In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

All of the teachings of the Bible from the both the Old and New Testaments can be divided into two main categories: the Law and the Gospel.  The Law is God’s Word of command that tells what to do and how we’re supposed to live. The Gospel, on the other hand, is God’s Word of grace through which He teaches about what Christ has done for our salvation. Understanding the difference between the Law and the Gospel is so essential that without it, it’s actually impossible to read the Bible. If a person doesn’t know what parts of the Scriptures are Law and what parts are Gospel, he or she will become easily confused and think that God’s Word is full of all kinds of contradictions. In one place, for example, the Bible offers forgiveness for all sinners, and in another place, it condemns all sinners. In one place, the Holy Spirit tells us to do certain things if we want to be saved, and in another place, He tells us that salvation is a free and unmerited gift. This puzzle can only be solved if we know the difference between the Law and the Gospel.

And one place where we get to see this difference shown to us very clearly is in our Gospel lesson today from Matthew chapter 22. In Matthew chapter 22, we are presented with two different questions that get at the heart of these two main teachings. First, the Pharisees ask Jesus what the greatest commandment is, and then, Jesus asks them who the Christ is. So, on the basis of these two questions, allow me to explain to you all a little bit more about the differences between the Law and the Gospel and how these teachings go together.

Again, the first teaching of God’s Word that we get to see in our text this morning is the teaching of the Law. After our Lord silenced the Sadducees, who asked Him about the resurrection of the dead, the Pharisees sent one of their own representatives to ask Him a question too. But just the like Sadducees were trying to trap Jesus and prove that He was a false teacher, that’s what the Pharisees were up to as well. As we read, “And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question to test Him. ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law.’”

If you remember, the Pharisees loved to debate with one another about which one of God’s commandments was the most important. They had identified 613 different ones, and each Rabbi, and each school of theology, would identify themselves by which one they saw as the most significant. Are the Sabbath laws the most important or are the food laws? What about the cleansing laws and the laws about tithing? Some said this, and some said that. The Pharisees were not actually concerned with which commandment Jesus picked, but rather they simply wanted to draw Him into a debate in order to demonstrate that He was just like all the other Rabbis who each had their own opinion. But notice how quickly Jesus answered their question. Without any hesitation at all, He responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

As is always the case, our Lord’s answer was perfect. And the reason why it was perfect was because Jesus did not pick out one commandment over another, but rather He summarized all of the commandments at once. He got to the heart of what each commandment is really all about. What do the first 3 commandments, for example, in the Ten Commandments have to do with? They all have to do with loving God. That’s why God tells us not to worship other gods. That’s why He tells us not to take His Name in vain. And that is why He tells us to remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy. Those are the ways that we show Him love. And the same is true for commandments 4 through 10. Do you want to know what it looks like to actually love your neighbor? It looks like honoring your father and mother, not killing people, not cheating on your spouse, not stealing, lying, or coveting things that don’t belong to you. Just as no one wants any of those things to be done to them, God tells us not to do them to our neighbor. Jesus was exactly right.

But what made Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees so perfect, was not just that He summed up all of the Law at once, but also that in doing so He showed us what the main purpose of God’s Law even is. The main purpose of God’s Law is to uncover our sins and teach us that we need a Savior. As Saint Paul tells us so clearly in Romans chapter 3, “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

Yes, knowing which one of God’s commandments is the greatest is a very important thing to know. But that knowledge by itself doesn’t actually save a person. In fact, that knowledge condemns a person. That knowledge reveals to us even more that we cannot save ourselves by the things that we do. The Law tells us what God wants from us, but it does not give us the ability to do it. On the contrary, it proves that we haven’t really done it at all.

Which one of us has loved God with his whole heart, soul, and mind? To love God with your heart means that you love Him with your will. It means that you always want the things that God wants and you never want anything different. To love God with your soul means that you love Him with your emotions. You always feel exactly the way God feels about everything. You despise the things that He despises. And you are happy with the things that make Him happy. And to love God with your mind, means that you love Him with your reason. In every situation, you always think the way that God thinks, and you never doubt His Word. Only the most delusion kind of person could possibly believe that he or she has loved God in that kind of way.

And that is only half of what it means to keep His law. The other half has to do with loving your neighbor. Who has truly loved his neighbor as himself? Loving your neighbor as yourself means putting the needs of other people always before your own. It means treating others with the exact same kind of respect that you want to be treated with by them. Whether it is your friend, or your enemy, or someone that you just met, it doesn’t matter. Anything that you wouldn’t want others to say about you, God says don’t say it about them. Anything you wouldn’t want others to think about you, God says don’t even think it about them. And anything that you would want others to help you with, if you were in the same situation as they were, God doesn’t just tell you to do it, He tells you to do willingly and gladly.

When a person examines himself according to this standard, that is, God’s standard, if he is being honest with himself, he must confess along with the Psalmist, “Enter not into judgment with Your servant, for no one living is righteous before You.” He must admit that he has not kept God’s Law. And again, that is the main purpose of the Law. God gave us His Law not so that we would try and save ourselves through it, but so that we would learn that we need salvation from it. We need the forgiveness of our sins.

And that leads us to the second question from our text today, the question that Jesus asked the Pharisees. After our Lord showed them how God’s Law demands perfect love toward Him and perfect love toward our neighbor, thereby proving that no one can be saved by keeping the Law because every one of us has broken it, Jesus said, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is he?” In response the Pharisees said, “the son of David.” Then Jesus added, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls Him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”’

The reason why Jesus asked the Pharisees who the Christ is was because that question gets to the very heart of the Gospel. When you know who the Messiah is, and what He has come to do for you, then, and only then, will you know the real answer to how a sinner can be saved from his sins.

