Hosea 13:14, Zechariah 2:8

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Our reading today is from Hosea the prophet, chapter 13, verse 14 And God says,

O Death, I will be your plagues!
O Grave, I will be your destruction!
Pity is hidden from My eyes.” (Hosea 13:14)

There are times when snakes will climb up into tall trees and go way up into the nest of, let’s say, an eagle or some other bird, and they might start eating the eggs or the little chicks that are in that nest. And those tiny birds are just completely powerless from such a deadly predator. And that’s really kind of symbolic of how we are that when it comes to death by ourselves, we are completely powerless to do anything about death. We can’t hold it off. We can’t keep it away from us. In fact, it frightens us to such an extent that we don’t even like to look at it or think about it. We even pay people a lot of money to take care of it for us when it happens to one of our loved ones.

And that’s why the Bible often speaks about death in Scripture as an enemy of ours. It describes it as a prison. It describes it with words like being a sting. And Martin Luther said about it, even the nature, he says, even the pig squeals at the slaughter. So there’s something inside of all of us that just recoils at the concept and the idea of death. Because we’ve been made to be alive, our bodies want to live.

There’s also a type of eagle that’s called a brown snake eagle, a brown snake eagle, and it actually likes to eat snakes as a source for food. And if a poisonous snake were to go up into the nest of this eagle and attack one of the small eagles in the nest, this mother eagle, the brown snake eagle will not only take and kill the snake, but consume it and swallow it whole. A lot of ancient writers in the church used to use that type of a bird to depict what Jesus has done. He’s gone into death itself, and he’s taken death on, going into the grave, on Good Friday we know he was laid in the grave, cold, dead, in order to go in and destroy it. By allowing himself to be taken into death he has now destroyed death and consumed it. And he’s done all of this on your behalf and my behalf. He takes absolutely no pity on death and the devil. That’s why he says here. Pity is hidden from my eyes.

But thank God he has taken pity on you and me. Because through faith in him we have this wonderful power now over death because of what our Savior has done. He wants you to be able to live forever without fear of death in your future.

Note something here that death and the grave are not merely our enemies or the enemies of Christ’s church, but they’re also the enemies of Christ Himself. And he is the Lord of all life. And he’s more powerful than anything like a fallen angel the devil could ever do. And so to those who belong to Christ, the prophet Zechariah tells us from God. Whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye. (Zechariah 2:8) Isn’t that a great line? Whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye, your gracious God says. Amen.

1 Corinthians 15:56-58

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Our devotion today is based on First Corinthians 15, beginning with verse 56.

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Corinthians 15:56-57)

Back in 1933, during construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, unemployed men would stand waiting at the foot of the bridge to see if other workers up on the bridge would end up falling to their death, hoping to take their place and take their jobs. They were 750ft high in the air, and ultimately 11 men fell to their death during that construction.

Our text talks about the sting of death. There’s kind of a double pain when it comes to death. The hurt that takes place, just like venom going into our veins, has a double impact. It’s hard to watch other people die in our families, and to see loved ones have to deal with loss. But it also points each of us to our own mortality when we watch people go through it as well. On Good Friday, the evil serpent of the devil dug his fangs into the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, who took that venom. But he has then come out alive, victorious, and he himself has now become the very antidote of death itself. That’s why Paul says he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And in a sense, Jesus has defanged your death. All this is now yours, this victory of Christ, through a little activity that God places in your heart the gift of faith to trust in Jesus as your Savior. And the mission of the church is to implant that faith in us and to cause it to grow so that we can ultimately be death defiers, just like our Lord Jesus. Because of this victory, we can now stand over the graves of our loved ones who have fallen asleep, asleep in Christ, and sing wonderful hymns of victory. I know that my Redeemer lives, and so on. I remember at my mom’s funeral, I just love singing a hymn verse that had this line in it. I’m going to quote, and every time I sing it, it makes me think of her victory as well, and her now life in heaven. This is the line: Death itself is transitory. I shall lift my head in glory.

