Reformation Day [On Pentecost and Reformation] (30-Oct-2016)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Tanunda, 8.30am, and Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church Gnadenberg, Moculta, 10.30am.

Click here for PDF version for printing.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I don’t know if you have ever taken much notice in the church of the different colours which change from week to week—the liturgical colours, we call them. We have the pastor’s stole, the pieces of cloth on the pulpit and the altar, and sometimes churches have banners on the wall which change colour depending on the season of the church year. We use the colour white at the time of Christmas and Easter, purple in Advent and Lent, and for a lot of the year we use the colour green, which pictures us as plants in the Lord’s garden, growing as we are watered by the wonderful refreshing word of God.

In most Lutheran Churches today, there are only generally two days when we use the colour red. One is the day of Pentecost, and the other is today, when we celebrate the Reformation. Red has to do with fire and the Holy Spirit.

Now all this talk about colours in the church is not all that important, but I’d like to talk in our sermon today what Pentecost and Reformation have in common. Now there are a lot of things we could say that are different about them: Pentecost is mentioned in the book of Acts, it is an event which is mentioned in the bible. It is the day when Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, and when the first Christians were baptised and believed in Jesus. The festival of the Reformation is a day which is not mentioned in the bible at all, it commemorates a day much later in church history, where a poor Catholic monk nailed his 95 theses on the door of the church of Wittenberg against the teaching of indulgences.

Do you know what happened on this day? Martin Luther was a pastor in Germany, a Catholic priest and a monk, and a teacher of theology at a university in a town called Wittenberg. At that time, in the 1500s, the pope was building a large church, the St Peter’s church in Rome. Part of the money-raising activities included selling something called an indulgence. Many Christians at that time believed that after they died they could not go to heaven straight away, but would have to spend some time to pay off their sins in purgatory, which was a halfway-place between heaven and hell. But you could make your time in purgatory a bit shorter by buying an indulgence, which was a certificate from the pope cancelled some of this time in purgatory. The church was cheating people into giving money to the church, and they were, let’s say, selling the forgiveness of sins for a price.

Martin Luther became convinced that this practice was wrong, and wrote 95 brief statements about the issue, and he nailed them to the church door in Wittenberg for public debate. Now, what does this have to do with the day of Pentecost? What do the two things have in common?

Well, let me come forward now to today. Have you ever heard the term, “the end times”? Have you ever heard anyone talk about the “end times”? Have you ever thought that maybe we are living in a time close to the end of the world? Have a think – if you look back on history and think about the last thirty years, how do you think it might compare to the next thirty years? Do the next thirty years make you worried? Look at what has happened in the world in the last year or two—we have had so many things change in the world, there is an enormous amount of suffering going on in the world that makes us all wonder where it is all going to end. Jesus says that in the last days there will be wars and rumours of wars, distress of nations, people fainting with fear…

I have heard many Christians recently say to me that they think we are living in end times. What do you think? Do you think the “end times” are now, or do you think they are still centuries away?

Well, let me tell you something – the bible talks a very different way about the “end times”, or we might say, “the last days”. Let’s go back to think about the day of Pentecost: the disciples were all gathered together and there was a great wind, and the disciples all received fire upon their heads, they spoke in different languages and tongues, and there were people from all over the place who were there who could hear the disciples speaking in their own languages. And we read: All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others mocking said, “They were filled with new wine.”

Isn’t it an amazing thing that there were all these things going on, and yet not everyone was convinced by it? Some were amazed and perplexed. Some thought they were drunk.

But then Peter, the apostle, stands up and he begins the first Christian sermon. He says: Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. The third hour is 9 o’clock in the morning. Peter refutes those who thought that they were just drunk. But then he gives an explanation about what was actually happening. He says: But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. What Peter says is that what these people could all see happening before them, where the Holy Spirit was being poured out, was the exact thing the prophet Joel had said many hundreds of years before. And the prophet Joel said: In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Did you hear that? Joel says that God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh. And Peter says, this is exactly what is happening right now, today. But… did you hear when it would happen? Joel says, and Peter quotes, that it will happen in the last days. In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.

What this means is that according to the bible, according to Jesus’ own apostles, it is already the last days, right from the day of Pentecost. Now, we might say, the last days have been going on for a long time. Well, we can leave the timing of things up to God. But according to the bible, the last times is not particularly now, it is not particularly in the future, but it has always been the last days, since Jesus himself poured out his Holy Spirit on the church. The time of the Holy Spirit is the last days of the world. It is the last days, because Jesus has died and risen again. Sin has been paid for. We are not looking forward to some later days when sin will be paid for again. All the sin of the world has been taken upon the shoulders of Jesus your Saviour, and he has already died for it. It has been done, and it is finished, as Jesus himself said on the cross. And now, we are simply looking forward to Jesus’ return at the end of the world.

The whole time there has been a church, the whole time where the Holy Spirit has been poured out on the church, is a time which the bible calls the last days, the end times.

Now, if we go now to the first letter of John, he says something very strange about the last days. In 1 John 2:18, John writes: Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist has come, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.

This is a very strange statement to our ears today. What is John talking about? He says, just like Peter said on the day of Pentecost, that it is the last hour. And he says that there is something going on in the church that proves to us that we know that it is the last hour. What is this thing? He says: As you have heard that the antichrist has come, so now many antichrists have come.

What is the antichrist? Well, the antichrist is a false Christ. It is a replacement Christ. It is a christ who is not Jesus Christ.

