Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity Mt 22:34-46

 

                                                                                                            Trinity 18

                                                                                                            Mt 22:34-46

                                                                                                            10/11/20

 

 

            In the darkest days of World War II, just before Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Winston Churchill said, "if Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”  Churchill was expressing an example of the ancient proverb, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  And indeed, although Great Britain, and then the United States were opposed to almost everything which Stalin and the Soviet Union stood for and sought to do, they supported the Soviet Union in every possible way as it bore the brunt of the fighting against Germany during the years 1941 to 1944.

            Of course, it was only an alliance of necessity.  The leaders of Great Britain and the United States never really considered the Soviet Union to be a friend.  They were extremely wary about Stalin’s intentions – after all, he had jointly invaded Poland and spit it up with Germany in September 1939, and then had invaded Finland in November of that year.  And their fears were confirmed by everything that Stalin did in the aftermath of World War II.

            We see the same sort of thing playing out in chapters twenty one and twenty two of Matthew’s Gospel.  Our Lord had entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday at the beginning of chapter twenty one. During these two chapters he then engages in constant debates and conflict with the Sadducees and Pharisees. Although these two groups were opposed to each other, they shared a common hatred of Jesus and worked together to destroy him. 

            Our text begins by saying, “But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.  And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.” The Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, had just asked Jesus a question that attempted to show how foolish the idea was.  However, in his answer, Jesus had silenced the Sadducees.  Now the Pharisees, who did believe in the resurrection, saw their opportunity to take another run at Jesus.

            They sent a man whom our text describes as a “lawyer.”  The Pharisees were largely a lay group.  They sought to live in ways of a higher purity as they took parts of the Torah that specifically applied to priests in the temple, and applied it to everyday life.  Their “tradition of the elders” was a way of interpreting the Torah itself – the Law that God had given to Israel at Mt. Sinai - that they basically placed on the same level as the Torah. This tradition was a very complex and developed one, and so within the Pharisees there were experts who were well studied. They can be called “scribes” or in this case, “a lawyer.” In the time before his conversion, the apostle Paul would have fit into this category.

            The Pharisee asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”  He feigned respect for Jesus by calling him “teacher,” and then asked a question about what was the greatest commandment in the law. We know that this kind of debate – ranking commandments in relation to one another and arguing about which one took precedence in different situations – was the sort of thing that the Pharisees did. It’s only natural when your whole approach to God and life is based on the law.

            Apparently the lawyer thought that he had laid a trap – that he had asked a question to which Jesus might give an answer that provided the basis for further attacks. But instead, the Lord made short work of it.  Jesus said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

            Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 which says that we are to love God with all that we are.  This is the great and first commandment, and of course it summarizes the first three of the Ten Commandments.  And then our Lord quoted Leviticus 19:18 which says that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves – a statement that summarizes the next seven of the Ten Commandments. And then Jesus added that these two commandments summarized what all of the Law and the Prophets – the whole of the Old Testament – was really all about.

            In our text, we don’t hear about any response from the lawyer. What could he say as a come back?  But then again, the same thing can be said about us.  Listen again to these words: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

            What can we say in response to this?  Love God with all your heart and soul and mind – with all that you are. Love your neighbor as yourself. Martin Luther described our sinfulness by saying that we are “turned in on ourselves.”  Our actions show that we love ourselves with all that we are. Given a choice between God’s Word and ways, and what might not be our first choice or might be inconvenient for us, the answer is often very clear: God loses. This becomes particularly apparent in anything that involves what we really value – our time and our money.

            And if God can’t compete with our love for ourselves, what possible chance does our neighbor have?  I will choose to ignore my neighbor’s need. I will speak about my neighbor in ways that entertain others, even as I hurt his or her reputation.  I will speak angry and hurtful words to my neighbor.

            If this is all that we had: love God with all that you are; love your neighbor as yourself, then we could expect nothing except God’s wrath and judgment.  Time and again we love ourselves more than either.  And this violation of God’s law is sin that brings God’s eternal judgment.

            Yet thankfully, God’s Word to us does not end there, just as our text does not end there.  Matthew tells us next: “Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?’”  The Pharisees were gathered there for the lawyer’s question to Jesus.  So now Jesus asked them a question. On the surface of things, it was an easy one.  He asked, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”  This was so easy – basically a no brainer. They said to him, “The son of David.” Everyone knew that the Messiah would be the descendant of King David.