Death is now nothing but a passing for us. When they were building the Golden Gate Bridge, they designed a safety net, finally, because so many had died that would catch the workers below. And it saved the lives of 19 men. They called themselves jokingly, the Halfway to Hell Club because they felt that they had cheated death. And the man who came up with that idea knew that it would save lives. But he also knew that it would give greater confidence to those who were doing the work. The resurrection of Jesus Christ not only spares us from our future death and giving us life. In that way, it’s the ultimate safety net, but it also gives us tremendous confidence to carry out the work and things that we do on behalf of God’s church.

And that’s why Paul concludes this section with these words, knowing that we have the resurrection, our own Easter coming.

Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

May God grant all of us a blessed celebration of our Lord’s Easter and our own future easters. Amen.

John 19:30, Luke 23:46, Isaiah 53:6

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Our devotion today is on the last words of Jesus when he says “it is finished,” (John 19:30) and then also when he says, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” (Luke 23:46) So this is the last words of a man being executed. Sometimes the last words of people on death row or who are executed aren’t so great. Marie Antoinette is said to have stepped on the executioner’s foot right before they were going to take her head off, and her last words were, “excuse me, monsieur, I beg your pardon.”

There was a murderer a number of years ago here in the United States who was going to die by lethal injection. And his last words were simply complaining about the food he had for his final meal. But when it comes to Jesus’ last words before he’s executed, they’re not trivial and they’re not irrelevant or ironic or anything, but they actually are serving us, not himself, but us. When he says “it is finished” and “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

There’s a strange irony here that God, God himself, must die for us. Back in the 1980s, some doctors looked at what you might call kind of an autopsy of someone who was crucified and trying to figure out what would happen to the human body. And everything we see in the gospel accounts matches that perfectly. And it’s interesting that here’s the very one who determined the grain on the cross in which he’s dying. Who created the metallic makeup of the stakes that are now stinging through his wrists, that determined the geography of the hill of Golgotha. And here he is now, hanging as a despised criminal. And why did it have to take this very real execution? Well, the reason is my sins and your sins are very real. They’re not phantoms. Our offenses against God have really happened in real time, and they’re very significant. And they must be taken seriously by the court of heaven.

Our culture likes to have us think of sin as something that’s not that big of a deal. And sometimes, because we’re in a world where there are so many large amounts of sin going on, maybe we can falsely think we can hide inside of all of that. Kind of like someone at a vicious protest that is looting buildings and burning them down. If they’re in a large crowd, they might feel like they’re not as guilty. And yet each individual involved certainly is. There’s a verse in a hymn that says it so beautifully

you who think of sin but lightly. Nor suppose the evil great here may view its nature rightly. Here its guilt may estimate. Mark the sacrifice appointed. See who bears the awful load. Tis the word. The Lord’s anointed son of man and Son of God.

So in Christ and in his final words, we see how seriously God has taken our sin that God Himself must die for us.

Somebody once wrote that God unzipped the heavens of his wrath and poured it out against our sin. And we think of that passage in Isaiah.

The Lord laid on him, [on Jesus] the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

And his work is now all done taking care of this for us. He says, it is finished. And that word means that nothing more can be added, just like a cup of water. If you put one more drop in, it would go over the side. Nothing else needs to be added for the payment for you and me to get to go to heaven. So as we hear those words of Jesus every Lenten season, let’s be reminded of how seriously God has taken our sin, but also how extremely valuable you are and your future eternal life is to God. Amen.

Isaiah 42:3

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Our Bible passage today comes from the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 42, and we read there in verse three.

A bruised reed, he shall not break. And a smoldering wick he shall not snuff out. (Isaiah 42:3)

Many years ago there was a lady in my congregation who was working at a pro-life booth where they would try to talk to people, it was at a big event. And a woman came up to her and admitted to her that she had an abortion. And now she felt so guilty about it. She had actually been involved in a life of prostitution, and she just felt that God could never, ever take her back. This woman from my congregation had a wonderful opportunity to witness to her and to talk to her.

