B, Lent 5 - John 12:20-33 "God's Glory is the death of our Sin"

Text – John 12:20-33 NIV

20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. 23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me. 27 “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. 30 Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” 33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

Sermon

During Lent we are given an opportunity to examine ourselves and repent of our sin. We have an opportunity to stock take, expose, and chuck out everything from the most stupid to the innermost depraved sins in our lives, giving them to Jesus so he can deal with them on the cross. Temptations are avoided in Lent, serving God takes centre stage. ‘Where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me’, are Jesus’ words. In Lent we are preoccupied with serving God and separating ourselves from the influences of this world. Joyfully handing our sin over to Jesus who can destroy it once and for all.

Reflection on my life – a session in the Lenten room full of mirrors – doesn’t conjure up feelings of happiness and joy in me. When I cast my eyes over this gospel text for the first time, I feel uncomfortable. When words and phrases like ‘servant’, ‘hates his life in this world’, ‘whoever serves me must follow me’, and ‘Now is the time for judgment’ sink into my heart for the first time, a sickening pain hits me in the gut. I cry out, ‘God forgive my sin’, but at the same time I really want to enjoy the world. The hour of Christ’s glorification, makes me feel uneasy as I walk with him from the garden to Calvary and come close to the cross. The brilliance of my Lord reveals the muck and filth in my life. I see mirrored in the cross a dysfunctional and degraded life of sin and a dependence on the ways of the world.

Hearing God’s word we realise that others struggled and suffered with sin in their lives. Take King David’s appeal in Psalm 51 for instance; his plea to the Lord after he took Bathsheba; committed adultery with her; and had her husband killed in battle. He was a king enthroned by God through his prophet, and loved by God. But he carelessly misused his office, for sexual pleasure and murder of an innocent man. Hear the angst in his cry for a clean heart, ‘Against you, you only, have I sinned… Surly I was sinful from birth sinful from the time my mother conceived me… Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice… Hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquity. David’s innermost sin now exposed by his prophet Nathan. God illuminates sin, revealing evil – joy and happiness are nowhere to be found. David cries out with great suffering, ‘Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me’. David begs God – he can’t escape from his sinfulness. In his spirit he knows his willingness to sin will be too great for him to resist.

Jesus troubled in heart cries out to God too. As he draws closer to the hour of his death, he suffered bitterly. Just like sin exposed and realised in David, and in us, Jesus too is embittered by the effects of sin. Sins he didn’t commit, but took on. The hour of death was closing in on Jesus; the Son of God was left holding the bag, the bag of suffering, death, sin, and separation from God. Hear what is written in Hebrews 5, ‘During his life of earth, Jesus offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.’ Where we fail, where David struggles, Christ suffers and struggles, but he doesn’t fail. The writer of Hebrews continues, ‘Although he was a son he learned obedience from what he suffered and once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation.’ He wasn’t made perfect because he was God, the Son, but rather because he was a son of Mary, a person like you and me, who kept the law perfectly and suffered in his innocence.

Through his troubled heart, through his loud cries, through his willing obedience to carry sinful baggage, God was glorified by Christ, the new Adam, the prototype of a new person, the first person to obey the law to the full. God who bore our sin in full. In this hour sin was exposed. Yes it caused suffering, pain and turmoil, but yes it was also conquered by the one who was obedient to death. For us and all of humanity who suffer under the burden of sin, we’ve been given the opportunity to live in this world hating our sin, and at the same time living a life in eternity – a life with God sin free!

However, many people stumble at this free offer of sin removal. They reject the suffering God on the cross, looking instead for a miracle worker to give them happiness in this life. Even though they know the needs of their innermost beings, they hide their true natures, being deluded by their own visions of grandeur and self-glorification. For them suffering, struggling, and conquering sin though death doesn’t glorify anyone or anything; and even less does it show the all-powerfulness of the one true God. This seed of God planted within the midst of humanity to routing out sin, frightens those who get a glimpse of their sin. So they gouge out the seed and continue on in their ignorant lives of blissful denial and deception.

Praise God I don’t live blissfully with my sin. The Lenten stock take that shoves my conscience into turmoil, isn’t as bad as I first thought. Judgement time is a time not to be feared but one that brings peace and eternal happiness. Our sin is judged, it is condemned, and we are judged too, but our judgement is not one of condemnation, but rather one of restoration. Our sin is condemned, but we are made right before the judge.

