And I heard a voice from heaven
saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.”
“Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for
their deeds follow them!” (Revelation 14:13)
There are nine beatitudes
(blesseds) in the Sermon on the Mount that you heard in this morning’s Gospel
reading. And there are similarly nine beatitudes in the Revelation, of which
the ones I just read are numbers 3 and 4. I think it’s to point out the
contrast between the blessings of living under the cross as the church
militant, now on earth, and the blessings of resurrected life at the foot of
the Lamb of God in the church triumphant in heaven.
We’re used to hearing the blessed
of the beatitudes so, what is surprising to us, is who are called “blessed” –
the dead. “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth.” There is a
similar passage in the psalms. Psalm 116:15 – “Precious in the sight of the
LORD is the death of his saints.” Precious and blessed is how the death of
God’s holy ones, his justified ones, looks in the eyes of God. Precious and
blessed. This correspond to the spiritually poor, mourning, meek, hungering and
thirsting of righteousness, merciful, pure hearted peacemaking, persecuted
disciples. These are dead to the world and dead to themselves. In the
Revelation, the blessed are the literally dead as a doornail dead. And that
might take us by surprise.
We know from the Scriptures
(Romans 8) that death is the just wages for sin. Death is what our sins
deserve. Death is the outcome of sin. “On the day you eat of it, you will
surely die.” From that perspective, death is anything but blessed.
I think it’s safe to say that
none of us, at least at the gut reaction level, would think of death as anything
precious and blessed. We live in the midst of a death-denying culture that
spends billions of dollars creating the illusion of youth and defying the
process of aging which is really the slow, steady drumbeat of dying. Halloween is about as close to death as we’d
like to get. When we lived in Crosby, some folks down the street turned their
front lawns into macabre cemetery scenes with coffins and skeletons and
tombstones. It’s really kind of bizarre, but understandable. Pretend death is
so much easier to deal with than the real thing. We all know that those
skeletons are really made of plastic, the coffins are empty, and the headstones
are made of styrofoam. It’s pretend, play-death.
But then when we are confronted
with death - real, flesh and blood death in its face-to-face reality - we try
to ignore it. When we can’t ignore it, we try to control it. Or, at least, try
to make death play on our terms, as if we are the home team, its homecoming
weekend, and death – the opponent – is supposed to play by our house rules.
In 2014, America was taken with
the story of Brittany Maynard. Brittany was a 29 year old woman who was
diagnosed with a particularly nasty form of brain cancer called glioblastoma. In
an interview published October 6, 2014 in People magazine, Brittany said,
“"My glioblastoma is going to kill me, and that's out of my control."
Brittany and her family moved from California to Oregon, where the state allows
terminally ill citizens to have access to – quote – “Death with Dignity.” I am
oversimplifying for the sake of brevity, but the law allows this to happen: a
medical doctor prescribes a drug and a dosage that will kill the patient. The
patient fills the prescription and then, at the time of his or her choosing,
the pill is taken and the patient dies. Ethicists, physicians and citizens are
arguing over what this is to be called. The technical term for this is
euthanasia – a compound Greek word that means “good death.” The more accurate,
common-language term is physician assisted suicide. A doctor helps a person
take his or her life. As a theologian, I’ll tell you what the Biblical name for
this is: self-murder. Actually, that’s only part of it. It’s playing God. Proponents for this argue this is a choice
about “quality of life,” but in reality, it’s about power and control. Literally,
it is playing God. Brittany said, "Being able to choose to go with dignity
is less terrifying [than waiting]."
Brittany is right: death is out
of our control. As Christians, we know death is not given to us to control it.
Death is a consequence, the last great enemy against which we fight; the last
enemy to be defeated. You don’t hear that kind of language coming out of the
media. Death, however, is under the control of God. King David knew that – “The
Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” he said. “Blessed be the name of the
Lord.”
You hear a lot of the romantic
foolishness of dying with dignity. Switzerland is now actively marketing itself
as a suicide tourism destination. They talk about this being your best life now,
or not suffering any more than necessary. Ironically, they even talk about
value of life. You will never hear what we confess in the Creed: we believe in
the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. In that order. And we
believe that for the simple fact that Jesus died and rose bodily from the dead,
demonstrating decisively that death has no hold on Him and that His death on a
cross conquered death once and for all.
Christians have a blessed
monopoly on the whole business of death and resurrection because Jesus Christ
is the only One to have died and risen from the dead. Jesus died on a cross and
three days later appeared risen from the dead. That’s why we believe in the
“resurrection of the body,” because Jesus rose bodily from HIs grave and
promised to raise us up from ours on the Last Day when it all comes to its
completion.
It’s because of the death and
resurrection of Jesus that we can use words like “precious” and “blessed” in
reference to our own death and the death of all baptized believers. Blessed are
those who die in the Lord. Not just any death, but “in the Lord.” Those who are
united in baptismal faith with Jesus’ death; who have been buried with Him. Blessed
are you, dear baptized believer, trusting the promise of life in Jesus’ name.
Your death is precious and blessed to God. Not because of you, but because of
Jesus. And not because of your works. The works of the saints follow them in
death; they don’t precede them. That’s what it means to be justified by grace
through faith. Your works follow behind you, but you don’t lead with them.