Sometimes it’s very easy for our faith to be bruised or possibly even be extinguished. Isaiah is using kind of interesting pictures about spiritual life inside of us, a bruised reed and a smoldering wick. Sometimes because of the weakness of our faith and the lack of spiritual life inside of us, the lack of sanctification, that we can sometimes feel so crushed and so bruised. And it’s at those moments when we’re aware of our sin that we kind of conclude, I do not belong in God’s house. That woman, when she talked to the lady from our church, expressed to her that she couldn’t come back to church because she just felt that her life had been so bad and so awful. And so the woman from our congregation tried hard to encourage her to come back.

This text that I just read to you from Isaiah allows us to sort of peer into the heart of God based upon the work of Christ, his Messiah, the Chosen One, our Lord Jesus, and his mission to come into the world to save people. And I’ve always loved this passage. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. Think about how delicately Jesus dealt with the sheep that he ran into, some of whom were really crushed by their sin. The woman that was caught in adultery, the thief on the cross. The woman who came crying at Jesus feet and so appreciative of his grace.

The faith that’s been placed in your heart as a Christian is God’s creation. It’s his work, and the Holy Spirit will not work against himself when it comes to that faith. He does not want to destroy even the little embers of faith that might still be burning in your heart. And so God is always going to deal very tenderly with that faith.

I brought along a little illustration that my dad taught me when I was in about sixth grade, and I always liked this illustration. He said he took out a dollar bill one day and he said, how many pennies worth am I holding? And I said, a hundred. So that would be about a hundred pennies. How many pennies worth am I holding? About a hundred. Then he took it like this. He said, now how many pennies worth am I holding? I said, a hundred, and then he held it, just barely by the corner, and he said, now how many pennies worth am I holding? I said, a hundred. He said, right, no matter how I’m holding it, it still has the same value. And he said, think about your hand sort of like faith that God puts in your heart. Sometimes our faith is good and strong, and we’re holding on to Christ, sometimes really firmly. And other times maybe our faith is really very, very weak and we seem to barely have it in our hearts. And yet the value of what it’s holding on to, and that represents Christ and having all of our sins paid for and the hope of heaven, that value doesn’t change.

Now, my dad said, at the same time, you don’t want to walk around with a dollar bill holding it like this because you could lose it. The wind could blow it away, or someone could take it from you. It’s much better to have a firm grip on it. And the same is true, he said. With our faith, we should want to have our faith strong and firm, because there’s less chance of it then being taken away from us or losing it. And so God is always encouraging us to strengthen our faith in Christ through His Word and Sacraments. But at the same time, even a little bruised reed or a smoldering wick that is just hanging on to that wonderful hope of Christ still possesses the full amount of our salvation in heaven. Amen.

2 Corinthians 5:19, Romans 5:1

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Our devotion today is based upon Second Corinthians chapter five, verses 19 and 20. Saint Paul writes,

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:19)

When I was a teenager, my mother invited a distant relative to come to our house for dinner one day, and this was a woman that we hadn’t seen for quite a while. And the reason was she had gone through a kind of a difficult divorce. Someone we were related to, she had been married to this man and their marriage had now fallen apart.

The woman imagined in her mind that we were all angry with her and saw her as the reason for the divorce, which really was not the case. The problem was really someone in our family, and we had always sort of sided with her, if you will. We certainly felt no anger against her and we felt sorry for her. But because of all of this, she had pretty much stayed away from our family for many years.

Well, my mother happened to run into her shopping a couple of days earlier and invited her to dinner. And as we sat down to eat dinner this woman stood up even before we started to eat, and she started to tear up and she said, “I have to make an announcement to all of you. I want to let you know that I tried so hard to keep my marriage together, and I really did care, and I really did try hard. I am so sorry. I know you’re all angry with me.” And my mom immediately jumped up and ran to her side and hugged her and said, “no, that’s not the case at all. We’re not angry with you at all. We love you. We care about you. And we knew that you weren’t the one at fault in all of this.”