Let me explain. Everything good that God creates, the devil always tried to make a fake. He always tried to make a counterfeit, like a criminal who makes counterfeit money. So even the devil tries to copy God the Father.  We have our loving heavenly Father, but then Jesus calls the devil a father too, he calls him the father of lies. We have the Holy Spirit, but then the devil also has a team of spirits too, not the Holy Spirit, but evil spirits, unclean spirits, or we might say, demons.

But then the devil also tries to make a fake Christ. We have Jesus Christ, who is our wonderful Saviour from sin, who made an atonement and paid for our sin through his holy, precious blood and his perfect sacrifice on the cross. But then the devil wants to point us to another Christ, a fake Christ, a Christ who does not need to atone for you, but makes you do the atoning, a Christ who does not pay for your sin, but makes you pay, a Christ who does not shed his blood for you, and does not make a sacrifice for you, but demands all kinds of destructive sacrifices from you.

Jesus Christ is true God and he became a true man. And the devil also wants to use real people, true men, true human beings, as his agents, to do his work. Jesus Christ was anointed by the Holy Spirit at his baptism. The word “Christ” means someone who is anointed. Jesus Christ was anointed to be our high priest, our prophet and our king. And so, the devil wants to try and make a pretend Christ, an antichrist, who is not anointed by the Holy Spirit, but by an evil spirit, and is not a priest who prays for us, but is a false prophet and a false king.

But St Paul also has something to say about this antichrist, in his second letter to the Thessalonians. He calls the antichrist “the man of lawlessness”. He writes: The man of lawlessness…takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

Now, what is St Paul saying here? Today, there seem to be a lot of people talking about who they think the antichrist is. Some people said that Hitler or Stalin is the antichrist. Some people think Barak Obama is the antichrist.

But St Paul says that the man of lawlessness takes his seat in the temple of God. This means that we find the antichrist, not outside of the church, but inside the church. Yes, the antichrist can even be a leader in the church, even a pastor, even a bishop, or even a pope.

You might sometimes look at all the things that happen in the church, and you might think: I thought the church was supposed to be the place where people love each other, just as Jesus taught. Well, you’re right, but I’ve got news for you—the church is full of sinners. There’s no one else here. We are all sinners who need forgiveness and salvation. Sometimes, sin takes over the church in some way—sometimes people try to get rid of a good pastor, and throw him out. Or sometimes, there’s a terrific Christian person who makes a wonderful contribution to their congregation, and the other people, and even pastors, are jealous of them and want them out. People shake their heads and despair about that lovely little thing which we call “church politics”!

Let’s go back to Martin Luther. He lived in a time where people didn’t know what the gospel was, because the church taught something else. People were incredibly burdened, because the church taught them about God, but in such a way that they were not sure that he loved them. People knew about Jesus, but not in such a way that he knew him as their loving Saviour. People knew about heaven, but only as a faraway place which they had to climb up to, and as a place which they just had no certainty at all that they could ever achieve getting there. Nobody knew God’s grace and his forgiveness, they only knew about earning their way to heaven and doing good works. A time of great spiritual darkness had come over the church. Another spirit was at work in the church. Jesus was taken away from sinners, and he was replaced with human rules, human righteousness, human efforts.

But meanwhile, the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the day of Pentecost. And he was not finished with the church. He had raised up little people all throughout the centuries who noticed something was wrong and who said something. One of these people was an English man called John Wyclif. He was one of the first people to translate the bible into English. Also, you might have heard about a man called John Huss. He was from Bohemia, which is now where the Czech Republic is. But he was burned at the stake.

Then later there was a man in Germany called Martin Luther. And the Holy Spirit had pushed down very hard on him. Martin Luther knew the great darkness that was around him. He knew his sin well, and when he measured it against God’s righteousness and God’s commandment, and all he could see was his failure, he thought that no matter what he would do, he could only go to hell. He thought God was torturing him, that God was an angry monster.

But then, he read the bible. And what did he find there? He found the simple clear teaching that a person is not saved by their works, but by God’s grace, and this wonderful grace of God is not earned by us but it is received through faith.

Let me read to you what St Paul says in Romans: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith… He also writes: Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let me also read what it says in Ephesians: For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Now there are some amazing things that then happened in Luther’s time. Can you imagine living without the forgiveness of sins? Can you imagine it? Maybe you have had a time in your life where all you could see was your sin, and nothing else, but then you realised in a new way that you had a Saviour! Maybe you came to Jesus later in life, and you know very well what the darkness from before feels like! Maybe you have gone through a dark period of suffering, and you cried to God, wondering where he was, and what he was doing, and maybe you thought that Jesus had abandoned you!

But can you imagine the whole church everywhere having to live in nothing but that darkness! Can you imagine everyone everywhere having to live without the gospel, without hope? And then Martin Luther was able to bring it to light again. And at the same time, the pope rejected it. He wrote that Luther was a wild boar let loose in God’s vineyard. Just like the day of Pentecost, some people thought that Martin Luther was nothing but a drunken German. And in a way that still impacts our lives today, many people, instead of listening to their powerful human leaders, listened to the word of God, they listened to Scriptures, they listened to God’s voice. Instead of listening to the words of men, they listened to the words of the Holy Spirit which he inspired. What happened at that time was that the Holy Spirit showed that he still cared about the church, and that he would not keep silent, but still wanted to comfort poor sinners. The Holy Spirit wanted to make sure that Jesus’ words would ring true: You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. What a wonderful thing it is to know the truth of the Gospel, and to be set free from the condemnation of the law!

You remember we were talking about the antichrist in the church. St Paul also had a wonderful prophesy about this fake Christ, that the Lord Jesus would slay him with the breath of his mouth.

