to “redeem” describes what happened when Jesus died on the cross. This is, of course, not an isolated claim. In Philippians Paul says that Jesus is God and even ascribes to him the name Yahweh – the name by which God revealed himself in the Old Testament (Philippians 2:5-11).

 

Judaism which existed during the time of the Second Temple (fifth century B.C. to first century A.D.) was adamantly committed to the fact that Yahweh is the only God.  No one could be allowed to impinge on this claim. Certainly, no human being could ever be affirmed to have divine status.

 

Yet Christians said this about Jesus, a man who had lived less than twenty years earlier. He was someone that people had known personally. Though Paul was not one of his disciples, he had met men who had been such as Peter and John. He had met Jesus’ brother James who was now a leader in the Church (Galatians 1:18-2:10). All of these men were Jews. Paul himself was a very committed and faithful Jew (Galatians 2:13-14). Yet he too was now saying that Jesus is God, and was calling him by the Greek translation of the name Yahweh (“Lord”) as he applied to Jesus Old Testament passages that spoke of Yahweh (Romans 10:9-11).

 

This is something that never should have happened in the Judaism of this period. What is more, Jesus’ followers openly declared that he had died by crucifixion (Galatians 3:13; Philippians 2:8). He had died as a criminal in the most humiliating and shameful manner of death in the Greco-Roman world.

 

Jesus had gathered followers during his ministry. Then the Romans killed him. That should have been the end of his movement.  Jesus had claimed to be the Messiah – the Christ (Matthew 16:13-17). But anyone whom the Romans killed was clearly a false Messiah.

 

However, the death of Jesus was not the end. Instead, it was the beginning of more people becoming believers in ever wider circles. Jesus’ brothers who had not believed in Jesus during his life (John 7:5) became missionaries who proclaimed Christ (1 Corinthians 9:5). James became a leader of the Jerusalem church.

 

The followers of Jesus provided one explanation for this: God had raised Jesus from the dead. Peter declared on Pentecost, “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24). Paul stated that he had encountered the risen and ascended Jesus (Galatians 1:15-16).

 

Apart from the resurrection of Jesus, the appearance and spread of Christianity is a historical conundrum that defies explanation. It should not have happened.  Jews should not have believed what they believed about Jesus. But the resurrection of Christ demonstrated that he was more than anyone expected. He was indeed true God and true man, and was the individual through whom God had worked to bring forgiveness and salvation to all. This is what we celebrate at Easter. Easter reminds and assures us that our faith is based on what really happened.  It is grounded in what God really has done.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon for the Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord - Jn 20:1-18

 

    Easter

                                                                                                                        Jn 20:1-18

                                                                                                                        4/5/26

 

            It is John’s Gospel which informs us that Jesus’ trip to Jerusalem for the Passover which resulted in his Passion was not the only trip that he made to the city to celebrate the feast. In chapter two we learn about an earlier visit, and John tells us about how Jesus drove out those who were selling animals and the money changers.

When the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?,” Jesus replied, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  His opponents were completely confused by this.  It had taken forty six years to build the temple, and in fact it wasn’t even done yet. It would only be completed just a few years before its destruction in 70 A.D. How could Jesus raise it up in three days?

Then John tells us: “But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.” This statement teaches us two things. First, Jesus said things during his ministry that his disciples did not understand. And second, it was the resurrection of Jesus that enabled them to understand the words and deeds of the Lord.  In fact it was only the resurrection that made it possible for them to understand Scripture as a whole.

We saw the same thing last Sunday in the reading for the procession with palms.  Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it in order to ride into Jerusalem. John explained that this was just as it had been written in Zechariah, “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!” Then he added, “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.”

And this emphasis continues on into our Gospel reading for Easter. This morning we hear “Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” This morning we see that in the resurrection of Jesus he demonstrates his authority over death itself. He is the source of life which conquers death, and by this we can understand what his cross means for us.

            John’s Gospel tells us exactly who Jesus Christ is. He is the Son, the second person of the Trinity.  He is God who created the universe. John begins the Gospel by saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  He tells us, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” And then the evangelist announces that the Son of God became man without ceasing to be God. He says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

            This Gospel also tells us exactly why the Son of God entered into the world in the incarnation. When John the Baptist saw Jesus he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John was certainly drawing upon the Old Testament as he said that Christ would be a sacrifice.  More specifically, he was almost certainly describing Jesus as the Passover lamb. The blood of the Passover lamb had caused God’s wrath to pass over the Israelites in Egypt. Now in his death, the blood of Jesus would cause God’s judgment to pass over sinners.

            John’s the Baptist’s words identify sin as our basic problem. Jesus says in this Gospel that everyone who sins is a slave of sin. He told his opponents that if they did not believe in him they would die in their sin.

            John the Baptist had designated Jesus as the One who would die as the sacrifice for sin. And Jesus had been clear about how this would happen. He had told Nicodemus, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” And during Holy Week Jesus declared, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John tells that Jesus said this to show what kind of death he was going to die – that he would die on the cross.