And she was so shocked and so surprised. In her mind, she imagined that we thought of her almost like an enemy. And that was not the case. And it was a beautiful moment of what Paul is talking about with the word reconciliation. Reconciliation means to put two things back together or two groups that appear to be fighting back together and to make everything peaceful once again.

Now a lot of people go through life feeling and imagining that God is their enemy. They think of God as someone who’s angry with them, and certainly he’s a God of justice. And they think of God as someone who is so holy and above them and powerful, and that he would want nothing to do with them because of their wickedness and their sin. And so it’s easy for all of us to sometimes feel this kind of animosity between us and God, as if he’s waiting to condemn us and to judge us. We think about Judas after he sold Jesus for those 30 pieces of silver. He mistakenly believed that Jesus could never forgive him and that he just needed to get himself away from Christ and from God Himself, and to go and commit suicide.

But through the work of Jesus Himself, the very Son of God, God has already reconciled us to himself by Jesus work for us on the cross. It’s an accomplished fact. It’s based upon something that’s already done in history. It’s not as though there’s something that has to change in you or about you, or something you have to do to somehow alter or change the heart of God toward you. God has already taken it upon himself to do it on your behalf. Saint Paul says in the book of Romans earlier,

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:1)

It’s an already established thing, and that’s really what the entire work of God’s church is all about. The very things that God tells us to do in our congregations baptism, the Lord’s Supper, preaching His Word. It’s all about reconciling the sinner back to himself. The entire ministry is based upon this concept.

So I’d like to extend an invitation to you if you happen to be living your life sort of in fear of God. Maybe there’s something you did years ago or something that’s really bothering your conscience. I would encourage you to go and meet with a Lutheran pastor, and to learn more and more about how this holy God has reconciled himself with you and learned then how to live in that wonderful peace of God’s grace and forgiveness. Amen.

2 Peter 1:19

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Our devotion today is based upon Second Peter chapter one, and then verse 19. And earlier in this chapter, Peter has been talking about the great event of Jesus transfiguration, that he saw Jesus glowing like the sun on the top of a mountain and showing his glory. And he heard the voice of God the Father speaking from heaven. So then Peter says this

We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19)

Years ago, I was watching a TV show called Undercover Boss. Maybe you’ve seen that, where someone who is the head of a large corporation will disguise himself or herself and go into a business that they own and put themselves in as just kind of an average worker, to see what it’s like working in the very businesses that they’re running. And later on, the people that they’re working with suddenly discover that this was the head of the corporation, and they’re rather shocked.

I always think with Jesus when he was with his disciples, it probably was easy for them to forget that he really was the Son of God and all of His Majesty, because he walked around in sandals and he ate soup like they did, and probably washed his hand in the streams. And just all the common, normal things that a person would do. Probably got a cold now and then and blew his nose. It might have been easy to forget what the Bible says about Jesus. Saint Paul tells us in Christ all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form. (Colossians 2:9) That’s amazing! That all of God has chosen to put himself into the form of this humble man from the town of Nazareth.

Now Peter had finally gotten a chance to witness some of the glory of Christ in his transfiguration. And we can’t blame Peter for wanting to write about that, as he does earlier in this chapter, and to describe what an amazing event this must have been to hear God the Father calling down from heaven, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And it was such a terrifying event and sight that we’re told the disciples bowed down with their faces to the ground. (Matthew 17:5-6) But we wouldn’t have blamed Peter if he wanted to write a book about it, or lead tours from people back to the mountain to show the very place of all of this. If there was ever proof that Jesus really was the Son of God, witnessing Him in His glory there in the Mount of Transfiguration, that certainly would have done it for Peter.

How amazing it would have been to have gotten to see Jesus like that, glowing in the brightness of lightning we’re told. We always want something to be sure of. We want to base our hopes, especially things that we’re going to believe in as far as after this life, we want to base our hopes on something that’s real and true. And so there’s a craving inside of each one of us to have or to see something spectacular from God that really proves to us who he is. But when it comes to our faith, faith does not come by observation, and it is not to be found upon empirical evidence. Now, there’s plenty of true empirical evidence. All of the events in Jesus life truly happen. They are factual and true and part of human history. But God tells us that he builds our faith upon something even more certain and more solid than that. And that is his word.

