1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
St. Matthew 24:15–28
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; He fleeth also like a shadow, and continueth not. These words from Job begin the funeral service in our church. They are words of confession, compelled from us in the face of death. No one lives forever. No one has an easy, carefree life. No one knows when this fleeting life will come to its dismal end. Job learned this well in his afflictions—afflictions at the hand of Satan, but ultimately afflictions sent by the hand of God. Job learned that the trouble of this life and its inevitable conclusion comes from God Himself. Crosses, trials, and even death come by the will of God upon sinful men, who deserve only temporal and eternal punishment.
Did you know, that today is Martin Luther’s birthday? He was born on November 10, 1483 in Eisleben, Germany. And we can be sure that Hans & Margaretta Luther of Eisleben had great joy at the birth of their son. There’s always so much hope at the beginning of a new life. But Job confesses that we are born already dying. We come forth like a flower and are cut down. The fact that even babies can, and sadly often do, die, is proof. Hans and Margaretta Luther knew this, and feared it. Even from its first moments, our life is headed toward death. And 63 years later, in that same town of Eisleben, Martin Luther died. It seems to me that God’s providence took Luther back to the place of his birth for his death. In this way, the famous teacher and reformer of the Church would not be so different from so many others. He ended where he began… like we all do.
I was brought forth in iniquity, confessed David, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Our very human nature is corrupted by sin. And Job wisely asks, Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? And he wisely answers, There is not one. Sinful flesh only begets sinful flesh. Sinful parents deserving God’s wrath can only bear sinful children deserving God’s wrath. And in each man’s life, the corruption of sin grows, infecting every thought, word, and deed, until at last, God’s scalpel finally comes to cut the infection out of this world and kill the sinner. Job wonders, So why does God care? If all we are is short-lived vanity, then why does God even bother to deal with us at all? Why does He even care enough to trouble punishing us? God deals with us in His holy Law and anger because we arrogantly resist and despise God. So, if He is a just God, He will justly punish.
There are great men like Luther or Julius Caesar or George Washington whose names are still known to us for their great achievements. But that’s not true for the majority of mankind. Most of us will be forgotten after a few generations. And even those great names might be forgotten one day (if the Lord allows the world to last long enough). The funeral service continues with this point from Psalm 39: Behold, Thou hast made my days as a handbreadth; and mine age is nothing before Thee. Verily, every man at his best state is altogether vanity (Ps. 39:5). And finally, when the end of the world comes, anything that was said or done, any work of man that does not testify of Christ and find its true glory in God, will all be burned up and thrown away forever. From the womb to the tomb we are in death. Another old prayer from the funeral service hammers this point home:
In the midst of life we are in death; from whom can we seek help?
From You alone, O Lord, who by our sins are justly angered.
Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and merciful Savior,
Deliver us not into the bitterness of eternal death.
(LSB Agenda, p.124)
From whom can we seek help? Don’t look to any man for your help. Don’t look to anything in this world for assurance that your life has meaning. Don’t look to anything from man for you to trust. They will ultimately fail.
Even Jerusalem, God’s holy city of old, was destroyed by God’s anger and punishment, just as Jesus foretold. His prophecy moved from the destruction of Jerusalem to the destruction of the world. This prophecy should reinforce for us that not only was Jerusalem destroyed, but all flesh passes away. In the destruction of Jerusalem, we should see a picture of the fleeting nature of our own lives. The judgment of that city shows the judgment that will come upon all mankind for our sin. In the destruction of Jerusalem we should see the severity of God’s judgment upon ourselves, the utter destruction that death is for us, apart from God’s mercy (Trinity 25 Collect).
This whole world is doomed to destruction because of our sin. Job even considers how the natural world shows this—the entropy of the cosmos—the gradual decline and fall of everything, from order into chaos: The mountain falls and crumbles away, and the rock is removed from its place; the waters wear away the stones; the torrents wash away the soil of the earth; so You, O God, destroy the hope of man (Job 14:18–19). Again, we might wonder with Job, so why does God bother? If we are nothing but tiny specks of dust in this crumbling universe of dust, why does God deal with us at all—in wrath or in mercy?
Because in His infinite and unaccountable grace, God loves us through His beloved Son, and He would have us live with Him. God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live (Ezk. 33:11). So, God destroys man’s hope in himself and in this world, in order to replace it with a far greater hope. As we sang in our Opening Hymn:
What is all this life possesses?