What is the breath of Jesus’ mouth? It is the wonderful preaching of the Gospel! It the powerful breath of the Holy Spirit. And wherever the word of God is preached in its truth and purity, wherever the Gospel is proclaimed, wherever the free forgiveness of sins is shouted from the rooftops, the darkness is destroyed, the devil is cast out, and all the ideas of mere men crumble to dust. This is the wonderful event that we are commemorating in the church today: when the Gospel after so many years of darkness was preached in all its clarity again. No wonder many people have thought that the Reformation was like the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit first came down!

We don’t believe a human word, but we believe in a word that comes from God. The gospel is God’s own voice from heaven which says: I have sent my Son, he paid for your sin, and now I want you to hear my voice loud and clear all throughout the church on earth: I forgive you all your sins! Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for the wonderful way in which your Holy Spirit used Martin Luther to shine the light of the Gospel in the church again. We know that today there is still much darkness in the church—there are many people who trust in their works instead of your work. There are many people, even in the church, who prefer to teach and listen to other messages. Forgive your church, dear Jesus, and we ask that you keep us fixed and firm in your truth, in your gospel, and that you would gather your harvest in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pentecost XXII (Proper 24 C) [Luke 18:1-8] (16-Oct-2016)

This sermon was preached at Calvary Lutheran Church, Glandore, 8.45am, and St Mark's Lutheran Church, Underdale, 10.30am.

Click here for PDF version for printing.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.

Prayer: Lord God, heavenly Father, send down your Holy Spirit to all of us, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.

In our reading today, Jesus gives us a wonderful parable to teach us about prayer. Prayer is a very important topic, because it is right at the heart of our life together as Christians. And yet, not one person in the church can claim to be an expert on prayer, except Jesus himself.

Isn’t it an incredible thing that we often read in the Gospels how Jesus went away by himself at various times – to do what? To pray! When Jesus was baptised, he was praying. Before he chose his twelve apostles, he spent the night in prayer. And if Jesus is the Son of God, true man and true God in one person, and he needs to pray, then how much more do you think that we need to pray too, we who are so much weaker and needier than him? If Jesus himself in his time of great need, on the night before he died in the Garden of Gethsemane, asked his disciples to keep watch with him and pray, how much more do you think when we are in a time of great suffering that we should also ask a couple of Christian friends to be with us and to pray with us?

You see, prayer is so important for us. And yet, we don’t pray as we should. And in this life, we weak sinners are never going to pray like we should. Only Jesus ever prays like he should—he is the perfect man of prayer. He is our true high priest, who is constantly praying for us night and day. He enters right into our lives, and takes notice of everything, every little burden, every big burden, and he commends it to his Father. Not only that, but he commends it to his Father with exactly the right words and in the right way. Sometimes when we pray, we might think about just how much we stammer and stumble about and make a bit of a mess of things when we pray. Never mind – Jesus knows what we need, and he covers over all our messy prayers with his blood, polishes them all up and perfects them by joining in with us and praying with us.

In fact, when Jesus is teaching us about prayer, all he doing is teaching us how to join in with him. He is simply teaching us how to stand for a while in his shoes, just as he stands in ours. Jesus enters into our life and takes an interest in us, and then by teaching us to pray, Jesus lets us enter into his own life in heaven.

And how does Jesus do this? He forgives us our sins. He covers over our failures. And if he didn’t do this, we wouldn’t be able to utter a single word of prayer at all. If Jesus didn’t forgive us our sins, then we wouldn’t be worthy to speak a single word in his presence. But in fact, Jesus has died and risen again for us, and now he comes to open our lips, and lets us join in with him in the privilege of prayer.  

So in our reading today we read: Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

There are two reasons why Jesus tells this parable: firstly, that we should always pray. And secondly, that we should not lose heart. With this little verse, we learn something about ourselves: we don’t always pray, and we often lose heart. But we learn something else about Jesus: he always prays, he continually and regularly prays, and he never loses heart.

I don’t know about you, but I often find myself losing heart about all kinds of things. Things don’t work out the way I hoped for them to work out. I think that there’s a whole lot of things going on in the world that just won’t change and that there’s nothing I can do about. What kinds of things do you lose heart about?

It’s easy to lose heart, especially when our Christian churches don’t seem to be as full as they once were. We Christians start to feel like we’re just one little grain of sand on the beach, and there’s nothing we can do to fix things. We’d like to influence things around us.

It’s precisely when we think like this, that Jesus comes along and he wants to tell us a parable so that we should pray always and not lose heart. He says to you: I haven’t lost heart, why should you? I haven’t given up, why should you?

Actually, I think the Holy Spirit lets us lose heart a little bit sometimes. This is how we learn how to pray. I’m not saying that the Holy Spirit causes us to despair, or makes us feel hopeless, but when we do lose heart as Christians, when we do feel close to giving up, it’s exactly those times when Jesus wants to give us his greatest encouragement. He wants to say to you just like he said to St Paul: My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness.

Do you hear that? God’s power is now perfect when you feel perfect, or when you feel strong, but in your weakness. And so the best prayer is simply telling Jesus all those areas in our life where we are weak, where we are helpless, where we feel like there’s nothing we can do. Jesus wants to tell him, and to tell his Father, exactly what sorts of things we lose heart over. And once we have done that, we take the burden off of our own heart and we place on his heart. When we lose heart, we can give the matter to his heart—and he never loses heart. When we want to give up, then give the matter up to him—and he never gives up. When we want to chuck in the towel, give to towel to him—and he will never take it, he will carry it, he will bear the burden of it.