That’s where Saint Peter directs us. Rather than going on gushing about being able to see this tremendous event of Jesus transfiguration, what does he do? He tells his hearers, you have the prophetic word made more certain. In other words, the Word of God that you have from the prophets and the apostles. That Word of God is even more true and certain than if you were present on the Mount of Transfiguration to watch this event. And so with the same sense of urgency with which we might run to see a glorified vision of Jesus himself, God would have us instead run to His Word.

So why does he direct us back to His Word? Because that’s where we will find our certainty of what Jesus, our Savior, has done for us and the hope of heaven he has given us. That’s why our Lord himself said, if you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. (John 8:30-32) Amen.

Romans 5:20

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Our devotion today comes from Romans chapter five, verse 20. Saint Paul says

Where sin increased, grace increased all the more. (Romans 5:20)

I’d like you to use your imagination today. Imagine that there’s a mom who comes home from work one day, and she finds that all of her clothing are just thrown out in the front yard. As she goes into the house, she discovers that her 14-year-old son, who has kind of fallen under the friendship of some kind of a rough crowd. Her 14-year-old son, for no reason at all against her, has just decided to ransack the house and trash the place, and she finds stuff all over the place. Everything is ripped apart. She sees their family photos stuck in the garbage. There are things written on the walls. The refrigerator is emptied, things have been smeared on the walls and in her bedroom, right on her mirror, there’s a note that says mom on it from her son, and it basically says, I am leaving you. I’m sick of you. I don’t want anything to do with you. Goodbye. She sits down and just begins to cry. As you could imagine, her heart is full of just such sadness. Here’s this child that she brought into this world she’s been taking care of and done such a wonderful job with, and yet now he has fallen under this terrible influence and is showing such hatred and animosity toward her and just decides to desert her and run away.

She has every right to be angry, but the most powerful emotion that she feels is actually love. Her love for her son intensifies at this moment, and so she goes out looking for him and trying to find him. And finally, when she comes upon him and finds him, she comes up to him and just expresses to him her great love and concern. Her number one goal is to win him back into her love, so that he’ll come back home with her.

Think of that illustration is kind of the way we can sometimes be toward God, the very God who brought us into this world. In fact, the Bible tells us he knit us together in our mother’s womb, decided exactly who we would be the very God that gives us life, because of the sinful influence of the devil and his temptations, we have been turned into enemies of God. And just by our various actions and things that we’ve done. We have pushed God away from ourselves and on our own the Bible says we have just deserted God and wanted to run away from him.

He has every right to be angry with us. He has every right to land on us with his justice and his judgment. But instead, God chooses to come to us and to love us. He chooses to embrace us and try to find us with his love. That’s the strongest, most powerful emotion in God toward you and me is his love. That’s what caused him to send His Son into the world to be our Savior. And through the work of that Son, when he went to the cross, and also by the work of His Holy Spirit, God now comes to us and speaks so tenderly to us, trying to win us over back into his good graces through his love.

What a powerful God we have that even though our sin in our lives continues to increase against him, Saint Paul says that God’s grace abounds. It increases even beyond our sinfulness. What a wonderful, gracious God we have. May we always stay in his care by faith in his Son, our Savior. Amen.

Mark 10:42-45

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Back in the late 1980s, there was a little girl who was kidnaped down in Florida. She was the granddaughter of an oil executive. The family was told to come up with millions of dollars as a ransom in order to buy her back. The family put the money together, and about the time they were going to bring it to these kidnapers, luckily, the police got in the way and found out what had happened.

How valuable do you think you would be if you were ever kidnaped? What kind of money might loved ones or someone have to come up with in order to bring you back? A bigger question, though, is how valuable are you to God? Listen to what Jesus says about himself, calling himself the Son of Man.

