Pentecost XV (Proper 17 B) [Mark 7:1-23] (2-Sep-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

In our Gospel reading today, we read particularly about a discussion that Jesus has with the Pharisees. In fact, he accuses the Pharisees right at the centre of the reading with the words, and says: Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

So why does Jesus say this to them? We read in our reading: Now when the Pharisees gathered to [Jesus], with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. Now, it’s not an unusual thing for people to wash their hands before they eat – we might even think that this is a sensible thing. We might say that it is hygienic. Some countries around the world are particularly fussy about this, especially if they are people who don’t normally eat with cutlery, like knives and forks or chopsticks, and have to eat with their hands. But you see, the Pharisees did not say that the disciples simply had unwashed hands, but that their hands were “defiled”. They were saying that washing your hands made your hands holy for the meal, and not washing your hands made your hands “unholy”. Do you see? This was not simply a matter of hygiene, but it was a matter of holiness. This hand-washing was a special ritual that they would perform before the meal.

In the Old Testament, there was no law that people had to do this. But when the priests entered the temple, there were various instructions to them about washing. For example, in the book of Leviticus, we read about how before Moses consecrated Aaron and his sons to be priests, they had to be washed. They also had to wash their clothes and bathe their bodies in water before performing sacrifices and various things. So the Pharisees wanted to apply these kinds of things to everyday life. So it became their tradition that they should perform a special ceremony or ritual of washing their hands before they would eat. It’s not a bad thing necessarily, but they saw it as a matter of holiness. They thought that washing your hands made you holy, and that not washing your hands made you unholy. This is not taught in God’s law, and so they were inventing laws about holiness that were not from God.

We read: The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.

So when they ask Jesus why his disciples did not hold to these traditions, Jesus says: Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

This is a very important passage, and there are many things here for us to learn from that apply to us today. First of all, Jesus calls them hypocrites. We often think of a hypocrite as someone who doesn’t practice what they preach. They say one thing, but do something else. But it’s probably best to see this word as being like an “actor”. A hypocrite is someone who wears a mask—they put on a good front, but behind the mask there’s nothing there. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus describes this a bit further. He says: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

When we watch the TV or movie, and see an actor playing a part, we can almost start to imagine that the actor is actually the person they are playing. But they are not. So also, people might act holy and righteous, but that doesn’t make them holy and righteous. What makes a person holy and righteous is not how they act in public and what kind of a front they put on, but God’s word.

One thing that can be a real cancer in the church is when people are always worried about what the church looks like, whether we’re talking about the church building, or the people themselves. Sometimes we think of the church like a business, and we think of things in terms of marketing, and say: “We have to do things like this, or like that, otherwise what will people think?” Sometimes if we don’t know some hymn or some song, we might need to practice it before church. But some people might say, “We can’t do that. What will visitors think if we’re all messing around, looking like we don’t know our stuff?” It’s OK – sometimes we need to do things like this. We don’t know everything, and sometimes we need to learn things, and that’s OK. It doesn’t matter what they think.

Now, at the same time, it’s a good thing that things in the church are well-ordered, well-structured, that the church building is clean and well cared for. This is all good. But the most important thing about the church and its people, is not how things look like, but how things really are. Do you understand that? The most important thing is not how thing look, but how they really are.

And so Jesus in calling the Pharisees hypocrites is saying to them that they think they look holy and righteous, but in actual fact, they are not. How they appear is not the same as how they really are. So Jesus says: This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They look like their honouring good, from the outside, but inside, they are not honouring God at all.

What Jesus says here we should also direct to ourselves. Do we simply care about what people think of us from looking at the outside, or do we care about what God thinks about us?  Are we just trying to put on a show, or do we really desire to hear God’s word and to receive his forgiveness? When we come to church, do we just go through the motions, and then think we’ve done our bit for the week? Or do we really take notice of what we’re saying, and take everything very seriously? Do we just honour God with our lips, but meanwhile our hearts are a million miles away?

We are all hypocrites, but Jesus is no hypocrite. With Jesus, things are exactly as they are in reality. He is a real Saviour, who died on a real cross, and really rose from the grave. And so he doesn’t offer pretend forgiveness to pretend sinners, he gives real forgiveness to real sinners. And so we might look at the church, and find it full of sinners. But we have a pure word from God, that speaks the wonderful forgiveness of sins over us, so that things are not simply how they look, but they are how God sees them and how he himself says that they are. He looks at his church, and he doesn’t simply see a bunch of sinners, but he sees the blood of his own Son covering over all that sin, and he speaks to us from heaven that that blood applies to us and that he has forgiven us personally. This is the real thing in the church—we learn this from God’s word, not from simply how things look.