            And then Jesus threw them the curve ball they did not see coming.  He said to them, "How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”

            Jesus quoted Psalm 110:1, a psalm written by David.  These are words that, as Jesus says, David wrote by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They are therefore certainly true and what God wants us to have.  And then something very strange happens.  David speaks about the Messiah as his “Lord.” As Jesus asked, “If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”  In the normal human arrangement of the time, no son or descendant of David would ever be considered greater than David.  We learn that “no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”

            They couldn’t’ answer how the Messiah, the descendant of David – the son of David – could be David’s Lord, and that was it for them. But actually there is another point here that is equally remarkable:  How can a descendant of David be seated at the right hand of God?

            You already know the answer.  Matthew gave it to us in the first chapter of the Gospel when the angel said to Joseph about the pregnant Mary, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

            The law of you shall love God with all that you are, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself is not God’s final and only word to us.  Instead he sent his Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, into the world as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.  Because Joseph took Jesus as his own, Jesus was part of the line of David.  He was the son of David. Jesus is true man, like us in all ways except for sin. But he is also true God.  For that reason, David had to call this son of David his Lord.

            The angel said that Jesus the Christ came to save his people from their sins.  Thanks be to God, he didn’t come only to save the Jews, the descendants of Israel.  He came to save all people from their sins: from every way we love ourselves more than God; from every way we love ourselves more than our neighbor.

            The Pharisees could not explain how the son of David was David’s Lord.  But this isn’t even the most surprising thing about the Christ.  Instead it is the fact that Jesus the Christ came to win forgiveness for all by dying on the cross.  In the first century Jewish understanding, the Christ was always the winner, the conqueror, the mighty one.  You knew that a person was not the Christ when the Romans killed him.

            There was no expectation that the Christ would suffer and die on a cross crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” Yet this is what Jesus the Christ did as he took our place; as he bore our sins and received God’s judgment. Jesus the Christ was also the Suffering Servant who offered himself as the sacrifice in our place to gain the forgiveness of our sins.

            But of course, Psalm 110 that Jesus quotes today is a statement about the exaltation of the Christ.  And so on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead.  He vindicated Jesus as the Christ, and demonstrated that he was more of a Christ than anyone had ever imagined. For in his ascension, Jesus the Christ who is still true God and true man, has been exalted to the right hand of God.

            Our text todays says, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”  Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord has been exalted to God’s right hand.  And when will God the Father put his enemies under his feet?  It will happen on the Last Day when he returns in glory. Jesus will raise the dead and he will pronounce the final judgment. 

            On that day, the whole world out there that thinks you are stupid for being here this morning; that mocks your faith in Jesus Christ; that ridicules the ways you seek to live according to God’s ways, will find themselves under his feet. They will be judged and condemned by the very One they rejected.

            And you? You will rejoice in the presence of the Lord who will have given you a share in his resurrection.  You will join the heavenly host and all the saints in praising God who loved you in this way and by his grace gave you salvation.  For today, you already know that Jesus Christ is David’s son and David’s Lord, and that the crucified and risen Lord has been exalted to the Father’s right hand until he puts all of his enemies under his feet. 

           

             

           

           

             

 

           

 

               

 

  

 

   

           

           

 

Commemoration of Abraham, Patriarch

 

Today we remember and give thanks for Abraham, Patriarch.  Abraham (known early in his life as Abram) was called by God to become the father of a great nation (Genesis 12). At the age of 75 and in obedience to God’s command, he, his wife Sarah, and his nephew Lot moved southwest from the town of Haran to the land of Canaan. There God established a covenant with Abraham (15:18), promising the land of Canaan to his descendants. At the age of 100 Abraham and Sarah were finally blessed with Isaac, the son long promised to them by God. Abraham demonstrated supreme obedience when God commanded him to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. God spared the young man’s life only at the last moment and provided a ram as a substitute offering (22:1–19). Abraham died at the age of 175 and was buried in the Cave of Machpelah, which he had purchased earlier as a burial site for Sarah. He is especially honored as the first of the three great Old Testament Patriarchs—and for his “righteousness before God through faith” (Romans 4:1–12).

Collect of the Day:

Lord God, heavenly Father, You promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, You led him to the land of Canaan, and You sealed Your covenant with him by the shedding of blood.  May we see in Jesus, the Seed of Abraham, the promise of the new covenant of Your Holy Church, sealed with Jesus’ blood on the cross and given to us now in the cup of the new testament; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

 

Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity - Eph 4:1-6

 

                                           Trinity 17

                                                                                            Eph 4:1-6

                                                                                            10/4/20

 

     Pastoral longevity is often a very good indicator of the health of a congregation.  Now certainly there can be exceptions, but if you find that pastors regularly stay a long time at a congregation it is usually positive indicator about that setting.  I think that certainly applies as a description of Good Shepherd.  Pastor Schmidt was pastor here for sixteen years, and certainly would have been here even longer if his health had not forced him to retire.

