Clearly, in light of the new edition of Luther’s Large Catechism with Annotations and Contemporary Applications and the important role ELCA pastor Steve Paulson plays in it, it was clear that it would not be too long before CPH, the CTCR, and the Office of the President worked together to update the Small Catechism once again.
Here then — finally! — is the proposed update, from Anonymous.
Rumors could not be confirmed that this is actually a leak from the CTCR lab at CPH.
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CHRISTIAN QUESTIONS WITH THEIR ANSWERS
Prepared by Dr. Martin Luther for those who intend to go to the Sacrament
(retranslated 7 April, 2023)
After confession and instruction in Bayer, Forde, and Paulson, the pastor may ask, or Christians may ask themselves these questions:
1. Do you believe that you are a sinner?
Yes, but Christ is an even greater sinner.
2. How do you know this?
From all the empty bottles on my nightstand. Man, I went hard back in the day. I still do, if I’m being honest.
3. Are you sorry for your sins?
Yes; I am sorry that they were not greater sins, for then I could more deeply experience the Gospel.
4. What have you deserved from God because of your sins?
The experience of the Law, which always accuses.
5. Do you hope to be saved?
No, I do not. I am so sinful that I cannot even hope. But Christ hopes for me.
6. In whom then do you trust?
In the experience of the Gospel.
7. Who is Christ?
Christ is the preached word of the Gospel.
8. How many Gods are there?
God is the preached word of the Gospel.
9. What has Christ done for you that you trust in Him?
He committed his own, personal sin.
10. Did the Father also die for you?
Yes. God is always FOR ME. However, the Father is God only, as is the Holy Spirit, so they did not sin; but the Son is both true God and true man. He committed his own personal sin for me.
11. How do you know this?
From the Law which always accuses, from the Gospel which always comforts.
12. What are the words of institution?
“Jesus wants to take your sins and leave it to no one else; so he sins against the Golden Rule. When Christ took sin by association, he not only transgressed the law, but placed himself ‘under an evil lord’. The law is no respecter of persons, it does not identify Christ among sinners as an exception to the rule. Christ comes to believe he was guilty. Confessing made it so, and thus Christ committed his own, personal sin—not only an actual sin, but the original sin. Jesus could not seem to stop himself once this sin began rolling downhill, not only did he confess our sins as his own (and believed it), but he proceeded to take on every single sin ever committed in the world.”
13. Do you believe, then, that the true body and blood of Christ are in the Sacrament?
Yes, I believe that the words “body” and “blood” are spoken in the Sacrament, and that I experience them.
14. What convinces you to believe this?
The Law which always accuses, and the Gospel which always comforts.
15. What should we do when we eat His body and drink His blood, and in this way receive His pledge?
We should remember and proclaim His own personal sin, and his death and loss of faith on the cross.
16. Why should we remember and proclaim His death?
First, so that we may learn to believe that no creature, not even Christ, could make satisfaction for our sins. Only faith, between the Christian and God, could do that. Second, so we may learn to be horrified of our attempts to stop sinning, and to regard them as very serious instances of works-righteousness. Third, so we may remember that the harder you try to love on folks, the more they try to kill you.
17. What motivated Christ to die and make full payment for your sins?
Full payment for my sins occurs when I believe in the preached word. Really, it’s more about believing in the experience of the preached word. Or, we might say, believing in the experience of the experience of the preached word. Where am I? What time is it?
18. Finally, why do you wish to go to the Sacrament?
I don’t really know, to be honest…
19. What should admonish and encourage a Christian to receive the Sacrament frequently?
Not the command and the promise of Christ the Lord, for that is Law. Admonishing someone to do anything will just make her/him feel guilty for not doing it. Neither should her/his own pressing need be a motivator, because that would assume that she/he must do something to answer her/his need.
20. But what should you do if you are not aware of this need and have no hunger and thirst for the Sacrament?
To such a person no better advice can be given than this. First, he should touch his body, or someone else’s body, or maybe both. Heck, why not. You are not bound by the Law. Second, he should look around to see whether he is still in the world, the sinful world, full of people who may be spying on him, and will try to bring his ministry down with the law, which no longer binds you. Third, he should remember that the devil is right next to him, encouraging him to follow the law so that he will be convinced he can earn his salvation. Resist him, firm in your experience of your experience.