This judge likens himself to a grain of wheat. Hear what Jesus says of himself in the text, ‘I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.’ Jesus, carrying the grain of our sin, falls to the ground – dies and is buried. In his death, our sin is dead and buried. Hear in Galatians 2:20 the words of St Paul another suffer for Christ, ‘I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Christ’s crucifixion is for your benefit and for my benefit too. We profit by God’s loving presence through his forgiveness of our sin; honoured by him before the heavenly throne; considered as his priceless holy people.

So how did we, sinners, end up with this holiness; how can stand before a holy God without receiving wrath? Well, Jesus Christ, the grain of wheat buried in death, has sprung up and is producing seeds. These fruitful seeds are seeds of faith. They are buried in us and have germinated through the Holy Spirit’s energy. As Paul says, ‘Christ lives in me.’ Now our old nature is buried under Christ’s holiness. When we stand before God, he sees the glory of Christ in us, even though the old nature struggles to take back what Christ has claimed, causing us pain and suffering in our lives.

But you know our suffering never happens alone. Christ suffered and was crucified and now he lives with us – suffering with us the turmoil and trials of what the devil tries to expose and use to condemn us. But sin and death now have no power, nor does Old Nick – he is beaten. You see the sin he throws in our faces, is the same sin Christ has destroyed in his death bringing glory to God the Father. In his hour of glory he drives Satan, the prince of this world, out. The exposure of sin within us, the suffering it causes, doesn’t nullify the new covenant made with his blood; for God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Our sin doesn’t separate us from God anymore, not like it did under the old covenant of law. No our sin now serves us as a reminder that we are inherent sinners, that sin is inborn. And our struggle and suffering with sin chases us daily to the cross and the king enthroned upon it, where our sin is exchange for a perfect record.

And the peace of God which passed all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Amen!

B, Lent 4 Midweek - 2 Cor 6:10a "Sorrowful yet always Rejoicing"

Tonight we look again at the great exchange Jesus makes with us. We look at his gift of grace to us in light of 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10; focusing this time on the phrase, sorrowful yet always rejoicing, from 2 Corinthians 6:10a. But first let’s hear a few verses prior to the phrase to place it in context.

21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 1 As God’s fellow workers we (Paul and Titus) urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. 3 We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. 4 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 8 through glory and dishonour, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9 known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. (2 Corinthians 5:21-6:1,3,4,8-10)

Paul speaks to the Corinthians commending himself and Titus as being sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. As God’s representative he is vexed, irritated, sad and distressed, so much so he is swallowed up with grief for God’s children in Corinth. This is a church embroiled in many controversies. There were factions, lawsuits amongst the members, sexual sins were rife, the sacrament and worship services had become orgies, the church was being run on rights over against servant-hood, and at the core were those who promoted themselves as super-apostles causing all this chaos and unsettling the faith of those in this infant church.

Yet at the same time Paul is always rejoicing in the knowledge that even in the midst of so much turmoil, this church was still the church of God in Corinth and its members were sanctified in Christ and were still being called to be holy. (1 Cor 1:2) Paul knew by his own conscience that he was proclaiming the Gospel and subsequently was giving them the grace of Jesus Christ.

He says, “For in him you have been enriched in every way—in all your speaking and in all your knowledge—because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.” (1 Corinthians 1:5-9)

Paul was confident, not because of the Corinthians’ piety, not because they prophesied or spoke in tongues, or did anything else, but because God is faithful. He knew that God could not disown himself, having made the Corinthians his Children in baptism when he called them into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

What Paul saw was corruption on a grand scale, but he was called by God not to take his grace in vain. He was called to see the reality of God’s Word amongst his children and call them to see the pain they were causing themselves and each other, and be led to repentance and renewed trust in the spiritual gifts they had once received and trusted. Paul endured with the Corinthians because Christ endured the cross for the sake of humanity. And as Paul brought the truth to the Corinthians he no doubt bore sorrow and pain as he confronted the ugliness of their sin.

But still Paul is confident and says, “Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have exploited no one. I do not say this to condemn you; I have said before that you have such a place in our hearts that we would live or die with you. I have great confidence in you; I take great pride in you. I am greatly encouraged; in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds.” (2 Corinthians 7:2-4)

So Saint Paul pastors this church in sorrow but with much joy. This contradiction might seem like a conflict, and it is. But this is the conflict that Christ himself experienced as he, the Son of God from eternity, was born, was baptised into sin even though he was without sin, and was crucified for our sin and died.