Now, this also brings us to another thing, which is tradition. The Pharisees had many traditions. Now tradition is an important thing, and many times it is a good thing. We have many traditions not just in the church, but in our everyday life and in our homes. For example, when it is someone’s birthday, we often have very strict traditions about how things are done. We make or buy a cake, and put candles on it, and then we all sing “happy birthday”. Even the song from a musical point of view isn’t the best song ever, but it’s tradition, and nobody can change it without messing a whole lot things up. But then there are local traditions: different families have their own versions of things. Some people clap their hands for the number of years, or they have an extra song, like “Why was she born so beautiful”, or “For he’s a jolly good fellow”, or something like that. Now, when we have a birthday, we all know what’s going on, and we can all join in.

In the church, we also have various traditions too, and many of these things are good things, and give good order to things so that everyone knows what to do and how things are going to happen, and we can all join in.

There are some traditions that God actually commanded us to do, for example. Take preaching or the Lord’s Supper. Jesus actually commanded pastors to preach. Also, with the Lord’s Supper, he said: Do this in remembrance of me. It’s something that we do every week, and it’s a tradition, we might say. Our forefathers did it, and we now pass it on to our children. But it comes from Jesus himself.

There are all kinds of things that we do in the church, which are not specifically commanded by Jesus too, that we do simply because they are good things. For example, the Creeds are not specifically written in the bible, but they are good, because they summarise the bible. There is no specific example of a baby being baptised in the bible, but we baptise babies because Jesus told us to baptise all nations, and the promise is for our children, so we baptise them. I could go on and on.

The problem is when we put human traditions, things that were not specifically commanded by God, and we turn them into laws, that if we do them it makes us holy or righteous or saved, and if we don’t do them we are not holy or righteous or even saved. This then becomes idolatry, because we can take God’s law and replace it with human rules. We are in danger of replacing even God with ourselves.

And so Jesus gives an example in our reading of how the Pharisees were taking God’s law, and replacing it with their own laws. He says: In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

Now this is one of the reasons why it is so important for us Christians to hear God’s law in the church. Now, there are two things in the bible—two doctrines or teachings which summarise everything. We have God’s law, which shows us our sin, and finds sinners and exposes them. And we have the Gospel, which shows to sinners their Saviour, and makes them new. The Gospel is the wonderful message of the free forgiveness of our sin, because of what Jesus has done for us in his death and resurrection, and we receive this gift without any contribution from ourselves, or because of anything that we have done.

But it’s also important for us to learn God’s law, for a number of reasons, even though the law doesn’t actually save us. First of all, the law of God provides good order to the world. It is good and it is holy. But secondly, we need to hear God’s law, because it shows us our need for Jesus. The law condemns us, and accuses us, and so we need to hear it, so that we despair of ourselves completely and look to Jesus alone to save us. But then, as Christians, we are also called to do good works, not in order to be saved by them, but out of thankfulness to what God has done for us. In Ephesians, St Paul writes: For you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Now, we know, for example, that Jesus often teaches his disciples that they should love other people, that they should do unto others as you would have them do unto you. However, what sometimes happens is that when people want us to do something that is wrong or bad or evil, they actually dress it up and make it look like something good when in actual fact it’s not. The devil is a wolf, but he is always putting on sheep’s clothing. So he often makes something evil look like it’s a good thing by making it a beautiful tradition, or something like that. He knows that something is bad, but he calls it love. Now I’ll give a very concrete example of this: take the issue of euthanasia, which is being promoted in our country at the moment. The whole push to bring in euthanasia is basically the politics of making something evil into something good. 20 years ago, there was an Australian doctor who was suggesting all kinds of terrible ways in which euthanasia could take place, and people called him “Dr Death”. But now, people call it “dying with dignity”, or showing love to someone by putting them out of their misery. The issue is much more complex than that, but what you end up with is vulnerable people who have no family simply being killed off, because they have no one to protect them. Instead of having doctors as people who try to bring healing and treatment to people illnesses, we turn them into agents of death. God actually does say in his law: You shall not murder. Now there are all kinds of issues where something is really not right, but people put nice clothes on it and try to make it into something good when it’s not. Anyway, I could make all kinds of other examples like this. What I’m trying to say here is that it’s important for us to learn what God’s law actually is, not because it saves us, but because Jesus has commanded us to do works of love, and it’s important to know what love really is in God’s eyes. We have to learn not just to love, but what love really is. There are many people in our towns and have so little love shown to them—and yet, sometimes when you try to love them, they don’t want it. They think you are showing them hate, or judging them. It can be very confusing for us to really know what we should do for people, and what we shouldn’t do for them. God is the one who teaches these things, not people. Now when we preach the law like this, we’re exposing something and bringing it into the light. Often this means that people will accuse us of being hateful, or bigots, or unloving, when it isn’t true. If we only learn what love is from the people around us, then we end up replacing God’s law with human commandments, as Jesus says: In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

