By Rev. Peter Haugen
St. Paul Evangelical
Lutheran Church
Our salvation comes to us through death. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), after all, and those wages must be paid. We confront this reality, this sting, every time someone we love dies. Every time. Death is painful because death separates us, at least for a time; God forbid it should be for eternity. But death is also painful because it is a constant reminder that we ourselves will follow soon enough. When death confronts us, it is always, always a call to repentance.
But death here is also a reminder of the death of our Lord, which we remember every Divine Service, every time we gather together with our brothers and sisters in Christ to hear the Word of our Lord and to partake of the fruit of that death. It is through the death of our Lord that the wages of our sin have been paid. The death of the Christian is more than simply the Law forcing itself into our awareness, although it is certainly that. But the death of the Christian is, because of the death of Christ, also our movement from being sojourners and exiles in the wilderness of this life to being citizens and heirs in our Promised Land.
As we remember the death of Christ in the Divine Service, so do we also remember our dead, those in our own lives who have preceded us into glory. We gather, after all, “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven” as we laud and magnify the Holy Name of our God. There is much comfort in that. But there is also much comfort now for us for whom death is approaching, as we wait and suffer and grieve for a loss that has not yet occurred but that is coming, and that right soon. Or when it has just come.
This is so, though we do well to remember that ultimately our dead are not our dead. They are His dead, the dead of our Lord. He is “Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Romans 14:9). And His dead, though they have indeed passed from this life, though they are indeed separated from us for a time – His dead are … not … dead. They are not dead, but are living, for He is Himself the God of the living. And we will ourselves be joined to them again in the fullness of the time.
“I am the Bread of Life,” our Lord says (St. John 6:48). “I am the Living Bread that came down out of heaven,” our Lord says (St. John 6:51). He is the Bread That satisfies those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. He is the Flesh That bestows upon the poor in spirit the very kingdom of God. He is the Hope That brings comfort to the mourning. He is our Salvation. So “taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8). His mercy endures forever. Amen.
Leave a Reply