The World's No and God's Yes

Here is how I “helped my neighbor in his every need” as we are directed by Luther's explanation of the 5^th commandment, and also what I might, could, should have done.

This can be a pile of grief in short order.

Then there is the grief that arises at each different stage of life.

Remember that first day of school? When one kind of childhood ended and another began?

Our Katy got through Kindergarten just fine, but on the first day of 1^st grade, I had to physically place her on the bus, with many tears.

She had done the school thing already for a year, and had had enough! The tears on that day were not just Katy's!

Remember the bittersweet celebrations at the end of school years?

In spite of brave words and good intentions, here are a great number of persons whom we are never going to see again.

And when we move from one job to another, or one community to another, or one congregation to another...

And when marriage vows are broken...

And when Anna and Simeon waited long years into their old age for God to send Messiah to straighten out the mess in Israel,

And when the writer of Hebrews struggled for the right language in order to reach his readers with the Good news of Jesus that fulfills the many years of expectation.

And when disappointments of all sorts pile up in front of us.

And when death strikes someone close to us....

It does seem that we are perpetually caught up in one grief or another, some small, some that seem immensely big.

But of course that observation is only the beginning of things for us.

There is more to say, more to do than merely to recognize our griefs.

There is a little clue in one of the church's night prayers which has this line: ...O Lord, the day is now past, and we commit it to you...

we are saying:

“Lord, here it is;

--all that we were able to do, whether much or little,

--all of the relationships in which we lived and operated in this day, whether profound or superficial,

--all of the persons we helped or ignored,

--all of the ways we praised you, Lord,or praised ourselves instead.

It is all yours, Lord.

--Use it, make something of it, something better than we can ever imagine.

--Perhaps you will even give some of it back to us to work on again tomorrow.

It is that prayer, that willingness to commit it all to God's care that allows us to rest a bit in the arms of the Lord Jesus,

and then to move on to the next step, which is to see, after our sleep, what gifts and opportunities God has placed in front of us for this next day.

At long last Anna and Simeon could sing ...mine own eyes have seen your salvation ...when they had the privilege of holding the infant Jesus.

What a gift after their long years of waiting and praying!

From the vantage point of heaven, the writer of Hebrews now knows that his struggle for the right words has benefited millions more persons than to whom he first addressed his letter.

And what of us?

The world has been very busy telling us No.

--No, the day is past.

--No, the relationship is broken.

--No, death has claimed our loved ones.

But God gives us his Yes in place of the world's No.

--”Yes, I'll take what you have made and done, and I will use it in some way.

--Yes, my promise to you is good and true, and everlasting.

--Yes, the connections I made with you in Holy Baptism shall endure, even through death; you will continue to know and love me and all those with whom I have connected you.”

Whether they are the everyday kinds of sadness or the grief piled up by death, they do not get the last word.

Both our everyday griefs and the profound grief of death are met and overcome by the Yes announced by the combination of Christmas and Easter:

--God come in the flesh,

--God taking on everything that we experience.

--God conquering every grief, including death

--God making new life for us and with us.

--God offering us a sample of it even right now.

What can be our reaction, the reaction of all who are grieving in so many different ways?

The Psalm we use on Easter Day catches it well:

This is the day that the Lord has made;

let us rejoice and be glad in it.

That is neither a cheap nor an easy sentiment.

It is inspired by One who has been through it all, the harshest things that life and death can throw at us, and emerges from the farther side of that struggle, victorious.

The Christmas hymn that we sing next was sung at one of last week's funerals here in the nave.

In each of the three stanzas of the hymn, the grief that the world gives us is overcome by the promise and hope in Jesus.

May this be the content of our prayer for each other in the beginning of this new year;

may grief's deadly No be drowned out by God's lively Yes! 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.