Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
Text: (Revelation 14:13)
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 the labours, for their deeds follow them.”
Prayer: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
There is nothing in the whole world and throughout your whole life that you should desire more than that these words should be fulfilled in you: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.”
There should be no hindrance, no thing, no person, no philosophy, no world-view, no lifestyle, no want or lack of anything that should hold you back from desiring this one thing, that you should die in the Lord.
If we really think about it what it means that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, if we grasped just a tiny bit what this would imply for our lives, that Christ will also raise us up, then nothing will keep you back, nothing will hinder you, nothing will drag you down from attaining your desire and achieving your goal to die in the Lord and rest from your labours.
“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from the labours, for their deeds follow them.”
St Paul says: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?... No in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Today, as we come to bury Rupert, we suffer a very great temptation. And we have to beware especially today that what we speak is the truth.
There is no doubt that the man we have come to bury today, Rupert Schubert, was a very special man: and a very special man to many people, not just to his family, but to the many people he came to know throughout his long life living in this area, to his friends, and to his fellow believers in the faith, especially in the Lutheran church here in Sale, and the Lutherans churches throughout Gippsland. There is no doubt that the death of Rupert has brought about a kind of end of an era.
But the temptation for us will be for us on this day, and in remembering him, to do away with the entire Christian faith completely, and say: this man was a great man, and that is the reason why he deserves to be in heaven. This man did many good things, many good works, so God should love him because of those things.
If we say this, we have denied the faith. There are plenty of people who will say things like this, and they do nothing but lead people into a delusion. There are plenty of people who instead of letting God be their judge, would much rather be their own judge, and who would much rather be the judge of other people. These people are not Christians, and do not speak the truth.
If we carry on like this, and say that God must receive and accept those people who do good things and good works, then we end up with two different temptations. The first temptation is that we don’t take sin seriously, we don’t weigh our own actions properly, and we become our own judges, and our own gods. But the second temptation is when we are in trouble, and feel that we are in the presence of the true God, and our risen Lord Jesus Christ, when death is near and we want to die in peace, suddenly, we begin to think that there’s no hope for us because we haven’t lived the way we should have, even by our own standards, let alone by God’s standards.
Even if we make ourselves judges and little mini-gods, we still don’t judge ourselves well. We can’t live up to what we know to be right, because the true living God, when he created you, has written his law on our hearts. It’s part of being human being, it’s part of our existence, our very being, that we should know what is right and wrong (even if our minds and hearts are clouded and muddy and weak). When we learn the 10 commandments and hear the law of God, what God expects of us, then we come to a much fuller and deeper clarity of what is right and wrong, and we also come to a deeper and fuller realisation of what it means to be a sinner.
But we are not saved by works. We are not saved by how good a person we are. We are not saved because of all the good things we do, and how good a life we’ve lived. We are saved because God sent his Son into the world, to suffer and die for our sin, in our place, and to rise again from the dead so that we will rise with him too, and now he is ascended into heaven, not so that he can be stuck up in the clouds somewhere for the rest of eternity, but so that he can be in the church himself, so that he can stand in this very sanctuary among these very people, and preach the forgiveness of sins, which he has bought for you and won for you, into your own ears. Jesus comes and stands among us, praying for us, baptising us with the water and the Holy Spirit, he gives his body and blood to us in the Lord’s Supper, and he forgives us our sins through his holy and precious, gracious words.
When we die, it will be a time when the things which we believed to be true, and we believed to be present in the church, we will finally see for ourselves, and touch with our own hands.
When we are baptised, and when day after day we bring our sins to God and lay them at the feet of the cross of Jesus, we are dying every day. When then a Christian actually passes out of this life, it is not an end of them, it’s not an end of the Christian himself, or herself, it’s only an end of their labours. A Christian death does not bring an end to the person’s life, it only brings an end to their suffering, to their sin, to their temptations, to their labours.
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they will have rest from their labours.
To die in peace, and to die as a Christian, is not to look back on your life’s achievements and to tell God how great you are. To die a Christian death is to acknowledge that you are not perfect, that you have in fact lived a sinful life, and have not always done what is right, but nevertheless, thank God that he is your judge and not you. He has given you a Saviour, he has given you a Jesus, he has given you a living hope, and he promises you the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. That is the Christian faith.
This is the faith that Rupert believed and confessed, and he believed nothing more than this. There are many things which we can look to from his life and take courage for our own. And each of us who are here today will have our own memories of Rupert which encourage us and strengthen us.
That’s why the Holy Spirit in the reading today says: “Blessed are those who die in the Lord, that they may have rest from their labours, for their deeds follow them.”
Listen to those last words. “Their deeds follow them.” No – this does not mean that people are saved by works. (That’s a real problem, you know. Everytime we turn around we always want to be saved by works!)
When the text says: “Their deeds follow them”, it does not mean we can be saved by works, and the good things that we do. There’s no contribution that we can make to God that is going to measure up to his standard, and is going to impress him. We can’t walk into heaven with an ace of spades up our sleeves. The words “Their deeds follow them” means that when people have died in the faith, the things that they have done give strength to us in our lives, to us who are still struggling along with all our various problems and temptations. So let’s not forget what an example Rupert was to many of us in being a defender and keeper of the true Christian faith. And often a person’s strength in faith corresponds with the suffering that they receive. Rupert knew what is was like to live in poverty sometimes, and to be hungry sometimes – and many of us have never had to experience these sorts of things. It’s not like Rupert always had an easy life.
But the Spirit says, “their labours have ended.” Today is not a day to be sad, it is not even a day to look back at the past and remember what has been. But it is a day to acknowledge what has now taken place, and will take place.
The verse says: “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed”, says the Spirit, “that they may have rest from their labours, for their deeds follow them.”
When we come to commemorate a Christian death, and the death of a Christian, we celebrating a victory. A victory in that there is no more labour, no more sin, suffering, and temptation for the person who has died. Why should we be sad, when all the desires of the person who has died have been fulfilled? Why should we be sad, when the little boat, in which Rupert was travelling over rough seas, has finally come in to shore?
I know that Rupert had often said to me that it had always been his great desire that this little church should be filled with people. Even today that earthly desire of his is now fulfilled. Why should we be sad now that all of his heavenly desires should also be fulfilled? Why should one man’s death cause us so much sadness, if it is the source of so much joy and happiness and blessedness for him?
We should remember also that our churches are always filled with people, because we always join together in the divine service with the angels, the archangels and all the company of heaven. The people who are gathered here today in this church are only but a drop in the ocean, just a little sniffling, of the chorus of heavenly hosts who are also gathered here, and who watch with bated breath and with awe and with trembling at everything that takes place in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We should never forget that.
In the meantime, it is time for us to also prepare ourselves for a holy death. Not a death which makes ourselves the judge, but a death which is forgiven and blessed by our heavenly Father who sent to us his Son Jesus Christ, to suffer, to die and rise again from the dead for us. If we based our Christianity on what we see taking place in ourselves, we would never have any hope. We would only despair. But Christianity is not a navel-gazing religion, it only trusts with beggars hands, with open hands, with broken hearts, that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that no-one can come to the Father except through him.
So write this! Write this on your hearts, your minds, your souls: Blessed are those who die in the Lord. Blessed indeed, says the Spirit, that they may have rest from their labours, for their deeds follow them!
Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus, our risen Lord. Amen.
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