Note: These questions and answers are totally child’s play, for our God is a little child playing with the earth like a ball. With a giddy joy. A silly joy. A childlike joy. It’s sort of like God just wants to play Lincoln Logs with you. By the way, did you know that Lincoln Logs are the most anti-racist toys on the market? And then when you get older and graduate from Lincoln Logs to alcohol, you can take comfort in the fact that Jesus was an even worse sinner than you.
“…at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…”
— Romans 5:6
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How much do we take for granted the grace and goodness and remarkable love of God?
This question came to my mind recently, as I got ready to preach this message, when reading this line from the well-known 17th-century preacher and teacher of the scriptures, Matthew Henry:
“While the sinful state continues, God loathes the sinner, and the sinner loathes God, Zec 11:8. And that for such as these Christ should die, is a mystery; no other such an instance of love is known, so that it may well be the employment of eternity to adore and wonder at it…“
“it may well be the employment of eternity to adore and wonder at it…”
My mind went back to when I was young… wasn’t this basically the main complaint I heard about heaven at that time:
“We will just be up there praising and thanking God al the time…”
We talked about this like it would certainly be the more boring and miserable thing ever!
O, the things that should occupy our hearts and minds!
What is wrong with us?
Yes, Matthew Henry might be a bit off here: after all, what other activities will be involved in eternal life in the life to come? Will there not also be a new heavens and earth to attend to? And will we not, with our Lord, enjoy that new heavens and earth together?
Certainly.
And yet, would that not also only serve to reinforce our thanks and praise for God’s love, more specifically, for His Divine mission of love that led to the cross – and that will, in fact, make “all things new”? (Rev. 21:5)
Why do we have such difficulty imagining that we could – when we are completely made new – finally and forever be utterly captivated with wonder and adoration…
…over something like the full meaning and significance of the love of God in Jesus Christ?
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And of course, even the world betrays that they know that this love of God Jesus reveals is utterly remarkable….
As the famous 19th century Baptist preacher Alexander MacLaren, speaking about our Epistle text, put it:
“…the history of the world, [is] where we find mythologies and religions of all types and gods of every sort, but nowhere in all the pantheon a God who is Love…”
When non-Christians are asked what statement of Jesus they know about sticks out to them the most, do you know what they inevitably say?
“Love your enemies.”
Indeed, even among the world’s religious leaders, Jesus is quite unique in this regard.
Just like He has a unique Golden Rule, emphasizing its positive form – Not “don’t do unto others as you don’t want them to do to you” but “do unto others as you want them to do to you” – He stands above the crowd here.
One of Jesus’ statements that stands out to me the most, on the other hand, is when He tells people that it is when they eat His body and drink His blood that they will live forever. For:
“Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me…”
To this we perhaps recall His disciples saying “this is a hard teaching” – note that the Bible doesn’t even record them saying this after he told them to love their enemies! – and, it seems, most all of those who were following Him at the time He said this left…
To say nothing of loving His enemies, was Jesus here being loving to His confused, concerned, and even exasperated disciples?
The world might feel that he was not.
But “Yes!” Of course He was.
Love and strength…
love and truth…
love and being a rock…
…are not opposed to one another.
In fact, Goodness… God… demand that they always go hand in hand…
So, everyone left…except for the Twelve.
“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asks them…
And, as we know, Simon Peter answers Him on behalf of them all,
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
What a diamond of a confession, and a gem that God’s love in Christ made… when He told all that they had a need to feed on His body and blood.
I have always appreciated that when so many turned away from Him Jesus did not instead say something like:
“Wait!
Please come back!
Let me explain it better to you!”
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Yes, God is love, and Jesus Christ is God with skin on – that we might truly see his face!
May this ever sink in for each one of us, for again it may “well be the employment of eternity to adore and wonder at [this Mystery….]”!
Jesus Christ loves all, even all the people you find yourself unable to put up with, or perhaps worse…
And though He is the Judge of all who will indeed judge, He, like His Father – and ever so unlike all of us! – declares to us that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked!
