Pentecost XVI (Proper 21 C) [Luke 16:19-31] (29-Sep-2019)

This sermon was preached at Our Saviour Lutheran Church, Semaphore, 8.45am, and Good News Lutheran Church, Albert Park, 10.30am. 

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

The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.

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.

This passage from the Gospel of Luke that we have as our Gospel reading today is just such an incredible reading, and it is such an amazing story that Jesus tells us. It has so many amazing things and incredible lessons for us to learn – it puts eternity before us in a very stark way which, actually, for our sinful hearts, for our sinful flesh, is very unpleasant. But it also puts before us an incredibly powerful comfort about what it means to be a Christian and to be saved.

So in our sermon today, I’m going to pick out of this text a few different topics. Firstly, let’s talk about poverty and wealth, and what it means as a Christian to be rich or to be poor.

In our Gospel reading, we read: There was a rich man who was clothed with purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. Later, we read that this particular rich man went to hell, but this particular poor man, Lazarus, went to heaven. And Abraham says to the rich man: Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.

Now, we can sometimes make the wrong conclusion from the passage, as if Jesus is teaching us that rich people are bad, poor people are good, rich people are all going to hell, poor people are all going to heaven. But that’s not quite true. When Lazarus went to heaven, we are told that he went to be with Abraham. Now, in this earthly life, was Abraham rich or poor? Let me read you from the beginning of Genesis 13: Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb. Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. Interesting—it turns out that not all rich people automatically go to hell. If all rich people were in hell, why is Abraham in heaven?

So let’s read about the good things that this rich man had. We read first of all, that he was a rich man—he had lots of money and possessions. We would assume—as well—that he had a very nice house. But what he also had was earthly comforts—he had nice clothes, and he was able to eat nice food every day. We often think about wealth simply in terms of a person’s money—but Jesus wants to draw our attention especially to his clothes and food: He was clothed in purple and fine linen and he feasted sumptuously every day.

Now, let’s read about the bad things that Lazarus had. We don’t read at all about Lazarus’s clothes. We read that he was poor—he didn’t have any money, or a home, because he was laid at the rich man’s gate. We read that, instead of being clothed with fine linen and purple cloth, he was covered in sores. He was sick, and infected with some kind of terrible skin disease, that must have caused him no end of itching and annoyance. The only comfort he received was the dogs who came and licked his sores. And what did he eat? Well, not much—but we read that he desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table.

Now, what is Jesus trying to teach us here? Well, first of all, we should realise that in this life, money, a home, good health, clothes and food are all good things, good gifts from God. Actually, Jesus even teaches us to pray for these things, when he says: Give us today our daily bread. When we have these things, we should thank God for it—because they are good things.

And when we see someone—and especially one of our fellow believers, our fellow Christians—who is particularly in need, and doesn’t have the things that they need, and is going hungry, or is sick, or homeless, or doesn’t have enough clothes to wear, our hearts should go out them in compassion, and we should do what we can to help them. Think here about the parable of the Good Samaritan, where he comes and sees the half-dead man on the street, and helps him. And Jesus says: Go and do likewise.

Now, I often think that sometimes (maybe, particularly in our country) in the church, we don’t see enough of this Christian charity at work. Now why is this? Sometimes, I think there are many of us who think we’re a lot poorer than we really are, and so we don’t thank God for what we have, and we don’t think to share it, because we think someone else should be sharing with us. Or, maybe we think because of Centrelink and government welfare, that there really isn’t anyone who really needs our help. If someone needs something, people think, they’ve probably brought it on themselves. Sometimes, we know, it isn’t easy to help people—for example, you can’t just give a drug addict money, if you know they’re just going to go and buy more drugs. They need a different kind of help, and sometimes the kind of help they don’t want. But the fact is with Lazarus: he was in need, and the rich man who was able to help him, didn’t help him. And so, Jesus teaches us here, very simply, if we see someone in need, we should help them.

In fact, this is how Jesus views us—he saw us from heaven in our need, and in all our sin, and in all our helplessness, and he came down from heaven, to share his riches with us. Now, these are heavenly riches—the forgiveness of sins, the promise of everlasting life—but he shares them with us, like a rich man, and let’s us not just eat the scraps off his table, but to feast with him. And so, Jesus wants to create in us a compassionate heart, a heart which reaches out to other people, to share what we have with them. When someone is burdened by guilt and has sinned, we can share the forgiveness of sins with them, and the message of everlasting life with them. And also, when we see someone in some kind of physical need of the body—if they are poor, sick, homeless, hungry—we can also reach out to them and share with them what we have.