We often think that prayer is some convoluted exercise where we’ve got to put on our best behaviour and put on our best speech and somehow twist God’s arm into giving us what we want. No—Jesus already knows what we need before we ask. But he wants us to tell him about it, and he wants us to invite him into our need, even though he doesn’t us to. It’s just a joy for him to be with us, so that he can share his joy with us. In prayer, we’re not really doing anything, we’re not so much doing a great work – it’s just like hanging out the washing or something. We’re just putting our laundry out in the sun, and then leaving it there. We just put our problems and our needs and our anxieties out in God’s sunshine, out in the sunshine of his face, and we then we walk away and leave them with him.

So what is this parable that Jesus tells in our reading today? What is this parable that he tells to the effect that we ought always to pray and not lose heart?

Jesus says: In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’

So let’s work through this. There is a judge and a widow. And the judge, we are told neither feared God nor respected man. What does this mean? It means that the judge had no conscience. He only really thought of himself. He didn’t seek to do things that were pleasing to God, and he didn’t seek to avoid things that would make God angry. Also, he wasn’t the kind of person who cared about people, and wanted to help people. He wasn’t charitable or friendly. He only really thought about himself.

But then there was a widow. And widows in those days were in a particular bad situation, and were really exposed to becoming quite poor. When a person’s husband or wife dies, of course, they can become quite lonely. But in those days as well, a widow would have been alone in a whole lot of other ways: she would have had no one to provide an income for her, no one to defend her interests in court, and all kinds of things like that. In some of the epistles in the New Testament, St Paul and others often mention caring for widows and orphans. Orphans were vulnerable because they had no parents looking after them, but then widows were also exposed and vulnerable too, and Christians were encouraged to make sure that they didn’t fall between the cracks and slip into poverty.

Now this widow had someone on her back. He had an adversary, she says. Someone had wronged her, and so she was in a particularly bad way. She needed the judge to put things right. She needed him to do this for her survival.

Imagine an elderly lady who had fallen victim to some kind of phone scam. Someone completely ripped her off, and it has left her in a complete mess. That would be a bit like this woman in our reading. She has been ripped off. And she goes to the judge and says: I need to you to put things right. I need my money back, and I need things fixed. Otherwise, I’m going to end up living on the street. She says: Give me justice against my adversary.

We read: For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ Do you see what the judge does? He doesn’t care much for God. He is not interested in simply doing the right thing by the 10 commandments. He doesn’t care much for people. He doesn’t want to help people out. But he does care about himself. And so he says: “Boy, I’m getting sick of this lady… Maybe I’ll just give her what she wants just to get her off my back. Maybe she’ll buzz off if I just do what she says. If I give her what she wants, then I can live in peace, and won’t have to listen to her bla-bla-bla-ing, and her naggy, naggy, whiny, whiny voice!”

Now, what does this have to do with prayer? What does this little parable teach us about how we pray to God? This is a parable that Jesus told to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. So how does this parable teach us that?

We read that Jesus says: Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.

Jesus says: That judge did what the widow wanted just to shut her up! Do you think God gets sick of listening to us? Of course not—he loves to talk to his beloved children. And if the judge gave to the widow what she needed, don’t you think God will listen to us?

Do you think God will give us what we want just to shut us up, or just to get us off his back? No—of course not—God wants us to talk to him, he wants us to be on his back continually. And if the stingy, selfish judge gave the widow what she needed, don’t you think God, who is abundantly generous and is overflowing with love for every creature that he has made, will give to you what you need?

But let’s go back to what the widow actually said. She said to the judge: Give me justice against my adversary. Who is your adversary? Who is your enemy? Who is our enemy as Christians? It’s Satan himself. He’s always trying to rip us off. He even cheated Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. Jesus says about him in John 10: The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy.

And so, Jesus shows us here that there is a particular bite to our prayers. Jesus teaches us this in the Lord’s Prayer: Deliver us from evil. Even in the Greek, this prayer can also be said: Deliver us from the evil one. Deliver us from the devil, who is always trying to mess things up. Deliver us from Satan himself. Give us justice! Repay him, we pray to God. We say to God: the devil has been donging me on the head for far too long. God, dong him on the head instead. Repay to him what he gave to me. Make him suffer what he made me suffer. Just as the widow prayed, we say: Give me justice against my adversary.

But here’s the wonderful good news… When Jesus died on the cross, and when he rose from the dead, he has already defeated the devil in advance. We know ahead of time that the devil won’t win. We know that he can’t win, because Jesus has already paid the price with his own blood and cancelled the account of our sins, so that the devil can’t accuse us. He has no right to us. He is always in the wrong. And so when we go to God in prayer, and we ask him for justice, we know that the justice has already been brought about.

We might look at our lives and think—why am I in this mess? Why am I at this crossroads? Why am I suffering like this or like that? Justice has already been settled. And the moment we cry out to God and say: How long, O Lord? is the moment our prayer is answered. Psalm 18 says: In my distress I called upon the Lord, and from his temple he heard my voice. Psalm 46 says: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. The moment our lips are opened, the moment our eyes look up, the moment a little sigh from the Holy Spirit is breathed out, the prayer is already answered. Justice is repaid upon the devil’s head. The foot of Jesus has already come down upon Satan’s head.

We sometimes think that God shines his glory when thing we ask for is granted. But God shines his glory long before that—he wants to shine his glory right in the middle of our struggle. He wants to show us not simply an end of our suffering, but he wants to show us his grace in midst of our suffering—he wants to show us his power made perfect in our weakness.