Never.
And near the beginning of our Gospel reading for this morning, the heart of love and compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ – a love and compassion that no one could possibly question or deny! – is on full display.
Let’s take a look at it again:
“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
This is a central truth of the Bible:
Jesus loves sinners, and, undoubtedly, like the Apostle Paul, He had a particularly soft spot for His own people, the House of Israel.
Jesus desires – no, I think we can say longed – that they would hear His Word and be saved.
That they would know perpetual repentance and an ever-increasing knowledge of the truth…
That they would be with Him forever!
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It is good, right, and salutary for Christians to have this desire as well!
Deep in their hearts, Christians know that Jesus Christ has died for them, and that they are Jesus’ little lamb because He has bled for them…
And has chosen them… and has gone into the wilderness, sought them out, lifted them out of danger, and come home rejoicing at His find!
That’s you up there on His shoulders!
So Christians, knowing the meaning of the cross, desire to share this love of Jesus that they have been blessed to know with others!
They want the people in their life – starting with their family and friends and countrymen – to know the Good News about Jesus!
And not just them!
They recognize also that the love of God is so unlike our love, knowing no bounds!
Believers in Christ know it commands them to even love their enemies, and so this would ultimately mean desiring their salvation as well.
This love of God is ultimately all we have – and the only hope of the beautiful and broken world.
It is and will be the salvation of the world, the healing of the world, the transformation of the world.
In Christ, the Love of God is the beginning of the promised new creation.
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Again, Christians know all of this in their heart of hearts.
It doesn’t matter if you were one of the first Christians, who lived in Jesus’ day or you lived in the time of St. Augustine, the Middle Ages, the time of Luther, the Dawn of the Enlightenment, or today.
You know this is true. You know Jesus brings love, hope, pleasure, peace and comfort – and that all persons need this.
That said, we Christians live in an age that urges us to fulfill whatever our heart wants – and that especially wages war against the more difficult teachings of Jesus.
We live in an age where the overall atmosphere is one of technological mastery, historical ignorance, love of physical pleasure and the self, and skepticism about “that old time” religion.
This has been going on for quite a while. We pursue comfort and avoid hard things as much as possible.
So enter things like the church growth movement. Enter the megachurches of the Baby Boomers. Enter fads like WWJD, the Purpose-Drien Life, the Prayer of Jabez, the “Emergent” church, or now, churches that share feel-good messages about the fashionable causes of the day… this or that matter of what the world today calls Racial or Social Justice…
And this is all done in the name of relevance.
The idea is that we will draw people in through things that the world thinks are priorities, things that attract them, things that are popular, things that, for example, give people “a fun and safe place to hear a dangerous message”.
We will wrap the core content of the Bible, particularly the Gospel, in any “culturally-savvy tortilla” that we think will get picked up… and draw them into the Christian life in this way…
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Why do some believers in Jesus do this?
Is it really only a deep love for all people, for the lost souls who don’t know Jesus… that causes some to downplay or eliminate hitherto treasured customs and traditions in the hope of finding more attractive, useful, and effective containers for communicating the timeless and unchangeable message of Jesus?
Or are they perhaps more or less desperate efforts, largely driven by spiritual weakness and guilt?
Guilt about what? Well, not necessarily about failing to love the world effectively – that is, to love them to Jesus.
Rather, I suggest that many of these ultimately have guilt before God – even if they are not even conscious of this – regarding their failure to recognize the extent of His love:
His proven love for them, the humble yet wonderful good works He has planned for them… and how all of this would, of course, also affect their neighbor…
And so they are, at some level, not necessarily trying to earn their salvation (for many know they could never do that!) but are nevertheless trying to make it up to Him – to compensate for the fact that they feel so unaffected by this immense love in plain sight on the cross that they simply cannot deny!
– … so they are trying to make it up to Him with the kind of love they know, which is an unformed and malformed love, a “love” (I’m putting that word in quotes) that, sadly, in truth, often looks a lot more like the world’s “love” has the world’s objects of love…
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Some courageous men, in order to indeed try to reach the lost with a very direct, bold, reverent and riveting presentation of the Gospel, do things like make a movie such as the 2004 film, the Passion of the Christ.