Now, let’s leave this topic about being poor or rich, and what it means to be charitable, and let’s come to another topic that this reading talks about, which is the Scripture. When the rich man is in hell, he asks Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers. Instead, Abraham says: They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them. And he said, “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”

So we learn that on the one hand, we have a rich man and a poor man—from our earthly point of view, from the point of view of physical eyes, it looks like the rich man is blessed, and the poor man Lazarus is cursed. The rich man has money, health, house, expensive clothes and expensive food. The poor man has nothing. But there is something much more important that the poor man has, that the rich man doesn’t have. The poor man heard the Scripture—he listened to the words of Moses and the Prophets—and when he heard this message, and he trusted that there was going a Saviour who would die for his sins, the Holy Spirit went into his ears and created a living faith in him. And as he sat at the rich man’s gate, he knew that even though he had nothing in the eyes of the world, he had a God and a Saviour who loved him.

The rich man, on the other hand, also had the Scripture—he had Moses and the Prophets—but he didn’t listen to them. Why would he need to listen to them, when he already has everything that he needs? Instead, the rich man pushed the voice of God away from his heart, and hardened his heart to God, so much so that he couldn’t even have compassion on the man covered with sores at his gate.

And so, it’s just like what God said to the prophet Samuel when he went to choose the young King David to anoint him as the king. He said: The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

So, in the end, Lazarus has nothing except the word of God. The rich man has everything except the word of God. In eternity, what this means, is that is Lazarus who has everything, and the rich man who has nothing.

Now, why did the Word of God—why did Moses and the Prophets—give so much to Lazarus? Because, this is the same Word of God that brought the entire universe out of nothing—and so it is more powerful than any money, houses, clothes and food in the entire world. This is simply the most important thing that we could learn in this life—it is so simple, and yet so many people—like this rich man—miss it, and harden their hearts to it, because it doesn’t look like much. It doesn’t look like the wealth, the spectacle, the glamour, that the rich man has. And so just as the rich man treated it all like nothing, so many people treat it like nothing.

Even in the church, this can also be the case. The Lutheran Church is here not simply because of Martin Luther, but because we claim to be a church of the word. Now, many churches can claim to have all kinds of things, but if they don’t have the word of God, they have nothing, and they are leading people on the wrong path. And it’s not like we Lutherans are immune—in fact, the devil is constantly at work trying to take the word of God away from us. And replace it with what? Well, sometimes the word of God can be replaced by traditions, by wealth, by spectacle. Sometimes, the word of God can be replaced by our own reason, our own intellect, our own thinking. Sometimes, the word of God can be replaced by experiences, visions, miracles, ghosts, spirits, and feelings.

Even this happens in our reading. Abraham tells the rich man in hell that if his five brothers have Moses and the Prophets, they have everything they need. What does the rich man say? He says: No—father Abraham—but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. The rich man knows full well that his brothers are all a bit bored with the word of God. It would really shake them up if the ghost of Lazarus gave them a talking to. No—it doesn’t work like that. And so, we have an incredible warning in this reading. When we have the word of God, we have everything. When we don’t have it, we have nothing. So—don’t be bored with it. Savour every opportunity to hear it, and to read it, and to think about it. We have Moses and the Prophets, and we have the apostles, and we actually do have Jesus physically risen from the dead. What excuse do we have? The day of salvation is now, and Jesus is calling you. Don’t reject him when he walks by.

Now, I’d like come to another topic in our reading—and that is the whole question of salvation, about heaven and hell. Now, a lot of us pastors don’t like to preach too much about hell, and there’s probably a good reason for it. Sometimes, people talk about the old days, like the only thing any pastor every talked about was “hellfire and brimstone”! You can go and read books of sermons from all kinds of times and you can see that that isn’t true.

However, when topics comes up in our readings, we should talk about them. And this passage today is one of the most vivid descriptions that Jesus gives about hell. The rich man lifts up his eyes and sees Lazarus far away and out of his reach. He says: I am in anguish in this flame. He wants his tongue to be cooled by a drop of water. He calls it a place of torment. Abraham says: Now, you are in anguish.