We are saved by grace through faith. This means, even when we can’t see anything going right in our life, we still have the forgiveness of sins, we still have heaven on the horizon, and we still have Jesus. And when we have Jesus we have everything.

And so Jesus says: I tell you, God will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

And so, when Jesus teaches you about prayer, he is teaching you about something that comes from faith. Without faith, there is no prayer. Without the forgiveness of sins, we can’t utter a word.

The devil wants you to lose heart…But when you do, Jesus simply wants you to tell him, and he never loses heart, he never gives up. Jesus hasn’t given up on you—he forgives all of your sins, he has baptised you and made you his child, he feeds you his own body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. Don’t lose heart! The battle has been won! Your enemy has been defeated. One little word can fell him, as Luther wrote in his hymn. God will not delay long you. I tell you, he will give you justice, and he will give it you speedily. Amen.

Lord God, heavenly Father, you know that we don’t pray to you like we should, and that we often lose heart, and we neglect and forget to pray. Send us your Holy Spirit to increase our faith, encourage us, and draw us closer to you in prayer. Let us share in the joy of your Son, knowing that he has defeated Satan once and for all, and will give us justice against our enemy. Teach us to pray, so that we don’t give up and lose heart. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Pentecost XIII (Proper 15 C) [Luke 12:49-56] (14-Aug-2016)

This sermon was preached at Calvary Lutheran Church, Glandore, 8.45am, and St Mark's Lutheran Church, Underdale, 10.30am.

Click here for PDF version for printing.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.

Prayer: Lord God, heavenly Father, send down your Holy Spirit to all of us, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus speaks to us an incredible prophecy about what is going to happen during his own life, and what is going to happen in the church. He says: I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.

This kind of talk strikes us as very strange from Jesus’ mouth, doesn’t it? What’s going on in our reading?

First, today, we are going to look at this verse: I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! What’s Jesus talking about when he says not only that he will cast fire on the earth, but he came to cast fire on the earth? He’s not just saying that he will cast fire, but that this is the purpose for which he came: he came into the world to cast fire upon it.

Now, before we try and understand what this means, let’s have a look at some other passages which tells us about why Jesus came. We read in Matthew 9:13, where Jesus says: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Jesus says here that the reason why he came was to call sinners. That’s a wonderful comfort isn’t! I’m a sinner, and so are you—so that’s great news for both of us! Another passage is Matthew 20:28, where Jesus says: The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Here again we have a wonderful comfort: Jesus came for what reason? To serve, to feed us and to look after us, and to give his life as a ransom for many! Let’s have a look at another passage in Luke 19:10. Jesus says: The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Wonderful! What a wonderful Jesus we have who is always seeking and saving his lost sheep. There’s so much hope for us. In John 10:10, Jesus says: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Again, what a wonderful passage, full of comfort. We read there that the devil is the one who steals and kills and destroys, but Jesus came to bring us life, just as he said to the thief on the cross: Today, you will be with me in Paradise. You will have life, abundantly, with me, forever!

So, it’s a bit strange when we come across the passage in today’s reading, don’t you think, where Jesus says: I came… to do what?... I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! Just before, we read how Jesus said that it is the thief who comes to steal and kill and destroy. But here, Jesus says: I came to cast fire on the earth. If he did that, wouldn’t he kill and destroy?

Yes—the thief does steal and kill and destroy. The devil is always looking to kill and destroy people—right from the time of Adam and Eve, Satan goes to Eve and convinces her to eat of the fruit… he steals their life, and leads them into sin, so that God’s judgment of death comes upon them.

But someone has to kill and destroy the devil. If we are such easy prey to the devil and his angels, surely God has someone up his sleeve that can give the devil a good dong on the head on our behalf! Yes, he does. He has a Saviour. And this Saviour crushing the devil for us was already prophesied right back in Genesis 3, where God said to the serpent: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise you head, and you shall bruise his heel. Do you see here a wonderful prophesy about Jesus, who comes to the earth and crushes Satan on his head, and puts him beneath his feet. Psalm 110 says about Jesus: The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Jesus puts Satan under his feet, and makes a footstool out of him.

And so, this is what Jesus is talking about when he says: I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled. He is saying: The devil has been the prince of this world for too long, and now I want to come and kick his backside. I wish too that I could hurry up and get the job done! I want to blast him back to hell where he belongs, pull his teeth out, and lock him up in chains. The devil has far too long bothered my people – and so I am going to stoke a fire. In fact, John says this in his first letter. He says: The reason why the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

Now, how does Jesus do it? He dies on the cross. He pays a price for your sin, he offers his life as a sacrifice, he stretches out his hands and he dies for you. He has won the forgiveness of every single one of your sins. And Jesus doesn’t just want to die for sin, but he wants to send you the Holy Spirit to forgive you your sin. He wants to burn up all the devil’s accusations, and set you on your feet and point your eyes to heaven. And so, when Jesus dies on the cross, he casts a fire on the earth—the devil no longer has any power when sinners are forgiven.

Now, we know that the devil still gives a bit of bother. But remember in John, Jesus compares him to a thief. Now, if a thief broke into your house, he would be locked up in prison. And when the thief is caught, he’s not very happy about it—sometimes you just happen to walk past his prison cell, and yells up some abuse at you. He grits his teeth, and makes some noise. All you have to do is throw some mouldy old fruit at him, or whatever you like to do. You can say: Listen to me, Satan, I’m with Jesus—all I have to do is call on him, and he will unleash his fire on you!