Others, again, take a different tack, a more worldly one.
There is, for instance, a megachurch in the Twin Cities here that is quite popular.
When it comes to the questions above, I had been under the impression that the preaching there – by megachurch standards at least – is better than most.
Therefore, when I was still a theology professor, I was a bit taken aback by the impressions that one of my former students received they’re a few years ago when attending it.
Before I share what she said, I want to note that this student is Hmong in ethnicity, and her family practiced the animist religion the Hmong are known for.
Nevertheless, she was one of my better students in the class – her work was top notch and she was constantly sharing excellent insights from her readings of the biblical texts.
Here is what she said about her experience (words used with permission):
“Throughout the worship, God was referenced many times; however, the name of Jesus Christ wasn’t very much. Regardless of that, the service and the message were meaningful and full of faith and grace. As mentioned previously, though there wasn’t very much diversity in terms of different races and ethnicities, I felt very comfortable attending Eagle Brook. The volunteers and staff were nice and very friendly. My entire experience yield[ed] nothing put positive results. I don’t think I would ever convert religion or become a Christian; however, because I now have a greater knowledge of the faith, I would not mind attending worship service again at a later time. If God and the bible were taken out of the picture, it would have felt as though I was attending a life coaching event given by a great motivational speaker…”
She went on:
“….Then I got to thinking, maybe that’s what Christianity is all about. Maybe the under[lying] message is about life events and having the right coaches in place to help guide through tough and difficult times. Some of those coaches could be God and Jesus Christ.”
Now, it was bad enough that my student had gotten this impression: that Jesus could just be a good coach to help her get through tough times to reach some of her goals… And that this was what Christianity was all about!
Even worse, given the atmosphere this church was promoting, how quickly and effectively would they have been able to imitate St. Paul in what he said in the book of Ephesians?:
“Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.” (Eph. 6:19)
Would they have been able to imitate him at all?
So, again, many try to use the techniques of the world and the core of the biblical message is sidelined…
Our Lord certainly does deeply enter into our worlds that He might speak truth to us.
That does not mean, however, that what we do in His house – that house which we treasure and long for – should necessarily be modified to accommodate what others do in theirs.
Furthermore, whatever their ultimate reasons for doing so – and whatever the seeming successes of such efforts in time – they are nevertheless using a route that, at the very least, presents an easier avenue for the influence of the flesh, the world, and the devil – to enter Christ’s church…
Some may think that they are wrapping Jesus – the core content of the Christian message – in a culturally-savvy-tortilla”…
But what if they are not even doing this? What if they are in fact wrapping the trappings of the world in something that kind of looks like the Christian faith but isn’t?
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Again, The Gospel of Jesus, in all its shockingness, radicalness and “unusual-ness”, must go forth!
God has loved man! Man, unworthy of such love! Though he is God’s enemy, he is nevertheless been saved from sin, death, and the devil, through the shed blood of Christ!
All is made new!
It, in spite of being foolishness to so many, sets hearts on fire, as we recall when thinking about the men who met Jesus on the Road to Emmaus…
And yet, as Jesus showed his disciples after speaking of eternal life only being found in things like the eating and drinking of his body and blood, we must remember that this fire comes not only in good and pleasant feelings, or primarily in such things, but rather in humble strength and conviction!
The holy things come in holy containers!
The church contends for true teaching, and must insist on what the Apostle Paul called “the pattern of sound words…”
This is why, for instance, in our reading from Romans today, it gives us a message that contains bits that are not, first of all, fuzzy and happy, liable to create pleasant emotions, to say the least!
Instead, it says that we were both helpless, or powerless, and wicked, or ungodly.
Later it goes on to speak about how we were actually enemies of God!
The book of Colossians fills in some of the detail…
“This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions….” (1:21)
Matt Henry, can explaining this sermon’s text for today, crushes us again:
“Christ died for sinners; not only such as were useless, but such as were guilty and hateful; such that their everlasting destruction would be to the glory of God’s justice.Christ died to save us, not in our sins, but from our sins; and we were yet sinners when he died for us. Nay, the carnal mind is not only an enemy to God, but enmity itself, chap. 8:7; Col 1:21.”
