Grace,
Mercy, and Peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ Amen
But
that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the
bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac
and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the
living, for all live to him.
In
the Name of Jesus
We have a lot to learn about death. In so many ways
death is one of the greatest unknowns in the world. You might be
saying Pastor, what is so unknown about it? We know what happens
when one dies, their body stops, they cease to exist. Seems pretty
simple to me. Okay you have got me there. However, what is it like
to be through the perils and pangs of death? What is it like to be
ushered from this life, to eternal, everlasting life?
I think
that is it a safe assumption that we all here have some sort of a
fear of death. We fear it simply because we don't know what to
expect. Even if you have had the opportunity to sit at the bedside
of a loved one as they have taken their final breaths, you don't know
what it is actually like. I think the other reason we fear death is
because of the finality of it. We don't like to say goodbye. We
don't like to have to look at the shell of a loved one knowing we
will never seem them on this earth again. It is so hard to accept
the finality of death.
You are not alone in your need to learn lessons on death
and accepting death. But compared to the world in which we live you
are light years ahead in your thoughts and in your beliefs. Compared
to the Sadducees you are experts on death. You see you have one
thing the Sadducees did not. A belief in the resurrection of the
dead. We get rumblings of this at the beginning of our Gospel today
and also in the book of Acts. Paul was before the council ans when
[he] perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees,
he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of
Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the
dead that I am on trial.” And when he had said this, a dissension
arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was
divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor
angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.
Having no hope then in the resurrection, in an
afterlife, they then come to Jesus with the question about this silly
belief that is going to stump him forsure! Let's ask him about this
factitious event, give him such an outrageous situation and see if we
can trap him in his words. Teacher,
Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no
children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his
brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and
died without children. And the second and the third took her, and
likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman
also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman
be? For the seven had her as wife.” Ahh,
the perfect question.....or not. But it is a question that explains
their thoughts on death, and maybe even our thoughts as well. The
Sadducees looked at death through earthly eyes. They looked at it as
if the issues, the troubles, of this world crossed over. But we must
make that separation between earthly and heavenly. We must see
earthly issues as issues only here.
But
it is because of sin that we are at times blocked to the whole
picture of death. Because while it is sad here, while we grieve
here, there is a glorious side to it. A side which our Lord
expresses with heavenly splendor in our Gospel. First he stops the
Sadducee question right away and basically says, Let's get to the
real issue here. It's not about which of the seven brothers will be
married to this woman in heaven. First and foremost, marriage is an
earthly mandate. Fill the earth was the command. Don't dwell on
this one writing of Moses.
Look
instead at the other writings of Moses. Look instead at the faith of
Moses. Look to that which says of the Lord, the one that describes
the one who stands in front of them as the
Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to
him.
Friends in Christ, when we, because of sin, are forced
to stare death in the face, rejoice. For through faith we have been
given something that transcends time. We have been given something
that is timeless, that does not change. It lies in the very words of
God in the burning bush from Exodus 3. The burning bush was the
point when God called Moses to go back to Pharaoh and lead God's
children out of Israel. Amidst their conversation, Moses
said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them,
‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me,
‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to
Moses, “I
am who I am.”
And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I
am has
sent me to you.’”
What
an amazing response that hits at the core of our Gospel as well.
When we face death we have a God who simply is. We just talked about
this in Confirmation class this last week and talked about how
difficult of a concept this is. God is. He just is. We are very
temporal people. We have a schedule that we need to keep to. We are
very time orientated. God knows no time. We can point to our
beginning and we can expect our end. God, the Triune God, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, has no beginning and have no end. They just
are.
And
His promise to us, when we die we will live for an eternity. When we
die, we will be. We will exist just as the Triune God exists. We
will live for eternity for we have already died. We died at our
Baptism as we died with Christ on the cross and were raised just as
he was. Death is a portal. We say in a funeral prayer, We give you
thanks that by his death he destroyed death and by His resurrection
He opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Strengthen us in
the confidence that because He lives we shall live also. Even in the
graveside prayer, by the death of your Son Jesus Christ you destroyed
death, by his rest in the tomb You sanctified the graves of Your
saints, and by His bodily resurrection You brought life and
immortality to life so that all who die in Him abide in peace and
hope.
Yes
we have a lot to learn about death. As for the physical side of
things we will have to wait until we experience to know what it will
be like. But as we have the Scriptures opened to us and we have the
chance to dive in even more and learn of the promises made at our
baptisms our fears will subside. For while earthly marriage will
cease after death, we will continue in the union between the heavenly
bridegroom and his bride the church, which we entered at our baptism.
And it will be that as we learn more about that untion, we will have
less to fear because the promise of life everlasting will only become
more clear.
Until
that time, God grant us the faith to carry us through this vale of
tears and finally bring us to himself for all eternity.
Amen
SOLI DEO GLORIA
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