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But that is not the way it is to be among you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45)

Now the Bible teaches us that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We’ve been, if you will, kidnaped away by the devil and to his kingdom of darkness. But Jesus has now come the Son of Man, in order to give his life as a ransom to buy us back into God’s grace. And he did this not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. And Jesus is wanting us to reflect on just how valuable we are in the eyes of God. That he would give up his own Son and have him suffer our hell for us so that we could someday come to heaven. That’s how intensely God wants you to be in heaven, and how valuable he sees you to be.

Now, he also wants Christians to look that same way toward people in their lives. How valuable are you now to the people in your life? Listen to what Jesus says. “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.” Jesus instructs us to think differently than how the world does about greatness. The world defines greatness by what you get out of it. Heaven defines greatness by what you give. The world defines greatness by how far you are able to rise up above others, and heaven defines it by how willing you are to stoop low to help others. The world defines greatness as kind of a race to the top, but heaven defines greatness as a willingness to serve those, even in the lowest parts on the bottom.

God would have us seek out the different aspects in our lives, different duties and parts of our vocation where we can serve our fellow man, whether it’s at work, in your community, in your home life, in your marriage. And rather than letting our motivation be money or power or fame, look instead to how we can serve other people. I want to close with a quotation from Martin Luther. He said, “don’t consider other people like geese in your life,” In other words, lower and below you, “the better and the higher and the more honorable the station of life is which a man occupies, the more diligently should he see to it that he may advise, assist, and encourage others.”

Now we can do this knowing the great value that we have in God’s eyes because of what Christ has done for us. So may God stir up our hearts and faith to also show the great value of Christ to others by how we treat them. Amen.

Matthew 10:32-33, Acts 4:12

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Our devotion for today comes from Matthew chapter ten. Jesus says,

Everyone who confesses me before others, I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before others, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 10:32-33)

Back in 1989, there was a large uprising of college students in China, and one of the most famous incidents from that uprising was known as Tiananmen Square. In a particular square one individual went and stood out in front of a row of tanks that were coming in from the government to put down this uprising, and managed to stop all of these tanks by just being this one man standing in front of all these tanks. It was probably the most iconic image from that uprising.

Sometimes that happens in history, where one individual has to take a stand. Martin Luther in 1521, there was a defining moment for the reformation of the church, and he kind of stood before the whole world in front of the emperor, confessing his faith, knowing that he could be put to death for doing so. And in the Bible, we often see examples of this of one individual alone, standing and confessing their faith in front of the world. The prophet Elijah in front of the prophets of Baal. Daniel before King Nebuchadnezzar. John the Baptist standing before King Herod.

So the true faith in Jesus as our Savior requires confession. And it also creates that confession, that willingness to state our faith inside of our hearts. And to believe something means that you also will confess it, that you will state it as your truth. There are no neutral grounds. Jesus is showing that here. It’s either confession or denial and confessing Jesus as our Savior is a natural byproduct of having faith in him and all he’s done for us. So when we believe something that means that we can make assertions about it, something that we know then to be true.

Christians delight in God’s truth. We love to hear it. We love to see it preached. We love to see others come to that truth. We love to see it taught and defended. And Christianity is really not a religion for cowards, because confessing Jesus as our Savior and standing up for his Word, standing under Christ’s cross can often be very difficult because there’s no neutral ground. It means admitting about yourself that you have no way of getting to heaven by how good you are, and that God had to do it entirely for you through Christ, and only in him do you have peace with God.

That’s why Peter boldly confessed this

“There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

Jesus disciples before his resurrection were kind of cowering in fear, but once he was raised from the dead, they went out all over the world boldly confessing him, sometimes facing difficulties and even death in order to let people know of this wonderful truth.

True Christian confession always has Judgment Day in mind, and Jesus is here reminding us of the blessings of that confession. It’s almost as if Jesus is saying, do not let fear overpower you, since those who might oppose you are only human beings, and the most they can do is kill you when you stand and confess me in my word, but you know that you stand with one who holds the keys to death and hell, and the keys to the entrance of everlasting life. May God keep us firm in that confession. Amen.