This passage is actually only a comfort to us if we actually believe the devil exists. Many people today don’t believe he exists—but Jesus knew full well that he does, and so should we. And so it’s a tremendous comfort for us that Jesus should unleash a terrible fire upon our old enemy, the devil. When God unleashes his fire, for the devil it is the fire of God’s anger, for you, sinners, it is the fire of God’s love.

Jesus then says in our reading: I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! First, Jesus was talking about fire; now he is talking about water. He is looking forward to a baptism. With the fire, Jesus desired strongly that he would cast it down. But now, Jesus desires not to pour the water out, but to have it poured out on him. He has a baptism to be baptised with. What’s he talking about?

There’s another passage where Jesus talks like this. In the Gospels, we read about where the mother of James and John, two of Jesus’ disciples, comes up to Jesus and asks him to have her two sons sit at his right and left in his glory. She wants Jesus to give her boys some special treatment. But Jesus asks them a question. He says: You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptised with the baptism with which I am baptised? What is Jesus talking about here? He is talking about his cross. He is talking about his suffering. Jesus was baptised by John in the Jordan, but this baptism has in it a special mission. It’s not nothing—it has a purpose. Jesus is baptised, and from then on his great desire that is that this baptism should be finished, when all of God’s anger against sin is poured out on him. And can you believe it, in our reading today, Jesus wants this baptism to happen. He wants his suffering to get under way. He says: I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!

In the Garden of Gethsemane, he had great distress as he realised that he would be brutally murdered the very next day. He even asked God the Father if it were possible for his suffering to be taken away! But Jesus says: Not my will, but your will be done. Jesus know that this suffering on the cross is going to be the best thing that has ever happened in the history of the world, because sin will be paid for and the devil crushed. And so, Jesus here is looking forward to his suffering. It will be a like an overwhelming flood. It will be like an incredible storm of rushing water. Everyone he knows will desert him, and the crowds will call out for his blood. But this suffering and this death is your life, and your salvation, and Jesus knows it, and he wants to do it for you. So he says: I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! When Jesus is baptised, all of God’s anger is poured out on him. And when you are baptised, all of God’s forgiveness, his mercy, his grace, his love is poured out on you.

So we have read about this wonderful fire that Jesus has unleashed upon the devil. We have read about this wonderful baptism with which he is baptised with. But Jesus doesn’t want these things to be stuck in a book. He wants these things to be preached, and he wants them to go into your ears, and your heart, and to create faith in you, and to produce living fruits of the Holy Spirit in your lives. And so, Jesus calls you. He calls you to be one of his disciples. He forgives you each one of your sins, and he promises you eternal life. And he wants you to make sure that you know that you are one of his, so he baptises you. And he wants you to be continually strengthened with his gospel, so he gives you his word to be heard and preached. And he wants you to be continually fed and pastured, so he even gives you his own body and blood to eat and drink in the Lord’s Supper. There are so many things that Jesus continually gives to you.

But in the next part of our reading, we read about what this is going to look like in the world. Because each person is saved individually. Each person is called to be part of the church one at a time. So what happens when a person hears the gospel and wants to become a Christian, and wants to be baptised? A person might look around at all their friends and see that they’re all still unbelievers. Their family might still be unbelievers.

Maybe you feel like this. You might be the only Christian in your family—and it really causes you a lot of pain. Maybe your husband or wife are not Christians. Maybe your parents aren’t Christians. Maybe your children or grandchildren have walked away from the faith. Maybe your children walked away from the faith, and now your grandchildren wouldn’t even know who Jesus was if they fell over him. And it causes you a lot of pain. And at the same time, you know that if you want to talk to them, there is only one topic which will cause you to fight—and that is: religion! And you’d love to share the gospel with them, but you also don’t want your family members never to talk to you again! You don’t want to lose them!

And you know—this is exactly what Jesus prophesies. When Jesus baptises you, he calls you to turn from your old way and follow his new way. He calls you out of darkness into light. He calls you to repent of your sin and receive forgiveness. He casts out from you all unclean spirits and he sends you the Holy Spirit.

But he doesn’t do this to every person at the same time, even in your own family. So Jesus says: Do you think I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

Now what’s Jesus talking about here? Well, all throughout the bible, Jesus speaks about people like houses or temples. St Paul says: Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Jesus purchased you with his blood, just like someone buys a house. And when you buy a house, what do you do? You live in it! So when Jesus buys you, he makes his home in you—and he doesn’t just live alone, but with his Father, and he fills every corner with his Holy Spirit.

Now, there are plenty of other religions that say that our bodies are temples. For example, Buddhists and Hindus say their bodies are temples. You can go to a New Age “Mind, Soul and Spirit” expo and people will tell you that your body is a temple. They say this not because they are temples of the Holy Spirit, but they are temples of unclean spirits, of demons. When a person is baptised, there is an old custom in the church to perform an exorcism and say: Depart from [this person], you unclean spirit, and make way for the Holy Spirit. Holy Baptism is an exorcism—it is the place where the old resident, the devil, is evicted out on the street, and a new resident—the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—makes their home in us. This is a real thing that happens—and so we shouldn’t be surprised if there is some friction.

Now, what happens if the old resident that is evicted is friends with everyone on the street? Well, then all of a sudden the new resident finds himself living in a very angry neighbourhood. And so, if you have the Holy Spirit, and your husband or wife or child or parents don’t, is it any surprise to you that there is friction in your family precisely over the issue that you are a believer and they are not?

And so, there is a division. Jesus does not make peace with the devil. He kicks him out on the street and burns him with fire. There is no peace to be made with him. And so Jesus says: Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.