Nothing you do can make your death precious and blessed.
Brittany Maynard garnered the
headlines with her story. There is another woman named Maggie Karner who has
the exact same illness and diagnosis as Brittany. Maggie is a little bit older,
in her early 50s, but also a wife and mother. She’s been part of our LCMS Life
Ministries team in St. Louis. When she found out about Brittany’s plans, Maggie
wrote her own article at www.thefederalist.com,
about what she was facing and what her plans were. The title of her article
pretty spells it out: “Brain Cancer Will Likely Kill Me, But There’s No Way
I’ll Kill Myself.” She wrote:
Death sucks. And while this leads
many to attempt to calm their fears by grasping for personal control over the
situation, as a Christian with a Savior who loves me dearly and who has
redeemed me from a dying world, I have a higher calling. God wants me to be
comfortable in my dependence on Him and others, to live with Him in peace and
comfort no matter what comes my way. As for my cancer journey, circumstances
out of my control are not the worst thing that can happen to me. The worst
thing would be losing faith, refusing to trust in God’s purpose in my life and
trying to grab that control myself.
And I also want them to know
that, for Christians, our death is not the end. Because our Savior, Jesus
Christ, selflessly endured an ugly death on the cross and was laid in a
borrowed tomb (no “death with dignity” there), He truly understands our sorrows
and feelings of helplessness. I want my kids to know that Christ’s resurrection
from that borrowed grave confirms that death could not hold Him, and it cannot
hold me either—a baptized child of God!
Maggie’s got it right: Blessed
are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. In these last days, in the wake
of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Christ has made the wages of sin a place of
blessing for all who trust Him. The Lord’s beatitudes are fulfilled in them.
Their poverty of spirit has been answered by the riches of the kingdom of
heaven. Their mourning has turned to rejoicing in the comfort of Christ. Their
meekness has been vindicated. The world walked all over them, but now the earth
is their inheritance. Their hunger and thirst for righteousness has been
satisfied; they are justified, declared righteous in Jesus’ righteousness.
Their mercy has returned to them with dividends – they too receive mercy. With
hearts purified by the blood of the Lamb, they now see God face to face. As
makers of peace they now share a name with the Prince of Peace – sons of God.
The wounds of their persecution, inflicted for righteousness’ sake, have been
healed. The kingdom of God belongs to them.
Our value, our worth, our lives,
our deaths – everything we are – is grounded in Christ. And, in reality, we
already died. You see that at the font, every time a person is made child of
God through water and Word: they die, in Christ, and they are raised in
Christ.
So what’s it going to be like in
heaven? And what’s it like for those who are already there? The most faithful
answer is “blessed.” The Bible calls the dead in Christ “asleep in the Lord.”
That’s a nice peaceful picture. They are asleep, they rest from their labors.
Now “asleep” does not necessarily mean asleep as we think it – being snoring, inactive
and unaware spirits. It’s only like sleep in that the passage of time ceases because
the evenings and mornings of this creation have no relevance in the eternal. We
do have this much: a new heaven and a new earth thanks to Jesus who makes all
things new. That sounds much better than sitting on clouds strumming harps. A
whole creation brought through death into resurrection where death and decay is
no more, where the entropy of our sin is vanished. Isaiah pictures a lavish
feast on God’s holy mountain, a feast of fatted meats and fine wines.
The one thing that’s certain
about eternal life is that worship is the main activity. Actually, it appears
to be the only activity, as all of life has now become worship. High liturgy to
the Father through the Son in the Spirit. John caught a fleeting glimpse of the
heavenly congregation. This is the side of worship we don’t see, but we confess
by faith that we are joined by the angels, archangels, and all the company of
heaven. This is the heavenward side of worship that John saw and reports to us.
This a white-robed congregation.
They are all covered with Christ, wearing their baptisms like a spotless robe.
The blood of Jesus, the Lamb, has washed away all their sins. Not a spot of sin
remains. Their time of tribulation is over. Listen again (for hearing is all we
get right now), listen to how it is with them and how it will be for us:
Therefore (because they
are washed in the blood of the Lamb),
they are before the throne of
God, and serve Him day and night in His temple (they are eternal priests to
God in Christ’s royal priesthood. That’s your eternal vocation – priest to
God).
And He who sits on the throne
will shelter them with His presence. (They live under the umbrella of His
grace).
They shall hunger no more,
neither thirst anymore. (They hunger and thirst for righteousness has been
satisfied.)
The sun shall not strike them
nor any scorching heat (the days of the wilderness are over; they have come
into the promised land of life).
For the Lamb in the midst of
the throne will be their shepherd (the Good Shepherd who laid down his life
for the sheep).
And He will guide them to
springs of living water (He will refresh them with His Spirit as He
refreshed them in their Baptism).
And God will wipe away every
tear from their eyes. (Those tears you shed are not in vain and not
unnoticed; the hand of God will carry them away forever)
Blessed are the dead who die in
the Lord. Blessed indeed, thanks to Jesus.
In the name of Jesus,
Amen
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