Death and Life

we need to hear from our brothers and sisters in the faith that second word of God, that promise, that Good News of life, renewed life, life made over completely.

If it were just up to us,

if we were alone in this life,

we would have been crushed

by the rejection coming from friends, enemies, family, and strangers

of what good things we were trying to say or do.

It would be too much.

Jesus warned us that rejection and trouble is coming for us.

Some is the ordinary human rejections,

--such as the girlfriend who rebuffs a suitor,

--or the cancer patient in his lonely fight,

--or the person being dismissed from a job

But some is the rejection that comes from being a person of faith.

--the one who is attempting to speak God's word who is ignored or abused for his or her trouble.

-- the one who feels empty when praying, who is failing to hear an answer to prayer.

Jesus warned us in the Gospel today that there would be those times when rejection might come from those closest to us, even our own families.

Jesus' own relatives thought he might be mentally ill and tried to restrain him, we hear in another passage.

He end the lesson today with the enigmatic observation that those who think so well of themselves, who think that they can find the answers all by themselves, are fooling only themselves.

Those who go through this first death will be given the kind of life that can endure any death that may follow.

So how does this work?

When our prayers run dry, when we don't know what to say, or can't discern an answer, then it is time to say:

Wait a minute!

This silence of God is my problem, not God's. He is still speaking, but for whatever reason I'm not able to hear it right now.

I know that he spoke to me at Baptism.

I know that he made a promise to me.

I know that God's promises are true words that are never broken.

I know that when I was baptized, I was drowned to that old life that leads only to despair and separation from God.

That is over with; I've been through that already.

The death that is trying to grab hold of me now is a death that cannot hold me.

Whether it is the death of a relationship as a teenager,

or the death of a particular career track,

or the death of a beloved family member,

or my own physical death....

these things cannot separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

because I died once already,

and coming out on the other side of the baptismal waters, I live the beginnings of a new life that shall not end, whether I breathe the oxygen of this earth or the pure breath of heaven.

No longer are we enslaved to sin, Paul says.

We are not permanently separated from God and from one another;

there is a future where we have not known one.

It is because of that kind of deep and abiding confidence in the Lord God that the prophet Jeremiah can continue after all of his complaints about the severity of his enemies and his profound sadness:

But the Lord is with me...

...you test the righteous, you see the heart and mind... to you I have committed my cause. Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord, for he has delivered the life of the needy....

We Lutherans tend to be very quiet about it, but even among us, it is a wonderful thing to see and hear when a person takes that plunge to become a Christian not just as a name on a list, but in a life of word and deed.

We've heard folks describe it as just beginning to breathe.

We rejoice in it each time we gather in Jesus' name, hearing the experience of those first disciples, and encouraging one another around us now.

We are fed in it each time we come to the table of the Lord; on those times when things seem clear and easy, and on those times of great sadness or distress when they seem so very hard.

Death does not win.

The power of death who thought he could destroy Jesus is himself defeated when Jesus is raised from the dead in a new and resurrected life.

In the first service on Friday at Synod Assembly, we used a passage from II Corinthians [2:15-16]

For we are the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.

The joy of knowing about our first death and new life comes out of us as a fragrance spreads in all directions.

And the fragrance is not just decoration; it is the knowledge that our death is tied to the death of Jesus; that our life is tied to the resurrected life of Jesus.

It simply will get out in what we say and do day by day.

Listen again to how Luther sings confidently:

Even as we live each day,

death our life embraces.

Who is there to bring us help,

Rich forgiving graces?

You only, Lord, you only!

Baptized in Christ's life giving flood:

Water and his precious blood--

Holy and righteous God,

Holy and mighty God,

Holy and all-merciful Savior,

Everlasting God,

By grace bring us safely

Through the flood of bitter death.

Lord have mercy.

In that confidence,

in that faith,

in that life beyond the first death in baptism and after the struggles of everyday existence,

let us live,

now and forever. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.