We might ponder his pain of having the twisted crown of thorns pressed into his skull, and we might begin to perceive the suffering he felt as his hands and feet were flogged to the cross being left hanging there to die. But we can’t even begin to understand what it must have been like to have given up his divinity in total silence and humility; to give up his right as God the Son, and hand his life over as the sin offering for humanity; to die as the suffering servant.

In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus bore all the weight of this grief and sorrow as he neared the hour of his death and our atonement. “He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,’ he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.” Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. ‘Abba, Father,’ he said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’” (Mark 14:33-36)

However, in hearing he endured much suffering, we are also told in Hebrews 12:2-4, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

So even in the midst of suffering and pain Jesus saw the joy of what was to come. He saw the joy and the victory he would win for all. This is the joy that Paul saw for the church in Corinth and it is the joy that we are given — having received faith in Christ; having received the essential spiritual gifts — even though we still suffer great sorrows at the hands of our sinfulness and other people’s sinfulness.

We will face many sorrows and sufferings on this earth in this life. But remember, Jesus entered his creation suffering at the hand of sin too. He bore the sorrow suffering and pain of sin, and allowed it to put him in the grave. And in the midst of so much heartache suffering and sorrow, he gives us the victory of his atoning death and life-giving resurrection — a cause for eternal joy. In your struggle against sin, don’t grow weary and lose heart.

Let your suffering and sorrow lead you to the cross, the source of forgiveness, the source of all true grace and joy. Let your sorrow lead you to repentance, so that you might live for ever in joy, peace, and love. Amen.

B, Lent 4 - Numbers 21:4-9 & John 3:14-16 "Lifted up like the Bronze Serpent"

In the Gospel reading today we hear, what would have to be, one of the most well known texts in the bible. In John 3:16 Jesus says: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” But what does this verse mean? The little phrase “God so loved” can be wrongly understood as; God loved the world “so much” that he gave his Son. But rather, the Greek says, “For God thusly loved the world that he gave his one and only Son”, or to read it more easily, “For God loved the world in this way, therefore he gave his one and only Son”.

So when we hear this verse, it’s not Jesus being over emotional, but when he says that God so loved the world, we are called to not use it out of the context in which it is intended. It is not a cheap soppy emotional statement of love for the world spoken in a vacuum. However, it is a statement of fact, and it is a prophecy from the lips of Jesus himself, housed in the context of the Gospel reading for today (John 3:14-21). And even more so it is grounded in the context of the whole of Scripture, and in the context of God’s plan of salvation for all of humanity, emphasized especially here in the fourth Sunday of the Lenten season.

We now have a better grip on John 3:16, understanding the little word “so” in the phrase “For God so loved the world” as actually meaning “For God loved the world in this way, that he gave his one and only Son”. But now a question beckons to be answered. In what way does God love the world?

Surely we are forced to look out of ourselves and into God’s Word for answers! If we go back a few verses to the beginning of the text for today we see that verses fourteen and fifteen parallel verse sixteen and in fact give us our context for understanding the well known verse John 3:16. We hear: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:14-16)

Jesus foretells that he must be lifted up; he must be crucified for all to see. This is in fact the very way God so loved the world, so if we trust this act of love, this act of mercy and grace, we will not perish but have eternal life. But behold! More questions beg to be asked and answered? Why don’t we have eternal life if we don’t believe in him; why do we perish? And why does Jesus have to be lifted up in the same way as was the bronze serpent by Moses in the Sinai wilderness?

Now we finally come to the Lenten context; we come to the Old Testament reading to which Jesus refers; and we come to our context and see for what reason Jesus has to be lifted up for you and me – for all people. Now we can see the Gospel text John 3:16 in all its grace and truth for you, me, your families, and our community – for the whole world. We are led to a deeper understanding and trust that the Word made flesh had to come and dwell with us and in us; that Jesus had to come and be crucified, raised from the dead, and given to us in his own special way. So he might temple in our hearts and he might carry us to eternal life.

Let’s hear the Old Testament reading for today (Numbers 21:4-7), and see the power and greatness of God’s love for us and why he had to love us in the way of lifting up his one and only Son.

The Israelites travelled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. (Numbers 21:8-9)

Before we take up this text and let it test us, first we need to see the context which leads up to the life and death events of the bronze serpent.