In the last part of our reading, Jesus says: Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. Then he says: For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

We come back now to the Pharisees, and their rules about washing their hands. But Jesus also teaches them that it is not external things, like eating food, that make a person unclean or unholy. Food simply passes through out stomachs and out the other end. Now, we might choose to eat certain food, we might like to eat healthy food, or we might have a particular diet. Some Christians even choose to be vegetarians. And this is not a bad thing, but it can become a bad thing when they look down on other Christians or other people, because they are not doing the same thing that they are doing. Sometimes all kinds of people can be incredibly legalistic when it comes to eating food. What we eat or drink doesn’t make us unholy, but our uncleanness is already inside of us. It is already contained in our sinful hearts. Jesus gives a long list of various sins there. He says: For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things comes from within, and they defile a person.

And so what makes us clean? Nothing that comes from inside of us. Nothing that comes from any our actions, or any of our own works. In fact, nothing that we even can possibly think of, not a single one of our bright ideas, can save us. Only the ideas and thoughts and words that come from the mouth of God can do that. Only the pure forgiveness of sins can do that. Our ideas about washing hands can’t do a thing—but God’s wonderful idea of connecting his pure word to water and washing us in holy baptism is powerful to save us. Our ideas about eating and drinking can’t do a thing—but God’s wonderful idea of giving us the body and blood of his own Son for us to eat and drink for the forgiveness of our sins is a powerful thing to encourage us in our Christian life, and to give us the strength for the road ahead. Genesis 6:5 teaches that every intention of the thoughts of [our] heart [is] only evil continually. But in Proverbs 30, we read: Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

All of our thoughts condemn us, and all our ideas and plans are useless. But God’s word endures forever, and his word has all the power to save us. Amen.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and for making things clear for us. Our minds are often so unclear, and we start to make things up, and we try to save ourselves. But even though you know our hearts, you have still sent your Son to die for us, and you still forgiveness, and so we thank you, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for All Saints (5-Nov-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

May you be strengthened with his power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

When you hear the word “saint”, what do you normally think of? I think most people probably think of particularly significant Christian people who lived a wonderful life on this earth, who have now died.

Now the word “saint” actually means a “holy person”. When we talk about saints, it can mean two different things: it can mean those Christian people who have now died, but it can also mean Christian people who are still living, and who are wrestling in this life, and struggling with their sin and their problems. The first kind of saint—a saint who has left this earthly life—is a person who is now free of sin, but the second kind of saint—a Christian person who is still alive—is a person who is still wrestling with their sin. The second kind of saint is also a sinner at the same time as being a saint, whereas the first kind is not a sinner anymore because they have been set free from sin having passed through death. But we’ll come back to this in a minute.

Let’s talk about the communion of saints. In the Apostle’s Creed, we say that we believe in the “communion of saints”. And this is actually another name for the church itself. Now how does a person become a saint, and become part of this communion of saints? Well—Jesus sends out his workers with his Holy Spirit to gather a church to Himself, using the word of God, and the Sacraments: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. So Jesus himself actually calls us to be part of his kingdom, to be part of his fellowship, to be part of his communion, through his living word, which is spoken on earth. That’s what the church is here for: to make sure that God’s word is spoken here on earth, so that sinners may come to Jesus and be made part of his kingdom. Sinners—like you and me—enter into the kingdom of Jesus by being baptised, by being born again by water and the Spirit, or as St Paul says, being washed with water and the word. Holy Baptism is that wonderful event where Jesus gathers us to himself and brings us into his kingdom, and gives us his Holy Spirit. And Jesus doesn’t just set us out on the road to heaven, but he also feeds us along the way, and gives us his body and blood to eat and drink in the Lord’s Supper. And so, Jesus continually gathers us together and strengthens us on the road.

