How Great Is The Father's Love-We Understand Death

Pastor Tim Phillips

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, there is so much darkness and negativity we connect with death that sometimes we lose perspective of what your Word says to us about life and death and eternal life. Lord, help us to see the whole picture today. Help us to see the joy that all Christians can have. Help us to know the promises, the things that can guide us through the dark times and give us the glory of heaven in our daily life. Bless us with your Holy Spirit to walk by faith and not by sight. In Jesus' name, Amen.

As we think about this wonderful topic, you can't help but realize it's one of those topics nobody really wants to spend a lot of time talking about, the subject of death. And when the word is mentioned, we think of those we love who have gone before us, our grandparents and our parents and our brothers and sisters and maybe even our children. And it's not a happy thought. It's a remembrance of loss and pain. But I have written a message for you today called “Comfort in the Shadow” and it takes off on that theme from Psalm 23, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Much of our life we spend in that shadow, but it's not necessarily a bad place and God does bring us wonderful comfort and love in the midst of that time.

The journey through time which we are given to dwell on this earth is a fascinating one. Our life begins at conception and, from that point on, progresses steadily, incessantly toward two great milestones, which are common to all of us. The first great milestone is birth, and typically our birth is met with great joy by those expecting us. And we celebrate all kinds of wonderful things. We have baby showers before the baby comes and then, when the baby arrives, everybody wants to come. Mothers on both sides, aunts and uncles, everyone wants to see the new baby. And, like we'll have at the 9:30 service, there's usually a baptism soon to follow where we bring this child before God and God in the waters of baptism and, according to His promise, brings that child into His family, gives that child the Holy Spirit, and washes that child clean. The first milestone, an occasion of joy and excitement.

But very soon, our journey continues and we progress toward the second great milestone and that is death. And when our death comes, it's not so much an occasion of joy and excitement. But rather it comes like a chilling fog to those we leave behind. As we move along toward this second milestone, we can't help but notice that it draws near to us. At first, it seems so distant that we don't give it a second thought. Our lives are focused on things right in front of us, like birthdays and anniversaries and school and graduation and careers and raising a family and all of those things just fill our lives so full, we don't have time to look down the road and see that second great milestone coming toward us.

Life is always pushing forward, growing, developing, becoming, climbing, but never quite arriving. Suddenly, something makes us pause and we look around and we notice that time has passed. We look in the mirror and we've aged. Too soon, that second great milestone seems to approach. How quickly the change has happened. Now it seems it's not far away at all. And for many of our friends and family, it has already come. With wonder, with regret, and sometimes with fear we anticipate its approach.

How do we as Christians respond to these thoughts? What does the bible say about death? To see death through the eyes of Jesus we must explore God's Word. So let's do that today. Starting with our Old Testament reading, Genesis 2, “The creation of life. Six days God created all that exists in the whole universe and then the crown of His creation, the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded of man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die.'” The book of Genesis contains the foundations for many of our beliefs, including our belief about death. Death has come into this world as a result of the disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and from that point on, from generation to generation, death has been passed down. The first death was when one brother, Cain, killed his other brother, Abel, and from that point on, death has come to all of us. In Romans 6:23, we hear these words, “The wages of sin is death.” Hum, terrible and grim those words are. “The wages of sin is death.” It means what we deserve, what we have earned, what is required because of our sin is that we must die. Death came to Adam and Eve. Death came to millions and millions and billions and billions of people since that time. And the bible describes it this way, “Death reigned as if it was an authority over all of creation.”

What we can see is that death is the result of sin in the world and that all of us will face it. We kind of walk through this life with an awareness of death. We see it as an end point in our planning, a natural destination. We say things like, “You have two guarantees in this life, death and taxes.” And those are both equally welcomed, I believe. And we describe our life sometimes in relation to when we expect to die. Sometimes, we compare life to the seasons of the year. The spring is our childhood. The summer is our young adulthood and when we're raising our families. The fall is our early retirement years and that kinds of blends gradually into the winter when life ebbs away.

I recently heard a sportsman talk about something. He'd shot this enormous deer and it was the biggest deer he'd ever gotten, he said, “I'm running on a quarter tank now, so this is probably the biggest one I'll ever get.” He compared his life to a gas gauge, and now he's on a quarter tank. And I thought about, “Where am I at?” Well, even in our calculation, we can't exactly figure that out. Sometimes people die when it appears well before their time. Other times, people live long in these later years they call ‘The Golden Years.' And, of course, if you talk to anybody in those golden years, they don't think they're very golden. That's not what I'm hearing anyway.

Although our awareness of death seems to dwell on the negative, listen to how King David described life and death in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely, goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” When do we most often hear that? Isn't it at a funeral when we're overwhelmed with our sadness and loss? But those words are not written with the awful sense of pain and suffering. These are confident words. These are joyful words. These are words of conviction, that God has been with David from the moment of his conception, all the way through this life, every place he pauses to look, there is God. Even beyond the second great milestone, even beyond our death, there is God.

I've heard people describe death as the separation of body and soul. And in regard to that, we Christians can take great comfort that beyond this life, when our bodies are frail and wear out, our soul instantly goes to be with Jesus in comfort and waits there with Jesus until the time when the end of all time comes, the end of this world comes and then God will give us a new and glorious body that we will live forever in heaven with. That's what the bible teaches about death. Separation of the body and the soul. But I think it's important for us to reflect on David again. Why did David have those convictions? How did he know God was going to be with him every step of the way? How did he know that, even in the presence of his enemy, the greatest enemy, the devil, God would prepare a beautiful banquet? What gave him that peace and comfort?

In our gospel reading for today, we read about Jesus at His transfiguration and you might have noticed I inserted a word. That was because it was from the Greek, the original language of the New Testament. Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah, two great Messianic figures from the Old Testament. And He's talking with them. And it says in the Greek that He's talking with them about His exodus, when He would depart from this life and return back to heaven where He came from. In Jesus' death, we have cause for hope. In His death, He paid the wages our sins required. Yes, the wages of sin is death and you and I all deserve equally to suffer God's punishment and wrath but, because of Jesus and what He came and did on our behalf, because He was nailed to the cross in our place, our sin was taken away. The punishment for our sin has been removed. What our sins required, our own death has been paid. St. Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians 15:55-57, “Where, o death, is your victory? Where, o death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Reminds me of something like this: When a child is anticipating a wonderful day like Christmas or Easter with the Easter egg hunt and all the things you do or their birthday or when a young couple is anticipating their marriage and thinking about how beautiful and glorious it will be, this is the attitude of David in Psalm 23. Every moment of life here is a beginning of the celebration that will last forever in heaven. By faith, we have victory over death so now we see things differently. Every day we move closer and closer, not to some dreaded fate but to a glorious and never-ending victory party.

I wrote a few verses to describe this new way of seeing things. “Because Jesus paid for all our sins through His innocent sufferings and death, the shadow of fear projected from death is gone. In its place, there is now the ambient glow of an eternal sunrise. By grace, we are saved. Where once we staggered in the dust of the valley fearing every darkened form, we now walk with confidence in the glorious light of a life filled with Christ. Through faith, the victory is ours.” Amen? Amen.

Copyright 2005 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church