      I have now been pastor at Good Shepherd for fourteen years.   I am rapidly closing in on Pastor Schmidt’s mark, and before too long I will overtake him as the longest tenured pastor at Good Shepherd. During my years at Good Shepherd I have found it to be a place of remarkable peace and unity.

     Now admittedly, I was not here for that epic event in which the congregation went through the process of deciding to buy a riding mower.  But during my time as pastor, I think I can count of two hands the number of times there has not been a unanimous vote at all the church council and voters’ meetings that have taken place. The level of unity and agreement has frankly been quite remarkable.

     That is why the events that began during March of this year have been so striking.  As Covid 19 became an issue, and the governor then issued his original stay at home order, for the first time during all of my years at Good Shepherd I have seen something that has caused tension and a degree of division in the congregation.  There has been disagreement about whether to have services or not. There has been disagreement about whether to wear masks or not.  There has been disagreement about the actual risk the virus poses.

     And these have not been mere intellectual disagreements.  They have often been filled with emotion and strong feelings. 

The fact of the matter is that this has just been a really weird time, unlike anything we have seen before.  And our congregation is by no means unusual.  I have talked with many pastors who have experienced the same thing in their congregations too.

     As we live in a fallen world, even really good churches can at times experience division.  And what is true at the level of congregations, is certainly also true in Christian families and between Christian friends. We are therefore always in need of hearing what St. Paul has to say in our text today from his letter to the Ephesians.

     Paul begins by saying, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

     The apostle begins by urging us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called.  Paul says it plainly: God called us.  We say the words in the Small Catechism’s explanation to the Third Article of the Creed: “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts and kept me in the truth faith.”

     But sometimes we forget that this really is the case. God called you to faith through the Gospel.  It is a matter of God’s grace.  In fact, Paul this says this was God’s will for you in Christ before the world was even created. He began this letter by saying: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”

     In ourselves we had no reason to be called – no reason that God should want to call us. The apostle describes our past when he says in chapter two, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” 

     The apostle paints a bleak picture of what we are on our own, conceived and born as fallen, sinful people.  We are slaves of Satan.  That’s the way the world lives apart from Christ – living in the passions of the flesh; carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. This it calls “freedom.”  But what appears to be gold is actually a gilded cage.  It is slavery to Satan that actually brings pain and chaos in this life as it leads to damnation.  Just look at what that the abandonment of all biblical teaching about marriage and sexuality has done to our culture – to families, parents and children.

     There was nothing about us that was lovable.  However, Paul goes on to say, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

     In his mercy and grace God sent his Son into the world to die on the cross for our trespasses.  And the on the third day he raised him from the dead. This resurrection is the revelation of God’s incredible saving power for us.  It is what gives us the living hope that we have every day.  Earlier Paul said that he prays for the Ephesians, “that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.”

     You have received the Holy Spirit through baptism and the Word. You live a life that is in Christ – a life joined to our Lord and his saving work.  Paul begins our text with the word “therefore.”  His thought in our text is based upon what we heard in last week’s epistle lesson. There he spoke of how he prayed to God, “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

     Paul’s “therefore” in our text is based on power the Spirit gives so that Christ dwells in our heart through faith.  It is based on knowing the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge.  You have been called to this. And because you have, the apostle urges us you “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love”

     Walking – living – in a manner worthy of the calling we have received in Christ is marked by humility and gentleness.  These are not characteristics that the world admires.  The athlete makes a great play and then he poses and preens.  In a rude and brusque world, gentleness is considered to be weakness. But those who already have everything in Christ have no need to boast.  Instead we follow Christ in humble service toward others that shows care and compassion

     Because we have received forgiveness in Christ we seek to be patient with others – to bear with one another.  Frankly at times we put up with another and choose to overlook shortcomings, because this is what God has done for us in Christ. This is what Christ’s Spirit gives us the power to do. After all, Paul has said just before our text, “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.”

     And Paul says in our text that we are to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”  The Holy Spirit has created faith within us.  Because of his work we share in the bond that is peace.  We have peace with God – the peace that God has brought about through our Savior Jesus Christ.