Last week we heard Moses hand down the Ten Commandments. The people shook with fear when Moses came down the mountain and they said, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” (Exodus 20:19-20) Moses then goes on to fill out the Law before the Israelites with its practical application. Then after he does this as God’s mouthpiece; after he read from this new Book of the Covenant, the people exclaimed, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.” (Exodus 24:7)

The Israelites knew God dwelt amongst them and he was their God. They knew he brought them out of Egypt so he could temple amongst them in the Holy of holies. Yet before long the people became sour. They rejected Moses and God and built a golden calf as a graven image of God and they worshipped it. God’s anger fell upon them and many died, but Moses pleaded on behalf of the Israelites for forgiveness.

Then they left Mount Sinai and set out towards the land God had promised to them. But it was not long before they lost faith and began to complain against God and Moses. They thought of stoning those who led them (Numbers 14:10). So God let them wander for forty years in the wilderness, letting a whole generation die rather than inhabit the land God had promised to them.

So after all God has done for them through Moses we arrive at the text for today and once again hear the Israelites have become short on patience and long on doubt and worry. Their track record shows the depths of their foolishness; it is quite obvious that even when led by God they were still bound by sin and sought to pull away. Even after they have trembled with fear and vowed to follow God; and even after God had provided water and quail in the desert they were quick to pass God off in mistrust and doubt and slow to see that God provides.

In fact the Israelites typify all people and show plainly that all of us too quickly doubt God and his word and run after other gods, quickly breaking any promise we might make to him. Those whom God sends to call us to repentance are often treated as if they are fools, and as if they haven’t a clue what they are talking about. Revealed in humanity is an unholiness that puts us in opposition to God; exposed is the sin that causes all of humanity to die.

It is understandable that God would want to get rid of the Israelites, and us, as we continually revolt against him and his means. But God doesn’t just wipe us out; nor does he pass over our rebellion easily. He sent snakes as the Israelites wander in the wilderness. Those who still ignored God suffered the inevitable consequences; they died in opposition to God – they died for their sin. It’s ironic that the very creature that led Adam and all creation into sin is used to inflict the fatal wound on the heel of those against God.

But if God would have left it at that, everyone would have died. But the purpose of being bitten and the threat of imminent death, returned the people to God. But even that didn’t save them! Their act of contrition, however, caused Moses to pray to God to show mercy on them. So through Moses, God commanded a bronze serpent to be lifted up, and all who were bitten could look and be saved. Then only those who trusted God’s word and means, given through Moses, lived.

Notice that neither Moses, God’s law giver and mediator, nor the snakes were removed; but rather God built the promise of salvation upon them. The Israelites asked Moses to pray to God to remove the snakes. However, human nature being what it is, the snakes still came and inflicted the fatal bites. God didn’t take the snakes away, but rather, had Moses lift up a replica of the very serpent that revealed their rebellion, and inflicted imminent death on them.

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up… For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:14,16)

The snakes still bite! Death is still on the horizon of every living person! Every one of us lives with a nature engrained in sin, which seeks not to trust God. But rather we take his word and his means, twisting them and ignoring his prohibitions and putting our own golden calves in place as a means of worshipping him.

But it is the cross alone which saves us. It is Jesus' spilt blood in death for our sin which saves us. The snakes don’t stop biting us because of who we are, but because of God’s love for us he gives us a way of receiving the benefits of the cross so that we might be saved. Jesus is our mediator and our saviour, he gives us his means through pastors (who stand in the mediatory tradition of both Moses and Jesus) through whom he gives salvation in Baptism, preaches his word of law and condemnation but also his saving word of grace and forgiveness, through whom he administers that forgiveness in absolution, and administers himself in the bread and wine.

The snakes of sin bite, we are called to trust his means of grace; we are called to believe that God loves us this way. We are called to trust that Jesus is with us; that he is on the altar, that the Holy Spirit is in his Word bringing us to him, so that he might cleanse us and make us holy and temple in us. Jesus like Moses points us to way of salvation; Jesus points us to himself, the Word made flesh, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins when he was lifted up on the cross. Jesus has not come to us to condemn us! He comes to save us! Yes, he reveals the truth of who we are, but he calls us to believe that he had to be lifted up and that his death gives us life.

For God loved you in this way; that he daily gives you his one and only Son, who was lifted up, and if you believe and trust his way, his means of grace, your sin will no longer make you perish but instead you will have eternal life. Amen.

B, Lent 3 Midweek - 2 Corinthians 6:9b,c "Dying, but Living; Beaten, but not Killed"

Text: 2 Corinthians 5:20-21,6:3-5, 8c-9 NIV

We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. …3 We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. 4 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 5 in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; …8c genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9 known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed.