In sum, man is, deep down, a hater of God’s Commandments.
It is this message that we need to hear first!
And, again, even as Christians, we need to understand that even as new creations, we will continue to be at war with our darker selves, our old Adams, that reject God’s will.
God’s word comes to us fast and furious and heavy when it is preached rightly.
Even if, yes, the Holy Spirit will also work with each one of us patiently, not giving us more knowledge of our faults than we can bear…
He is good to us and does not give us so much that it might destroy us if we were confronted with the full weight and horror of our evil…
After all, even though we find these hard and difficult words in our Romans reading, they are certainly not the ultimate thrust of the passage!
For, just prior to our epistle text for this morning, we read that Christ has died for our sins, and that “hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us…”
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We are new creations with hearts on fire, bold hearts that the world cannot defeat or squelch or destroy.
And so now, we can also look at the end of our Gospel reading, and can see another kind of extremely relevant Gospel proclamation:
“On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you…”
Truth is life.
Jesus’ teaching is life.
God promises to give His apostles His Spirit in such situations, and gives us comfort here as well, because He knows that His Word, boldly proclaimed, is just what this world needs… just what the doctor ordered…
And again, McLaren nails it:
“God is love. You will not permanently sustain that belief against the pressure of outward mysteries and inward sorrows, unless you grasp the other conviction that Christ died for our sins. The two are inseparable.”
So, let’s check in with the Apostle Paul and his priorities one more time…
“I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified…”, he says…
Or, “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins…”
And this one, from Colossians, ties it all together:
“Pray that I may proclaim [the Mystery of Christ] clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.” (Col. 4:5)
Proclaim the Mystery of Christ clearly, as I should…
Be wise towards outsiders… make the most of every opportunity..
Nothing could be more relevant than this!
When we look up and we see Jesus dying on the cross for us, the message is:
“Your sins are up here with me. They are all taken care of! You are forgiven! And you are mine now!”
These humble and simple words from our Lord are our – the world’s – very life!
Even if they can’t be wrapped up in an enticing and happy and delightful culturally-savvy tortilla but come from the cross…
“…But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him…”
— Acts 2:24
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When Peter preaches his Pentecost sermon to the crowds, which we continue reading today on this Trinity Sunday, why does he say that it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Jesus Christ?
Well, first of all, there is the matter that when God promised His people a Messiah in the Old Testament, He also told them that the Messiah would rise from the dead.
In his sermon, Peter quotes from Psalm 16, and he says that even though David wrote it, it is actually Jesus who is speaking, saying this:
“‘I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
you will not let your holy one see decay.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.’”
Why does Peter insist that David is actually giving voice to Jesus here in this Psalm?
It is because Jesus is the True Holy One. It is because, as Peter notes, David died and his body is still in the grave.
This simple fisherman then continues:
“David was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay.”
And Peter then tells the crowd that he and all of the disciples have seen this prophecy fulfilled:
“God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,
“‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.”’
“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”
Peter is saying this: The Lord – God the Father – said to my Lord – my Descendent according to the flesh who will be the Messiah – is going to reign over all the earth.
So this Jesus, who you knew as a man during His time on earth and who you crucified, has now been exalted by God the Father and sits at His right hand.
He too possesses all the power and authority that the Father has.
God promised all this and God makes good on His promises!
This is the first reason it was impossible for death to hold Jesus!
God promised that the Son of God was going to become a man, would defeat death, ascend into heaven, and send the Holy Spirit!
Note that Holy Spirit. This, I think, is why we read this passage on Trinity Sunday.
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Death could not hold Jesus because God promised it wouldn’t.
Still, there also is a second reason, a deeper and more profound reason for this as well – a reason which I’ll tie in with Trinity Sunday and which I’ll get to in a minute – but before we do that, let’s talk about God’s creation and the presence of death in it a bit more… what the Bible says about these things…
First of all, creation. We heard all about it all this morning, didn’t we?
And we also saw that after God created all the wonders that surround us everyday how this first week ends with the Very Good Grand Finale of creating man, male and female, in God’s image…
This is not just good, but *very* good!