     And therefore we seek to live in ways that are produced by this unity – ways that maintain this unity. We seek to live as what God has made us to be.  In our text Paul hammers home the oneness that rests in God.  He says, “There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call-- one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

     You have been joined by the Spirit into the Body of Christ.  You have one hope – the resurrection of our Lord which gives eternal life now and resurrection no the Last Day.  You have one Lord – the Lord Jesus who gave himself on the cross to win the forgiveness of your sins.  You have one faith – faith in the crucified and risen Lord.  You have received one baptism for the forgiveness of your sins.  You have one God and Father who loved you when you were unlovable and gave his Son as the sacrifice to make you the children of God.

     This is the unity that God has given to us.  This is the unity to which God has called us in love. And because this is so may the Spirit of the risen Lord lead each of us to live the apostle’s words that we hear this morning: “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

    

 

 

 

    

    

         

    

Commemoration of Jerome, Translator of Holy Scripture

 

Today we remember and give thanks for Jerome, Translator of Holy Scripture.  Jerome was born in a little village on the Adriatic Sea around the year A.D. 345. At a young age he went to study in Rome, where he was baptized. After extensive travels, he chose the life of a monk and spent five years in the Syrian desert. There he learned Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament . After ordination at Antioch and visits to Rome and Constantinople, Jerome settled in Bethlehem. From the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, he used his ability with languages to translate the Bible into Latin, the common language of his time. This translation, called the Vulgate, was the authoritative version of the Bible in the western Church world for over 1,000 years. Considered one of the great scholars of the early church, Jerome died on September 30, 420. He was originally interred at Bethlehem but his remains were eventually taken to Rome.

Collect of the Day:

O Lord, God of truth, Your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.  You gave Your servant Jerome delight in his study of Holy Scripture.  May those who continue to read, mark, and inwardly digest Your Word find in it the food of salvation and the fountain of life; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

 

 

Feast of St. Michael and All Angels

 

Today is the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels.  The observance of a day to honor the angel St. Michael dates to the fifth century.  It was later expanded to include all angels. .  We confess in the Nicene Creed, “I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.”  Included in this are the angels who are spiritual beings created by God to serve Him and help His people.

 

The Bible mentions two angels by name.  Michael is mentioned in Daniel (10:13, 21; 12:1), Jude 9 and Revelation 12:7.  On the basis of these passages he has been honored as “captain of the heavenly hosts.”  Gabriel is mentioned in Daniel 8:16 and 9:21, and was the messenger of God in the annunciation to Zechariah (Luke 1:19) and Mary (Luke 1:26).  In the Scripture reading from Revelation 12, Michael and the angels cast Satan from heaven.  This casting out of Satan took place as a result of Christ’s victory in his death, resurrection, and ascension.  No longer is Satan allowed to appear before God and accuse His people (such as we find in Zechariah 3:1-5; the name Satan means “adversary” in Hebrew). 

 

Scripture reading:

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.  And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” (Revelation 12:7-12).

 

Collect of the Day:

Everlasting God, You have ordained and constituted the service of angels and men in a wonderful order.  Mercifully grant that, as Your holy angels always serve and worship You in heaven, so by Your appointment they may also help and defend us here on earth; through Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

 

 

 

Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity - 1 Kings 17:17-24

 

Trinity 16

                                                                                       1 Kings 17:17-24

                                                                                       9/27/20

 

            A boy got sick and died.  We aren’t told what illness it was, just that the “illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.”  This was certainly tragic.  The mother was a widow. The boy was her only child. Her husband had died.  Her only child had died, and she was left all alone.

Now in the ninth century B.C. this was tragic.  But it wasn’t unusual.  It wasn’t surprising.  This is simply what happened.  The life expectancy in ancient Israel was probably around forty years.  That is skewed somewhat by the high infant mortality of the time. Certainly, there were some who were blessed to live longer.

But death was just an ugly part of life.  It was tragic. But it wasn’t surprising. For millennia it was this way. In fact, the life expectancy in the United States in 1900 was just a little under fifty years. By comparison, the life expectancy today is right at seventy nine years.

The truth of the matter is that we don’t expect to die.  We assume that the wonderful advances in modern medicine will always have an answer to help keep us alive until we get really old.  For us, cancer is probably the greatest fear because it just shows up, often for unexplained reasons. And we know that while there is great success in treating some forms of cancers, others have a low probability of survival.

That’s why the reaction to COVID 19 has been so striking.  When have we ever seen large groups of people completely change their pattern of daily life because they feared an illness that could kill them?  My dad has described to me the reactions to polio outbreaks when he was young. But in my life, I had never seen anything like that … until this year.