Sermon

Tonight is the third sermon in the Lenten series written from the Ash Wednesday Epistle text: 2 Corinthians 5:20 – 6:10. Since Ash Wednesday we have examined ourselves as we walk with Jesus – these 40 days to the cross of Calvary. We have seen ourselves in Christ having been reconciled to God; we heard God plead with us through Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians – not to take God’s grace in vain. And we have heard that God does all this for the sake of his Son, who had no sin to be sin for us, and for our salvation too, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Even as we walk in remembrance to the bitterly sad circumstances of Jesus’ death on Good Friday, this walk is one of eternal joy for us too. Jesus has already walked the way of the cross, has been wrongly accused, has been deserted by the disciples, and has been put to death. However, he has been raised and has been seen by many witnesses – even by St. Paul on the road to Damascus. Now he has ascended and is glorified and sits at the right hand of the Father, but is also God with us as we walk the road to our deaths. We are treated as unknown impostors but nevertheless are known and seen as genuine, because we have been drowned and raised to eternal life through our baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Tonight we look at two phrases from the text: We are dying, and yet we live on; beaten (or punished [NRSV]), and yet not killed. Halfway through Lent we focus on the core issue for every person who will ever live on earth. And that is: We are dying and we will die. Death is not an option but a guarantee to us all; living causes death. It is fitting that in the middle of Lent we look at life and death, because at the middle of everyone’s existence is this issues. In fact this is the reason any of us come to church. If death was not an issue, if we didn’t die, none of us would be here. If sin and death were not an issue then Jesus would never have had to come and die on the cross. And now that he has died, sin and death are still an issue; however, the eternal sting has been removed for those who do not take God’s grace in vain.

There’s a huge irony in humanity where death is concerned. In fact not much needs to be said about death. Everyone at some time in there life will hear the voice within preach about death, and every one of us will squirm uncomfortably about the thought our lives here on earth will end in death. But with something so substantial, humanity is hell bent on ignoring or suppressing this reality. In the church, in these days, death too is pushed to the outer and Christians find themselves busying themselves with glory, and happiness, and what we might do for God. And all the while death is approaching; we live with the reality of suffering, troubles, hardship, distresses, and at the end of it all – death.

It’s no wonder that the bible speaks over and over again about death, and its cause - sin. So too the church, which grounded in the reality of this sinful world must address death if it is to be an effective saving mouthpiece of God. Once death is placed in front of us, all the other peripheral issues, some of which just lead us away from God, disappear into nothing, so it seems. Then the one true reality can take our attention; God the Father, Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the bestowal of faith through the Word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus sent to open our eyes to his hidden risen presence.

The church community exists so in it we might be sustained by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit between our first death in baptism and the second death. So we might come to the second death having been corrected and forgiven and pass through it into eternal glory and not into eternal pain suffering and death. We exist as a community so that others might be drawn into it too, so that they might be saved by Christ from a death that leads to eternal damnation. We exist as a community to hold each other up in prayer before God, to encourage each other not to take the grace of God in vain, so we might not lose hope and wander away in despair or proud arrogance and lose God’s gift of righteousness.

On Ash Wednesday we heard the phrase, “You are dust and to dust you shall return”. This is not a politically correct statement, because it doesn’t encourage us but appears to belittle us. However, as torturous as it seems, it is true. Similar words are spoken in the funeral rite as the coffin quietly slips into the earth, “We commit this body to the ground: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Dust we are and to dust we shall return.” The person is buried carrying all the marks of sin in this life; people die because of sin. The sinful nature causes us much suffering, struggle, distresses, hardships and then finally death. Even in the midst of life we are in death.

However, this is not the end. It is only the beginning. Even in the midst of death we are in life. Even as we and fellow Christians are lowered into the grave, we have died, and yet we live on; we are beaten, punished, and disciplined because of sin, and yet not killed. The greatest but most beautiful irony occurs in the death of a Christian; the sin that kills us in this life has no power to keep us away from God in the next. The devil, the world, and our sinful selves are foiled forever, as the grace of God given to us, in earthly and practical means, saves us. We know that as Christ was the first to rise from the dead, he will raise up our mortal bodies to be like his in glory too. When we are commended to the ground we have already been commended to the Lord; having trusted in his infinite mercy; having believed forgiveness comes to us through baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection; having heard and believed his Word to be the life giving Word of God; having believed we have eaten his body and drunk his blood when we eat the bread and drink the wine.

We are dying, but behold we live on; we are punished and disciplined, and yet not killed. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen.

Glory to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who has created, redeemed, and will eternally sanctify us, body and soul. Amen!