Matthew 9:18,23-26, Mark 5:41

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Our devotion today comes from Matthew chapter nine. Jesus has a man named Jairus, a ruler who approaches him and says to him,

“My daughter has just died. But come, place your hand on her, and she will live.” (Matthew 9:18 EHV)

And then later it says,

When Jesus came into the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, he said to them, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but is sleeping.” But they laughed at him. When the crowd was sent out of the house, Jesus went in, took the girl by the hand, and she was raised. News of this went out through the entire region. (Matthew 9:23-26 EHV)

I remember years ago when I was a young pastor, an elderly man came to me to talk to me about something and began telling me about his son, a little boy, who had drowned on his property back when the boy was probably about seven years old. This older man just suddenly began to cry. It showed how the death of a child can really stay with somebody. It hits you differently than like, a grandparent or an adult. It’s one of the pains that we can feel in the sadness of this fallen world. And pastors will tell you that trying to help people through the loss of a child can be one of the most agonizing, difficult things.

And there are certain times in life when the troubles and pain of this world can really land on one individual. And this Jairus coming to Jesus is one who’s experiencing that. But he’s also going to the right place. He’s bringing his petition, his prayer to Jesus. And we’re told in the rest of the Bible that he came and worshiped Jesus and made this request known to him.

And so Jesus now goes to this man’s house, and he passes through this crowd of professional mourners, people that would actually be paid to come and express the sadness in your house. And one of the translations says that Jesus said to them, make room. Kind of like, get out of the way because I need to go to this girl’s side. It’s almost like a rescue of a paramedic. And when a child has been drowning and has to tell everybody going through the crowd to get out of their way so they can go and rescue the child.

And this wonderful declaration, and God’s analysis of this girl’s situation. Listen, Jesus says she is not dead, but sleeping. That’s a great way for the Christian to look at death. She is not dead, but sleeping. Now, of course, the crowd reacted like, well, that’s ridiculous. And they even laughed at him and they mocked him for this. But notice how different our human minds are when they look at things compared to the power of God, who controls all things and has his hand over all the laws of nature.

And the Bible records many of these resurrections to give us comfort with our own future death and the resurrection that we can have by faith in Christ. Jesus, because of his power and because of his invitation for us to believe in him, he invites you and me now to stare at your future death, just like a nap or like a sleep that you will awake from. And to look at it with defiance. Martin Luther once said that if the devil comes to make you afraid of being in your grave, say to him, I have Christ, Satan, even if you should explode on me with all of hell.

And I want you to notice one last thing. Notice what Jesus uses to bring this little girl back to life. The gospel of Mark tells us he spoke two little words. “Talitha, koum!” (Mark 5:41) “Little one, get up” is how it’s translated. “Little one, get up.” God opens these graves and raises these people, as we see in the Bible, as kind of a little foretaste for us of the coming resurrection that we will get to enjoy.

And that’s why Easter and the resurrection has been such a wonderful, important part of Christians in their lives. In fact, that’s why they pick Sunday mornings as the day to worship, because that was the day our Lord was raised as well. Amen.

Our reading today is from First Corinthians chapter 15 and then verse 54. And Saint Paul speaking about our bodies, says,

So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. (1 Corinthians 15:54)

There is a church body in this world that has more members than any other church body, and its message is heard all around the world in more ears than any other world religion combined. It has churches everywhere in the world, in the cemeteries and cremation incinerators in county morgues. Its pulpits can be found in hospitals, in coffins, in hearses. It’s sacraments are not water, but formaldehyde, not bread and wine, but cotton and embalming fluids. And its primary theologians are doctors and morticians. It is the death church, and it has one central teaching to proclaim.

You shall surely die.