Can you imagine if God and Satan sat down in the Garden of Eden and said, “Now, come on, let’s be friends. What can we learn from each other?” No! – there’s no tolerance by God of sin and evil. And sometimes we find ourselves stuck as Christians—living among people who are closed to the gospel and hate us for it, even within our own family. Of course, we can’t make peace with them and become like them. But we pray for them, that the Holy Spirit may bring his peace, and convert their hearts through the word. And we pray that Jesus would also perform the same eviction of the devil that he performed on us, so that Jesus can acquire a new property, and a new house, and enter into them and dwell with them. When Christians are joined together in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, then we sing together: Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace.

Our enemies are not each other. Our enemies are not our fellow human beings, and they are certainly not our fellow Christians. Sometimes a devil lays a trap even for Christians though, and then we Christians find ourselves fighting against each other, and there is a friction in our own congregations. We should pray that the Holy Spirit would reveal to us the reason for it, so that we can repent of whatever it is, receive forgiveness, and make peace with each other under Christ and his cross. St Paul says very clearly that we Christians are engaged in a spiritual war, not a physical one. He says: For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armour of God.

At the end of our reading, Jesus has something very interesting to say. He says: When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming.’ And so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearances of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

I don’t know if many of you grew up on farms. Many farmers can look up at the sky and predict the weather for the day. But even most of us know that if there are some dark clouds in the sky, it’s time to go and bring the washing in off the clothesline, it’s time to put a cover on whatever’s outside, or whatever we do.

And so, when there’s friction in the world, or even friction within families, and within households over our religion, over our faith, is it any surprise to us? If we know to bring in the clothes when it’s about the rain, why are we so surprised when we fail to recognise a spiritual storm in our own family or amongst our own friends? Jesus says: You know how to interpret the appearances of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

The things that Jesus gives are real. Holy Baptism is a real impartation of the Holy Spirit through the word of God. His body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper is true—it’s real. The word of God is true and trustworthy and real. And when it enters your heart, and when the Holy Spirit comes into your life, it’s real. So we shouldn’t be discouraged when people around us get annoyed with us, and can’t stand our religion, can’t stand Jesus, and can’t stand our faith, because they have a different spirit. We should pray that this different spirit would be cast out of them, and that the Holy Spirit would come into them!

In the meantime, let’s praise Jesus our Saviour for the wonderful way in which he has cast fire on the earth and destroyed the works of the devil! Let’s praise Jesus for being baptised on the cross with his wonderful baptism, so that all our sins can be paid for. And let’s pray for patience as the Holy Spirit leads us wherever he wants through this troubled world and finally to our heavenly home. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Funeral of Elma Mirtschin [Philippians 1:21-23] (29-July-2016)

This sermon was preached at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church U.A.C., Vectis, Victoria, 1pm.

Click here for PDF version for printing.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

Prayer: Lord God, heavenly Father, send down your Holy Spirit to all of us, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.

Today as we gather here for Elma’s funeral we have the wonderful privilege of being able to stop for a while, and to breathe in for a while some heavenly comfort, which comes straight out of heaven, and comes straight from God’s own mouth, because this is his word we have come to hear. I say it is a privilege because not every funeral has God’s word anymore, and so let us pray that it may happen in this wonderful country of ours that from now on the number of funerals that have God’s word in them may increase, and not decline. God’s word is so important, because with his word, God created the world, and with his word he raises the dead. And if that’s the kind of thing that God can do when he speaks, how much more do you think that God can comfort us with his heavenly peace with just a little drop of his word in our time of grief?

Just recently, I was talking to an old pastor on the phone when I was in a time of sadness, and the pastor told me a couple of bible verses that immediately drew me up and set me right again. He didn’t notice because we were on the phone. So he said, “Listen, I know it’s easy for me to talk…” I realise it is easy for a friend to talk, and it’s just as easy—in fact, it’s easier—for Jesus, our Good Shepherd, to comfort.

So let’s have a look at what Jesus has to say to us today. Our sermon text comes from Philippians, chapter 1, St Paul’s letter to the Philippians. St Paul was one of Jesus’ apostles, whom Jesus had called in a very special way, as he was walking to Damascus to go and kill some Christians. In fact, St Paul had killed a lot of Christians, and the first Christian to be killed for his faith was Stephen. Paul was actually there on that occasion looking on. And after Stephen had prayed for Jesus to receive his spirit, as his murderers kept hurling one stone after another at him, he also prayed for them, and said, “Lord do not hold this sin against them.” Well—Jesus answered this prayer in a marvellous way, and didn’t hold Paul’s against him, but called him, converted him, and forgave him. And then Paul went out and gave to the church of all times and places some of the richest, most powerful teaching about how we are saved by faith, and how God doesn’t hold our sins against us, just as Stephen prayed.

We should keep this in mind today as we gather here in this little church in Australia, remembering that an old Catholic priest in France was brutally put to death while saying mass. Let’s pray that these persecutors of our Christian faith may have their sins not held against them, but may be converted and forgiven and be sent out like Paul to be apostles to theirs brothers and sisters in the Islamic world.

In our reading today, Paul is writing a letter to some Christians in Philippi, a Roman city in Greece. He writes: For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

Can you believe it? that Paul is writing these words from prison. He has been the persecutor, now he is being persecuted. He is writing these words from a cold, dark cell, with his hands in chains.