Think about this!
Think about the good and rightful pride that you might feel about something that you put in the real effort to create and to do well!
And can you imagine God being absolutely thrilled with what He made?
To understand this perhaps even more, think about Adam’s reaction to Eve the first time he sees her – instead of all the animals!:
“This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh…” (Gen. 2:23).
Also very interesting here, and one of the reasons we are reading this passage on Trinity Sunday, is that even as Jesus reminds us that God is one in the Gospels, we still hear the Lord say in this reading from Genesis, “let us make mankind in our image…”
God is One indeed, and yet – Wonder of Wonders, Mystery of Mysteries! – there is an “us” in God!
This is why even though the word Trinity, or Tri-Unity, is not in the Bible, the church has still been compelled to speak of one God, one divine nature or essence, existing in three persons.
A Tri-Personal Being of sorts!
Don’t be confused! Yes 1+1+1=3, but 1x1x1=1!
And we, man, we, mankind, are created in just this mysterious image and likeness of God!
Just as the three persons of the Trinity have reason and speech, powerful speech that does things, we too have reason and powerful speech, even if we can’t create something out of nothing!
And just as the divine nature possesses marvelous creativity, human nature too possesses profound and awe-inspiring creativity!
And just as God has love (well, He is love too!) and righteousness, man too has love and righteousness!
And just as the Divine has authority or dominion over all He has made, mankind too, the namer of all the animals, is given authority or dominion!
And, members of the Body of Christ, all y’all, remember and reflect on the fact that all of this, of course, took place in a kind of loving community!
And I submit we can, like some of the early church fathers suggested, even posit that Adam and Eve shared one human nature or one humanity… just as, just as, the three persons of the Godhead share one divine nature or one divinity…
And even though man is a creature while God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal and absolutely immutable or unchangeable, Adam and Eve… being humanity… being mankind… originally would have had one shared will like the Triune God has one shared will… so a shared human will in full accordance with God’s desires, purposes, and goals!
Well! Not anymore.
All this is marred now, obstructed.
We no longer see this in the mirror, but only cracks and blurs everywhere… misshapen and twisted.
In Jesus things are different to be sure, but in us we often fail to see this image. It is distorted, perhaps beyond recognition!
While all of this, originally, was very good, we now, tragically, must speak of sin and death…
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So, second, death.
There is much that all persons worldwide can say about death, even without the Bible.
Death is common to all living things, and all of us men. One of the most famous statements of the famous, ancient, Greek philosophers goes something like this:
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
The form of this statement is called a logical syllogism, and for the most part, we recognize its truth. Some philosophers like the 18th century Scotsman David Hume got particularly hung up on realities like this, insisting that we know even before examining the evidence that resurrections from the dead are absolutely impossible.
Christians, however, know that this is what our faith is all about: comfort in the face of death and in fact the destruction of death, the death of death…
I believe one of the greatest songs of the Christian church is that 19th century British hymn, Abide with Me. What an amazing piece that conveys such powerful truth. A few verses:
Abide with me: fast falls the eventide;
the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away.
Change and decay in all around I see.
O thou who changest not, abide with me.
I fear no foe with thee at hand to bless,
ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.
Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes.
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee;
in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
“Heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee…”
What a wonderful line. And just why is this the case, that Heaven’s morning will break and earth’s vain shadows will flee?
Two important reasons come to mind.
The first is that even though God made the entire creation and called it “very good” as will inevitably follow our Old Testament reading this morning…
Man fell into sin.
It is not that they did the seemingly exceedingly little thing of taking a small bite of the forbidden fruit.
The bigger issue, of course, is that they rebelled against God, not fearing, loving, and trusting in Him. They listened to serpent, they listed to the lie. “Did God really say?” he hissed then. He hisses now.
And everything changed at that moment for our first parents. They realized they were naked, they covered themselves, blamed one another, and fled from God.
And we do the same.
And what does this all mean? Well, it is rather profound.
For even though God promised Adam and Eve that they would die on the day they ate of the forbidden fruit, they did not, in fact, physically die.
But their souls died. They died spiritually. They had been infected with the venom of Satan deep down, and that disease they have now passed on to us, like a tainted blood transfusion.