In uncomfortable ways, this virus has reminded many that Isaiah’s words are true: death is the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. And in this setting we need all the more hear to about the cause of death and the answer God has provided.

Our Old Testament lesson is a continuation from what we heard last Sunday.  In response to the wicked paganism of King Ahab and his queen Jezebel, God had announced through the prophet Elijah that he was sending a drought upon Israel.  As the drought progressed, God did the unexpected. He sent Elijah to live with a widow and her son in the town of Zarapheth which belonged to Sidon – the very place from which Jezebel had come as the daughter of the king there. Essentially, God sent Elijah to live in Jezebel’s back yard!

We heard last week how the draught had brought about a famine.  The widow and her son were about to die, when Elijah’s presence brought the miracle that their jar of flour and jug of oil for making food did not become empty, according to the word of the LorD that he spoke by Elijah.

It’s a feel good story, that takes a very dark turn in our text today.  We hear this morning: “After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.” The mother said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”

The widow’s first reaction to the death of her son was that it was about her sin.  Now while she was misguided in thinking that her sin had caused the death of another, she was not wrong in assuming that there is a link between sin and death. St. Paul tells us in Romans, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Through the disobedience of Adam in the Fall, sin entered into the world.  It entered into every one of us because we have been conceived and born as fallen, sinful people. 

We see it in the things we say and do to our family and friends.  We see it in our thoughts which turn to jealousy, coveting and lust.  We see it, even when we don’t want it to be there.  And this sin brings death.  Paul leaves no doubt about it when he says, “For the wages of sin is death.”

But God is the God of life. Elijah took the dead boy and to the upper room where he lived and laid the body on his own bed.  He cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?”  Then after stretching himself upon the child three times he cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, let this child's life come into him again.” Yawheh granted Elijah’s request and the boy returned to life. Elijah brought the woman’s son to her and she said, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.”

            Last week, the woman said to Elijah, "As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug.”  But now after this experience she says that the “word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” She had come to know that Yahweh is the true God through the raising of her son from the dead.

            There is an obvious parallel between our Old Testament lesson and the Gospel lesson in which Jesus raises the widow’s son at Nain from the dead.  We learn that after Jesus did this, “Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen among us!’ and ‘God has visited his people!’”

            Luke wants us to know that Jesus came as the great end time prophet.  Moses had promised, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers--it is to him you shall listen.”  Jesus performs miracles just like the great prophet Elijah because he is this One promised by God.

            After our text, Elijah would go on to win a great victory for Yahweh at Mt. Carmel over the prophets of Baal and Asherah. But then the threat from Queen Jezebel that she was going to kill him would send Elijah into the wilderness and he would say to God, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”  He would ask to die.  And after arriving at Mt. Horeb he would speak words of failure: “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

            The prophets of the Old Testament suffered. The prophets were killed. Jesus Christ came as the great end time prophet who was more than just another prophet.  He was the Son of God who had entered into the world as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.  He came to die on the cross in order to win forgiveness for our every sin.  Paul told the Corinthians that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.”  How did Jesus Christ reconcile us to God?  Paul says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

            Jesus received God’s judgment in our place as he died on the cross. But the victory that Christ came to win was about more than just forgiveness.  Had had come to defeat what sin had caused.  He came to defeat death itself.  That’s what happened on Easter.  On the third day God raised Jesus from the dead with a body that can never die again. This resurrected body is the one that he will give to you on the Last Day.  Our risen, ascended and exalted Lord will return in glory, and so 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.”

            You know that this is true for you because you have been baptized.  Paul told the Romans, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

            Your sin has been forgiven! Death has been defeated! For you, to die is to depart and be with Christ.  For you, to die is to share in the resurrection of Jesus Christ when he returns. It is to receive a body like Christ’s that can never die again.

            These truths need to guide the way we live every day.  God has loved you and forgiven your sins in Christ. Therefore Paul tells us, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”  We are called to love others and forgive them because this is what God has already done for us in Christ Jesus.

            And we cannot live lives that are ruled by the fear of death.  We want to live.  We should want to live because God is the God of life.  Life is the gift that he has given to each one of us. There is nothing “natural” about death.  It has been caused by sin that found its source in the temptation of the devil who is a murderer.

But we know that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead.  He is risen! He is risen indeed!  And because he has, we know that not even death can separate us from God. More than that, we know that death cannot hold our bodies because Jesus Christ has already started the resurrection of the Last Day. As Paul told the Corinthians, “‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Let us live each day, confident in the victory that already belongs to us is in Christ Jesus our Lord.