            The Gospel of John tells us that faith in Jesus is the means to life. It is through faith in Christ that we escape the wrath of God against sin.  We hear, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” And then later Jesus announced, “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.”

In fact, Jesus had said that he was the means to resurrection life. He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”

On Good Friday, Jesus had been lifted up on the cross. He had died. Then he had been buried. And on Sunday, as a new week began, it was apparent that all of that talk about life was just nonsense. Everything that Jesus had said and done had come to nothing.  He had cried out “It is finished” as he died. And everything was all finished. It ended as the Romans killed Jesus on the cross.

In our Gospel lesson we learn that very early on the first day of week, Mary Madalene went to the tomb. We know from the other Gospels that she went to complete the burial arrangements for Jesus. She went in a final act of devotion for her Lord who had been killed.

But when she arrived at the tomb, she saw that the stone that covered the entrance to the tomb had been taken away. Her immediate reaction was to run and tell Jesus’ disciples. She reported to Simon Peter, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

This startling news prompted Peter and another disciple – presumably John – to run to the tomb. They ran together, but the other disciple was faster and got there first.  He didn’t enter the tomb, but stooping he looked in and saw the linen burial cloths lying in the tomb.  When Peter arrived, he entered the tomb, and there he saw not only the linen cloths, but also the cloth that had been placed over Jesus’ face. It was not with the burial clothes, but had been folded up and set apart by itself.

The tomb was empty. The cloths in which Jesus body had been wrapped were lying there. The face cloth had been folded up and put in its own place.  John tells us that when he saw this evidence, he believed that Jesus had risen. However, he didn’t understand that this was going to happen for as yet the disciples did not understand the Scripture, that Jesus must rise from the dead.

The two disciples went back to their homes. By this point Mary had returned and stood weeping outside the tomb. She stooped to look inside the tomb, and there she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She replied, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Then she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not recognize that it was Jesus.  The Lord asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?”

Mary thought that this was the gardener, and she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Then the Lord said to her, “Mary.”  In that instant Mary recognized that it was Jesus risen from the dead who stood before her.  She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!,” which means Teacher.

In that moment Mary had obviously taken hold of Jesus because he said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Then Mary went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and reported what Jesus had said.

Jesus had promised life – eternal life – to all who believe in him. Good Friday had ended in death. It had ended with Jesus’s body on the cross and buried in a tomb.  But on the morning of Easter the tomb was empty. And in the encounter with Jesus, Mary learned that Christ had risen from the dead. It was the same thing that the other disciples of Jesus would learn by the end of the day when the Lord appeared in the midst of the room where they were gathered.

Sin brings death. God told Adam in the beginning that it would work that way. He said, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  And death destroys life as God created it to be. God made us as people who are body and soul joined in a unity. Genesis tells us, “the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Death tears apart this unity – it destroys what God created as it leaves a lifeless body to be buried.

When Jesus cried, “It is finished” he announced that he had accomplished the sacrifice that provided forgiveness before God. But this forgiveness would have had no meaning for us if Jesus had not also overcome death in his resurrection.  Only in this way could we be freed from the consequence of sin. Only in this way could Jesus give us eternal life as God intends it.

Jesus had said that he would do this. He announced, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” And then our Lord went on to say, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”

Jesus demonstrated his authority as the Son of God when he took up his life again in the resurrection of Easter.  This resurrection was not merely a return to life in which a person would later die again such as occurred when Jesus raised Lazarus. Instead, the resurrection of Jesus was the beginning of the transformation that will occur on the Last Day. It was the beginning of the resurrection that will be ours when the Lord returns in glory.

It was the resurrection of Jesus that allowed the disciples to understand who Jesus really is, and what had done for us. Only the resurrection could reveal the truth of Jesus’ words: “It is finished.” Because of the resurrection we can now understand what his death really means for us.

Jesus said, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection there is now eternal life for all who believe in Christ. This is something that we already possess now, just as we have forgiveness now.  It is something that we continue to have even if we experience bodily death, because death now means that we are with the risen Lord. And this eternal life will continue on in the manner for which God created us in the beginning. On the Last Day the Lord Jesus will raise and transform our bodies so that we can never die again. We will enjoy life in body and soul with God, just as Adam and Eve did before the Fall.

Jesus captured this truth in words that he spoke to Martha just before he raised Lazarus from the dead. He said, “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.”

This gift of eternal life both now and in the resurrection is something that the risen Lord Jesus gives to us this morning. He does it in the Sacrament of the Altar. While he said to Mary, “Don’t cling to me,” the ascended Lord now says, “Take and eat. Drink of it all of you” as he gives his true body and blood into us.

Through his body and blood Jesus gives us life – life that gives fellowship with God and life that will raise us from the dead. Our Lord said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”