Now, the word of God, and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, are not given to the church on earth as some kind of magic charm. Jesus doesn’t want us to look at his word and at baptism or at the Lord’s Supper as if we’re some cow in a paddock, starting at a new blade of grass in the field. No—the word of God—which is also the thing that empowers baptism and the Lord’s Supper—calls us to faith. The reason why God speaks his word, and baptises us and gives us the Lord’s Supper, is so that we believe in it! In fact, through God’s word, the Holy Spirit creates faith in our hearts. God gives us his word of law—to call us to repent, and to change our lives, and live differently. This word shows us that we are sinners. But then he also gives us sinners his word of Gospel—which points us to Christ, and what he has done for us in his death and resurrection from the dead. And it is the Gospel that makes us saints, that makes us holy people—not because we are already perfect or because we had made such an good effort, but because of Christ and his holiness. Christ then takes his righteousness and his holiness and he completely covers over all of our sin with it. Our whole lives as Christians is then learning to recognise our sin, to put it behind us, and to receive the forgiveness of sins. A Christian person, or a holy person, or a saint, is not someone who has achieved perfection in this life, because that is impossible. The only person who has lived a completely sinless life is Jesus. But when we trust in Jesus, and his sinlessness, and his holiness, then God takes your account and adds all of your sin to Jesus’ account. He charges the bill to Jesus, and Jesus paid it in full with his blood. And then God takes all of the righteousness, and holiness, and perfection that belongs to Jesus, and he adds it to your account. This is what it means in Genesis 15, where we read that Abraham believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Because of Jesus, God has counted his righteousness to your account. This means that are now free to begin a Christian life, a saintly, holy life. You will never achieve perfection in this life, but you will only begin it, one step and one day at a time, with Jesus your Saviour guiding you along the way, and forgiving all your new sins and mess-ups along the way.

Now, even though God calls us through his word and his sacraments, it is only the Holy Spirit who creates faith in people. There are some people who hear and are baptised, and who come to the Lord’s Supper, but don’t believe in them. They people are not saints, but are hypocrites. They are only part of the church in an outward, external way. This is a communion which includes believers and non-believers, saints and non-saints. But there is also an internal, hidden, spiritual communion of saints, which exists only among those who believe the promises of God in His word, and believe in God’s work in their baptism, and believe in Jesus’ work and presence and gifts in the Lord’s Supper.

But then, the bible uses the word “saints” in two ways, as we mentioned before. The first way is to mean those who trust in Jesus in this life and are still fighting against sin and the devil, and are still living their Christian life under the cross. But the second way the bible uses the word “saints” is to mean those people who have endured their hardship but are now in heaven, praising God. So for example, in Acts we read that Peter came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. This is the first meaning, referring to people like us, who are both saints and sinners at the same time. Many of the letters of Paul are addressed to the saints who are at Corinth, or at Rome, or wherever. But then we also have examples of the second meaning, such as when after Jesus died there was an earthquake, and it says: many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. Here “saints” means those who were no longer sinners, but had died.

So, when we say that we believe in the “communion of saints”, what are we talking about? Are we talking about a communion of people on this earth who are both saints and sinners like us, or are we talking about a communion of people in heaven who have finished their struggle with sin and who are now perfect? The answer is that both we Christians who are alive and those Christians who are dead are together one communion of saints. St Paul says that we Christians are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. So when we call the church “the communion of saints”, we mean not just the members of the church that are still doing battle in this life, and fighting the good fight of faith, and wrestling against their sin, but also the church in heaven that is now perfect and glorious. We are altogether one church, one communion of saints. There are not two communions, but only one communion. There are not two churches, but one church. Sometimes we call the church on earth the “church militant” and the church in heaven the “church triumphant”. We are all one church, we are just on different sides of the grave. We are still struggling, but their struggle is completely over now.

In Hebrews chapter 12, the writer reveals to us something that is very special about what it is that we are part of when we gather here as the church. We read: You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; and to the multitude of many thousands of angels and to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven; and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Now, we could talk about those verses all day, but listen to those words that we have come to the multitude of many thousands of angels, to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven…to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. Those who have died in the Christian faith are with Jesus, and we also in this life on earth come to meet the same Jesus. We Christians don’t just share all kinds of wonderful blessings of the Holy Spirit with each other here on this earth in the church, but we also belong to the same fellowship, the same communion of those holy people and saints who are already in heaven. In Ephesians 2, it says that God raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In Colossians, we read that our heavenly Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. To be transferred out of darkness into Jesus’ kingdom means to enjoy now the fellowship not just with other Christians on this earth, but also to be one fellowship with all those who have already died and are now in Paradise with Jesus.