If there’s one thing that seems to be destroying the Christian faith everywhere today, is this whole idea that at the end of the day, “everyone’s going to be alright, Jack.” Many Christians today think that there really isn’t a hell, and that there’s nothing really wrong with anyone, and so, we’re all going to be saved anyway. We might think this for good reasons—we might see other people we know and love who care nothing for Jesus and his word, and we don’t want to have to think about them in eternal torment. It’s a thing that should make us incredibly sad and worried for them. So people sometimes fall into a trap, called “universalism”. “Universalism” means that in the end, everyone is going to be saved anyway, no matter what.

Now, this is not what the bible teaches, it’s not what Jesus taught, and it’s not what he says in our reading today. And it’s a teaching which dries up our love for people, and which makes our zeal for mission dry up—it even makes our thirst and our love for Jesus himself dry up.

At the time of Martin Luther, this was a very important issue, because many Christians believed in purgatory. Purgatory was basically half-way between heaven and hell, and if you paid off your sins in purgatory, or if your loved ones on earth helped pay them off for you, you could eventually go to heaven. But this reading today, teaches us that purgatory doesn’t exist. Abraham says to the rich man: Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner, bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.

Do you see this? Once our life is ended—we either go to heaven or to hell. There’s no half-way. Either we are saved by the blood of Jesus, or we’re not. Now, when Jesus teaches us this, it might grate at us a bit, it makes us very uncomfortable. But you see, Jesus wants us totally for himself. He doesn’t want us to be half-hearted, or half-baked in our trust and love for him. And when we die, he wants to welcome us into his kingdom, with Abraham and Lazarus, and all those who have died believing in him. And so, when we think about eternity, we shouldn’t be lazy in our thinking, we shouldn’t be apathetic or blasé about it. We should be black and white about it—and set very clearly before our eyes only two options: heaven and hell. And Jesus promises that all who believe in him have eternal life. And we set our eyes and our hearts and our minds very clearly in the direction of heaven.

Now, the last thing to talk about today is the Gospel. In the Scripture, we have two teachings—the law and the Gospel. The Law shows us our sin, and shows us the threat of God’s judgment. There are many things in our reading today that put God’s law and his judgment very seriously before our eyes—and some of what Jesus teaches here is quite frightening.

However, at the same time, we also have the Scripture a completely different teaching, which doesn’t show us our sin, but which shows to troubled sinners their wonderful Saviour. This teaching is what we call the Gospel. Now, we know that Jesus entered into this world to take upon himself all of our sin, and he died for it on the cross, made a perfect sacrifice and atonement for you, and he rose again from the dead on Easter day. And now, he gives to you the forgiveness of sins here in the church, through your baptism, through the absolution spoken by the pastor, through the preaching, and through the body and blood of Christ given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. And these things are then given to you as a kind of down-payment of the wonderful promise of everlasting life, eternal salvation, and at the end of this world, a resurrection from the dead, where your body and soul will be so completely transformed and transfigured, that you will be glorified to be like the angels and even Jesus himself.

Now, what’s this got to do with our reading? Who was saved? It was Lazarus who was saved. It didn’t look like he had anything, but in the end, the angels themselves carried him to Abraham’s bosom, placed him on Abraham’s lap, and he was received into eternal life. Why Abraham? Because Abraham believed the Lord, and it was counted to him as righteous. Abraham is the father of faith—Jesus says, that even God can raise up stones to be children of Abraham. And if we believe in Jesus, and trust in his blood and his death, we also are children of Abraham, and will be carried from this life by the angels.

But then the devil wants to tempt us. He wants to say: But look: that rich guy doesn’t believe in Jesus—look at the house he’s living in compared to you, look at the food he’s eating compared to you, look at the happiness he has compared to you. You’re not a real Christian.

Well, it’s at times like this, you can tell the devil to “tick off”, because you have the word of God, you have Jesus risen from the dead, therefore you have everything. You might not have the perfect house, you might not have lots of money, you might be sick all the time, you might have lots of troubles and worries, you might have lots of sadness, you might be lonely, you might be cold, you might be hungry. When we’re struggling like this, we start to think God has abandoned us, and there’s something wrong with our faith. Rubbish! What do you have? You have a Jesus who died for you, a heavenly Father who loves you, and a Holy Spirit who encourages you. You have the word of God—you have Moses and the Prophets, the apostles, you have Jesus. And if you have these things, then you have everything, and you have more than all the gold and the treasures in the whole world. So be like Lazarus—sit at God’s gate, and trust in him. Jesus will never let you down, and finally he will raise you up from the dead to be like him. Amen.

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