He is at a tremendous crossroads in his life. Where is he to go from here? What is he to do? What could God possibly do with him now? But being at a crossroads, and being completely unable to move in life is a great place to be – it’s a glorious place to be, because it means that God is about to act. Maybe Paul is about to die, maybe he is about to be brought out of prison. Either which way – God is going to act, he will perform a wonderful rescue operation. Either he will take Paul out of prison, or he will take him out of this life. Either he will take him out of his cess-pit, his cell, or he will take him out of the whole valley of tears, this whole earthly life, altogether. Take your pick! Either which way, he will perform a miracle, he will deliver, he will rescue.

This is actually the kind of place Paul finds himself in; and Jesus actually describes this, and our whole life as Christians, which we read in John chapter 3: The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Where will God send us next in life? How long will he use us in one place, before he sends us to another? How long can we be useful in a place like Heywood, before he moves us to Hamilton, before he moves us to Ballan, before he moves us to Quantong, before he moves us to Traralgon, before he moves us to heaven?

And so, St Paul says: For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Even though I am in the darkest dungeon, even though I have no friends but a brick wall with some mould and rats – for me to live is not hell, to live is not despair, to live is not darkness. For me to live is Christ. For me to live is Jesus Christ – he has won the victory over the world and all its muck, and he sits at God’s right hand reminding us each day just how wonderful that victory is. We are reminded of Jesus as he suffered and bled on the cross. To the world, all is over – Jesus is a failure. But it’s not a failure – it is his most wonderful sacrifice for each and every single sin of the whole world, it is his greatest achievement, his victory, all of which he demonstrated with power that moment on Easter Sunday when he stood up and walked out of the tomb, risen from the dead.

So St Paul says: For me to live is Christ. Every day is a day filled with Him, and his word, and his peace, and his comfort. Every day, whether I’m on top of the world or rotting away in a prison cell, is a day with him; and if it’s a day with him, then all the darkness is nothing but light. Psalm 139 says: Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

So living is not simply duty, but it is pure joy! Paul writes: Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honoured in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

To die is gain? Really? Many people could agree that death is a release, a relief…People say, “Now she’s at peace.” “Now he’s not suffering.” People can agree that there’s something to lose when you die, but what is there actually to be gained? St Paul doesn’t say: To die is good, to die is a relief, but to die is gain.

To die is gain because to die means an end of faith. We don’t need faith once we’re dead, because we will see Christ face to face. We gain a clear vision, clear sight of our Saviour’s face. We also gain the joy of always being with him in such a way that it is never moved or shaken by doubts. We will have no need to pray for our comfort, because everything will be comfort. As it says in the prophet Isaiah: Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

Wouldn’t you want to gain the end of your warfare? Wouldn’t you want to gain the pardon of your iniquity, as the text says? Wouldn’t you want God to give you double instead of punishing your sins? St Paul is so right: to die is gain. Surely, our loss of Elma is Elma’s gain.

For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Which would you choose? Paul wrestles with this question. His life is filled with troubles. But wouldn’t you rather have Jesus and his forgiveness and all the troubles in the world, than have no Jesus, no forgiveness, no peace, no heaven, and an easy life? What does is profit a man, Jesus says, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

Paul has no guarantee that he will get out of prison in this life. But he knows he will get out – either through a miracle, where God sets him back on his path, or through death. Which would you choose?

St Paul writes: If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two.

To live, Paul says, means fruitful labour. Fruitful labour. It means working in the orchard and enjoying all the juicy peaches and oranges and grapes, and all the fruit. Christ is so faithful, he is such a wonderful friend, that Paul can talk about prison life in this way: fruitful labour. Not hard-grind, not depressing drudgery – but fruitful labour. And yet the alternative is so much better. It is one thing to lick the juice off your fingers while you traipse around picking grapes, but it is another thing to then enjoy the rich wines in all their fullness. It’s one thing to be safe in Jesus as he leads us through life – what a joy! But what a different thing it will be to see him, to behold him in all his majesty, and simply to enjoy him! Or as the hymn says:

Jesus, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast.

But sweeter far Thy face to see

And in Thy presence rest.

So St Paul tells us what this sweet, precious alternative to this life is. He says: My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

St Paul speaks of death as departing. My desire is to depart, to set sail, to head off across the wide open sea with my Saviour. My desire is to haul up the anchor, and to let the angels carry my soul to Abraham’s bosom, and to lower the anchor down again in my Saviour’s loving arms.

Hebrews says: We have [this hope] as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. It is just as when Peter and the disciples were fishing on their boat after Jesus rose from the dead. When Peter recognised his risen Saviour standing on the seashore, he threw himself in the lake and swam to meet him, without any hesitation or fear.

When we Christians depart, St Paul says that we go to be with Christ. Now ever since we were baptised with water and God’s word, we have always been with Christ. But when we die, our soul is separated from the body and is in Christ in a completely new way.

This is just as when the thief said to Jesus on the cross: Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom, and Jesus responds: Truly, truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.

We don’t just depart to be with Christ, but we depart to be with Christ in Paradise. But the story is not finished there – because Jesus has not finished with us yet. But on the last day, he will raise the dead, and reunite soul and body again; but not to a dead, decaying, rotting body, but our bodies which have been completely transformed, transfigured and glorified by the power of Jesus and his word.

St Paul tells about this wonderful mystery: Behold! I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

Then God will look at his wonderful creation, not rotten away and useless, but resurrected and glorious; He will look at everything just as he looked on his creation at the beginning of the world, before the fall, and saw that it was very good.

This is what we confess in the Apostles’ Creed: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

We die, and the Holy Spirit keeps on working. We wither and fade, and yet the Word of God endures forever. We breathe our last breath, but Jesus is faithful, and he has something much better in store.

And so we can say with St Paul: My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is much better.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.