In our order of service that we use week after week, we say some words before the Lord’s Supper which reflect this teaching. When we have the Lord’s Supper, we sing a song called the “Holy, holy, holy”, or in Latin, it is called the “Sanctus”. This song is sung by angels in the bible. We read about the angels singing these words in the book of Isaiah and also in Revelation. But before we sing this, the pastor says that we are singing “with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven”. Not only are the angels singing with us but also those who have died in the faith, the company of heaven. This is a wonderful confession of faith, and it shows us just what the church on earth is. But it’s not as if the church in heaven are simply joining in with us—the worship of God is going on constantly in heaven, and when we join together as Christians to worship him, we are simply joining in with them. They add their voices to ours, and we add our voices to theirs.

But before we finish this sermon today, I’d like to mention one more thing. When it comes to understanding what it means to live a holy life and to share in God’s holiness, let’s go back to the Garden of Eden. When the first people, Adam and Eve, were created, they were perfect, holy, and pure. God had created them in his image. This is the first state or condition of the human race. And what a wonderful thing it must have been to live like that and to have been there!

But then, after that, things changed: there was the fall. Adam and Eve sinned, and since that time, every single human being (except Jesus himself) was conceived and born in sin. Before the fall, there was no sin. But after the fall, then there was sin, and the human race came under the judgment of God.

But then, later, something else changed: there came a Saviour. Jesus died for us on the cross, and he won for us the forgiveness of sins, and he sends us the Holy Spirit. Now, as Christians in this life, it’s not as though we now live without sin, but our sin is forgiven, and is not charged to our account anymore. So we live then as people who are both holy, and saints, but who also live struggling and wrestling against our sin.

So what happens when we die? Well, our bodies and our souls are separated, and for the first time, we will be completely free of our sin. On one hand, we will depart to be with Christ, as it says in Philippians 1. Just like Jesus promised to the thief on the cross, on the day of his death, Today you will be with me in Paradise. But this is not the end. Because God didn’t simply create us as spirits, or souls, but he created us with bodies. In Genesis 2, it says: then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. So what’s going to happen to our bodies? Are they just empty shells, empty husks? No—the Scripture also promises a resurrection of the dead. St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15: 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. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must on immortality.

Now, when we go the shop and buy a packet of chips, we throw away the packet in the bin. But God does not treat our bodies like an empty chip packet! He created our bodies, and so in a glorious way, at the end of the world, he promises to glorify our earthly bodies in a new way, and to reunite and redeem our bodies from the dust and the ashes and the ground, and raise them up, and reunite them with our spirits and souls. On one hand, when we die, our souls go to be with Jesus in heaven. On the other hand, our bodies will be buried in the ground. But there will also be a time when body and soul is reunited in a glorious and wonderful way, and our bodies will be raised from the dead. How we will go through this after we have died, we don’t know. At least, we know that we won’t be waiting for all this out in some sort of corridor, or in purgatory, but in heaven with Jesus. But remember, that when that time comes, we will enter not into a life with minutes and days and hours, but as the bible says, eternal life. God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.  St Paul also says in Philippians: Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Do you see the wonderful victory of the resurrection of the dead in this passage? Even in 1 Corinthians 15, St Paul says that Christ is the firstborn to rise from the dead. This means that the reason Christ rose from the dead was so that he would be the first, and to point your eyes forward to the day when you also will be risen from the dead. This is what we say in the creed when we say: 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. Amen.

Now, on the other hand, there is another way in which people look at these things, which is not correct. Instead of seeing Adam and Eve created in the “image of God”, people see humans as having been created as “little gods”. Then when the fall happened, they believe that the problem is that people forget that were created as little gods, and their sin is not that they disobey God, but that they just don’t live up their potential. Then instead of treating Jesus as their Saviour, they see him just as their teacher, who came to remind us humans of the knowledge that we forgot that we really were created as “little gods” after all. And then, when we die, what happens? Instead of believing that they then become free from their sin, they believe that that as “little gods” they are now free from their bodies. This means that they think the body is a bad thing, and just an empty chip packet to be thrown away. But if the body is a bad thing, why did Jesus have one? Why did he choose to have nails and spears put through it? God created us human beings with both body and soul, and he has his Son to redeem us in body and soul, and he will also make us holy in body and soul. And so, this is why, after the Lord’s Supper, we say: The body of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy precious blood strengthen and preserve you in body and soul to life eternal.

So let’s praise our God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, for drawing us together in faith into one communion of saints, with all believing Christians throughout the world and all those who have died in Christ. And let’s also praise him for the promise that he has made to us to raise us up with him on the last day together with all those who have died in the faith, who are alive with him. Amen.

Dear Jesus, once again today we come to you to sing our “Holy, holy, holy” with the angels, the archangels and all the company of heaven. Strengthen our faith by the power of your Holy Spirit, until that time when we depart to be with you, and enjoy life together with you in Paradise with all your saints. Amen.