And everybody has been indoctrinated into the theology of this death church. We listen to its preachers constantly. We read its theology in the obituaries every week, and every time we hear about somebody, a friend of ours who has passed away, we hear that message. And you are born into this faith of the Death Church on your very first birthday, which ironically, we consider a celebration of life.

Sometimes people, as they age, do not like to celebrate their birthdays so much. Why is that? Well, it’s because we know we’re getting closer to the end of our life. And as you celebrate each birthday, you’re actually counting down the years of your life. In a way, our birthdays are like an odometer clicking away toward each of our death days. I remember when I was a little child, the first time I was playing in a ravine, and I ran into the body of a dead raccoon, and I could not believe how horrible and rancid the smell was, and just how awful death seemed, just looking at that dead animal.

And the Bible says that that’s what’s in all of us as members of this death church. But God, the Holy Spirit has come along and he has preached a different message into our hearts. And he has converted us and taken us out of the Death Church into the Life Church. And it’s all been done on account of the work of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, and by the power of his resurrection, those who cling to him by faith and believe in him, and trust that he’s forgiven them all of their sins by his death, they now have the promise that their own death has been swallowed up in his victory. In fact, the Greek word here that Paul uses is devoured. That death has been devoured in the victory of Christ.

People have used the illustration that sometimes a mother bird will try to get a poisonous worm away from her little baby chicks by eating that worm and consuming it. And that’s quite a picture of what our Lord Jesus has done for us. He has taken this vicious thing of death that wants to kill us. This poisonous thing of death. And he himself has consumed it and completely annihilated it, so that you and I don’t have to worry about it. And he says to us,

Because I live, you shall live also. (John 14:19)

You and I have been blessed to be part of the Life Church because of the work of God in our hearts, and may we all look forward to that day when we enter heaven as our eternal birthday. Amen.

1 Corinthians 15:20-23

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Our reading today is from First Corinthians chapter 15, beginning with verse 20.

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.

Years ago, when I was in seminary, we had a professor that came from Western Michigan University, and he made a very bold statement to start out his talk. He said, if you are a true student of history, apart from the Bible, even if you’re an atheist or a muslim, a Hindu, you must acknowledge that there was a man named Jesus of Nazareth, that he was a child of Joseph and Mary, that he was reported to have performed miracles, by his disciples that followed him, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and three days later his grave was empty. He said, you have to at least admit that much from history.

Now, historical facts in this case actually means something for us here in the present. The Bible teaches us in this passage I just read shows us that death is in our family tree. In Genesis, God tells us that Adam had children and then he died, and then his children had children, and then he died, and then he died. It’s kind of a drumbeat of death that comes all the way down to us. And that’s part of our spiritual DNA. We’re in that family tree. It’s been passed down to all of us as children of Adam.

And so all of the evil and death that we see out there in the world is really part of our family. It’s part of our family tree. And so the same is true with our bodies. Our bodies, just like a tree that is dead inside but looks good on the outside. Our bodies may look alive and feel alive in some ways, and yet all of us are carrying this death with us because we’re in that family tree of Adam. But Paul is telling us that God has planted a second tree. That is the living tree of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. And in the same way that Adam was real, so is this Christ. And God has worked out our salvation and has defeated death for us through the work of His Son.

And when you and I are brought to faith in him, we are in a sense, conceived into him, grafted into this living tree of Christ. And that’s why Jesus had to be conceived by the Holy Spirit so that he would be from a different family tree, if you will, then that family of death that we came from. But when God, the Holy Spirit, also works faith in our hearts to believe in Christ, we are now taken, by God and grafted into that wonderful tree of life. And by that he joins us to this whole new family tree.

And the Bible tells us that Christ is the first fruits, and we are now the fruits that will follow on that tree. Just like when someone owns an orchard and they can see that the tree is ready to produce fruits by the first apple. That’s like Christ’s resurrection and we are the ones that will follow. So he says, In Christ all shall be made alive.

What a wonderful thing it is that whenever we celebrate Jesus resurrection, we are also celebrating our own future resurrections. And what a wonderful day that will be to see him face to face in glory. Amen.