But a hand Full of sand That the heart distresses.
Noble gifts that pall me never
Christ, our Lord, Will accord To His saints forever.
(TLH 523:6)
This life really is nothing but sand, and nothing to hope in. But Christ gives gifts that create and bestow real hope that will not be disappointed. For this reason, Hans and Margaretta took their newborn son the very next day, November 11, down the street to their parish church and had Martin baptized. There was a gift that gave hope for that baby, and 63 years later hope for that dying man—hope that outlasts this short life and this decaying world—hope for the resurrection and the life of the world to come.
St. Paul speaks of this unshakeable hope for us who are dying and for those who are dead: We do not want you to be uninformed about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. With Christ, death is changed. He is the payment for sins. God’s anger and punishment that we deserve fell on Him. His death is the defeat of sin and the death of death. So, the death of a Christian is not merely the cutting down of a flower or the fleeing of a shadow. The death of a Christian is not the end of that Christian.
Death cannot destroy forever;
From our fears, Cares, and tears It will us deliver.
It will close life’s mournful story,
Make a way That we may Enter heavenly glory.
(TLH 523:5)
Death’s punishment is not removed entirely, and we do still grieve. But Christ has also transformed our death to be a doorway. Death cannot hold us in its prison, but instead it must deliver us. It must serve our Lord and so it must serve those who belong to Him. For a Christian, the Lord uses our death to bring our suffering to an end, and to begin our life with Him in peace and joy. And so, we grieve with hope.
Lord, my Shepherd, take me to Thee.
Thou art mine; I was Thine, Even ere I knew Thee.
I am Thine, for Thou hast bought me;
Lost I stood, But Thy blood Free salvation brought me.
(TLH 523:7)
And there’s more: Christ is risen. So, not only is death changed, but it is completely defeated. And one day, along with the rest of this death-filled world, death will be utterly destroyed. And all who die in Christ will rise again. Not only do we confess with Job that man’s life is short and must come to an end, but we also joyfully confess with Job: I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another (Job 19:25–27). In this way we also sang to our living Redeemer:
Thou art mine; I love and own Thee.
Light of Joy, Ne’er shall I From my heart dethrone Thee.
Savior, let me soon behold Thee
Face to face—May Thy grace Evermore enfold me!
(TLH 523:8)
Therefore, as St. Paul says, let us encourage one another with these words. In a world where our days are few and full of trouble, let us comfort one another with words of the resurrection of the dead. Because, although we lose this whole world, we are in Christ and so we have nothing to lose. Not even death gets the last word. The funeral service continues with these Scripture verses, addressing us, those still living—urging us, encouraging us to remain faithful and confident in our salvation: We must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad (2 Cor. 5:10). Therefore, beloved, let us escape the corruption that is in the world through lust (2 Pt. 1:14), and seek now, in the day of salvation, the one thing needful, which shall not be taken away from us (Lk. 10:42). Let us fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life, whereunto we are also called (1 Tim. 6:12). May we be found in constant readiness for the final summons (Mt. 24:42), ever waiting for our Lord and purifying our souls in obeying the truth through His Spirit (1 Pt. 1:22), that, through His power resting upon us, we may overcome the world (1 Jn. 5:4) and be counted worthy at last to reign with Him eternally in heaven (2 Tim. 2:12).
So let us now go back to the opening stanzas of our hymn that also encourage us to confidence in our Lord and Savior even while we now suffer and face death:
Why should cross and trial grieve me?
Christ is near With His cheer; Never will He leave me.
Who can rob me of the heaven
That God’s Son For my own To my faith hath given?
Though a heavy cross I’m bearing
And my heart Feels the smart, Shall I be despairing?
God, my Helper, who doth send it,
Well doth know All my woe And how best to end it.
God oft gives me days of gladness;
Shall I grieve if He give Seasons, too, of sadness?
God is good and tempers ever
All my ill, And He will Wholly leave me never.
Hopeful, cheerful, and undaunted
Ev’rywhere They appear Who in Christ are planted.
Death itself cannot appal them,
They rejoice When the voice Of their Lord doth call them.
(TLH 523:1–4)
So we continue, waiting and working, not in vain, but in hope for the Day when all will be made new—when the eternal heavenly Jerusalem that shall never be destroyed will come down out of heaven from God, and we will live with Him.
In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
Preached at Trinity, Clinton, IA, and Immanuel, Charlotte, IA