They were barred from the Tree of Life in the Garden; made to leave Paradise.
And spiritual death is what they suffered, even as God renewed them, their faith in Him, with His forgiveness and mercy – and His Most Wonderful Promise of Hope that Eve’s Seed would crush the Head of the Serpent, turning everything around.
In the meantime, we all still physically die, for the wages of sin must lead to this kind of death too.
Even we who have our sins forgiven, the guilt of our sin forgiven, we still die… because we still sinners who sin.
That temporal punishment of death pales however in light of the promised gift of eternal life given to all those who trust in the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ!
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“Earth’s vain shadows flee!”
What is the another reason why Earth’s vain shadows will flee?
Well, it is related to the other reason it was impossible for death to hold Jesus.
In the Bible, we see that there is not only a distinction between fallen man and the Holy God; there is also a distinction that does not seem to involve sin or the fall at all.
It is the distinction between the Creator and His creation.
For example, as Peter reminds us elsewhere, quoting the prophet Isaiah:
“All flesh is like grass,
and all its glory like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord stands forever.”
Elsewhere, in Psalm 103 we read:
“For He knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass—
he blooms like a flower of the field;
when the wind passes over, it vanishes,
and its place remembers it no more…”
And in Psalm 78:39, we hear that God remembers we are but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return…”
The creation is not on autonomous. It is not sovereign. It is not self-made nor self-determining. It rather, is dependent.
Like a babe at its mother’s breast.
Even if we can gather from the Bible that the Lord never intended for Adam and Eve to die because He would have sustained them, we have no impression the same would have been true for all created things, for instance, the plant life, which we again this morning heard was originally given to Adam and Eve as food…
So do you see what is essentially being said here in these biblical passages?
It is not so much that we should say that creation prior to the fall or perhaps even after the fall is deficient in any way…
Is it simply that the creation is not God. The creature is not the Creator.
Creation was made by and always depends on God, for in Him, we live and move and have our being.
In Him all things hold together.
Alternatively, God ultimately needs no one and depends on no one.
And this is the ultimate reason death could not hold Jesus, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, who as the Nicene Creed reminds us, is “Light of Light, Very God of Very God…”
It is because of the Mystery that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost exist together as One God, one God who we are told is the very definition of Selfless Self-Giving, Love.
Have you not seen? Have you not heard?
The Very Son of God became a flower, He became grass, He became a passing breeze, He became dust…
The Very Son of God became flesh. Weak flesh.
In other words, He took on a dependent nature, the nature of man.
And yet He also remained fully the Son of God.
He lost nothing of His Divine Nature, and so He remained the second Person of the Trinity… One whose Nature, along with the Father and the Spirit, was Light Itself, Life Itself, Love Itself.
Light, Life, and Love that is Eternal and never dies!
But consumes and swallows up death!
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O Triune God! (pray with me now, would you?)
How great You are and how blind our pathetic and weak hearts!
How limited are the sad horizons we set before us!
How turned in upon ourselves and this world are we!
Why is it so often only when death draws near that we can begin to see clearly what matters?
Why must we suffer?
Why must physical death be needed to rouse us from our spiritual slumbers?
Yet you have been so good to us!
You who exist in Yourself and for Yourself – for Your three Persons that is – and yet You deigned to make men and women in your image and to grant us a share in your eternal life by grace…
You are the Ultimate Very Good.
You who called this your creation “very good” are the Only One who is this in Itself.
And so, out of the mercy that flows from your Goodness, you sent your Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to be raised up for us on the cross, like the Snake on the Pole, so that we who have been bitten by the venom of Satan might simply look upon Him and be healed in faith!
And then to have the supreme confidence – certainty even! – that just as You were raised, just as David will indeed be raised, that we will be raised as well!
Amen.
As Job put it:
“I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19)
The Psalmist put it well:
“Show me, O LORD, my end and the measure of my days. Let me know how fleeting my life is!” (Psalm 39:4)
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit….”
And we, by the blood of the Lord Jesus, our Precious Lord Jesus, have been baptized into that Spirit, and born anew.
theology like a child 