The problem with the Pharisees was not only that they had a completely false understanding of God’s Law, where they thought that God gave it to us so that we could be saved by keeping it, but they also had a completely false view of the Messiah. They thought that the Messiah would be someone just like them. He would be a man just like they were, except that He would finally deliver them from their earthly trouble. He would save them from the oppression of the Roman government and restore the Jewish nation to the same level of success that it had in the time of the Old Testament.

And yet, Jesus shows them from their own texts that they cherished, how the Messiah was much more than that. How could King David call the Messiah His Lord, even before the Messiah was born? How could God speak to the Christ, if the Christ didn’t already exist? And that is the point. He did already exist. And David could call Him his Lord even before He was born, because even though He had not yet been born in the flesh, He was begotten from all eternity. David’s Son and David’s Lord is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. He is the very Son of God Himself.

If the Pharisees would only recognize the true identity of the Messiah, then they should also have been able to recognize that He has come to do more than what any other man can do. In fact, He has come precisely to do what all men fail to do. He has come to fulfill the Law. He has come to keep all of God’s commandments on our behalf and then suffer the punishment for breaking those commandments as our substitute. The Christ puts all of our enemies under His feet, by allowing those enemies to kill Him. He takes His seat at the right hand of God, by first taking His seat on a cross, and dying for the sins of the whole world. That is how the Messiah ushers in His Kingdom. That is how He delivers us from our sad situation, we brought upon ourselves through our failure to keep God’s Law.

When you know the answer to the question, “what is the greatest commandment,” all that that does is bring you shame. You know what God wants from you, but you don’t have the ability to do it. But when you know the answer to the question, “who is the Christ,” then you can have true peace in your heart. Then you can have confidence in your salvation, even though you are still acutely aware of your sins.

That is the difference between the Law and the Gospel. That is the difference between these two distinct teachings of the Bible. The Law and the Gospel are not contradictory to each other, they are complimentary to each other. Through the Law, God shows us our sins, and through the Gospel, He shows us our Savior. Through the Law, God makes us realize that we need forgiveness, and through the Gospel, God gives us that forgiveness. Through the Law, God tells us how we are supposed to live, and through the Gospel, God tells us how Jesus has lived a perfect life in our place.

No, we have not loved the Lord our God with our whole heart, soul, and mind. And no, we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. Anyone who says otherwise is not telling the truth. But there is One who has. There is One who is like us in every way except that He is without sin. We have a Christ. He is David’s son and David’s Lord. And He is the answer to everything that we need. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Saint Paul tells us in our Epistle lesson today from Ephesians chapter 4 that there is “one Lord, one faith, and one Baptism.” There are so many different things that we could say about this verse, but since we had the privilege of getting to see a real-life Baptism take place this morning in Church, I thought it would be a good idea for us to reflect a little bit more on that aspect of the text. What can we take away from the fact that, according to God’s Word, there is only one Baptism?

First of all, the fact that Saint Paul tells us that there’s only one Baptism, obviously means that only one exists and that there’s only one that we Christians should seek after. Lots of times today, especially in Evangelical and Pentecostal circles, you will hear people talking about more than one kind of baptism. They’ll say that there is “the baptism of the spirit” and then there’s this thing called “water baptism.” The baptism of the Spirit, they argue, is when a person has an intense spiritual experience which culminates in them giving their heart to Jesus, and sometimes manifests itself in the speaking of tongues. Water baptism, on the hand, is what they refer to as the first act of Christian obedience. In their minds, it is a ceremony where a person shows that they are dedicated to God by being submerged in water while a religious leader speaks the Trinitarian formula.

The problem with this line of thinking though, is that the Scriptures a very clear that not only is there just one Baptism that we need, but also that our Lord Jesus Christ has only instituted one for us to receive. In Matthew chapter 28, Christ Himself tells us, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” That is how a person becomes a Christian. That is how they get adopted into the family of God. It’s not through some special conversion experience, that culminates in doing something that the Bible says not every has the ability to even do. It is through water and the Word. Remember what Jesus also said to Nicodemus one time in John chapter three. He didn’t just say to him that “unless one is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” He added that, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, He cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Where does God join together the physical element of water with the Spirit filled Words of the Scriptures? There is only one place. And that is when a person gets baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit like little Gregory did this morning. That is the only Baptism that God tells us to receive and that is the only baptism that we need.

I’ve always found it to be ironic that some people will pressure others to receive the so-called “baptism of the spirit,” which again, is not something that we recognize as valid, when on the very day that the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Apostles in a miraculous way, Saint Peter got up and said this, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Notice that on the day of Pentecost, when the people asked what needed to happen for them to have the assurance of their salvation, Peter told them to get baptized. And He told them that when they got baptized, they would actually receive the Holy Spirit. Peter didn’t tell them to get “water baptized,” and then wait for some special conversion experience later on when they would get really baptized. He just told them to get baptized. He pointed them to only one Baptism, the Baptism of water and the Word.

The reason why Baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit has the power give a person the Holy Spirit and save us is not because the water in Baptism is special, but because the Word of God in the water is. The Bible tells us that God’s Word can do amazing things. Through His Word, God created the heavens and the earth. He literally spoke it into existence. Through His Word, Jesus raised people from the dead and cured them of incurable diseases. And through His Word, the Holy Spirit calls us to faith and makes us Christians. As Saint Paul alludes to in our text, “I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” 

When someone gets baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, they hear the Word of Christ are called by the Gospel. They hear the same Words that came out of Christ’s own mouth right before He ascended into heaven. And those Words are particularly important. Those Words are none other than Name of God itself. Even when we put our own names on things that means something special. If my name is on the deed to the house, that means that legally I own it. If my name is on the check, good luck cashing it at the bank without me. And in Baptism God puts His Name on us. God gives us His Name so that now we can rest assured that we are actually part of His family. The forgiveness that Jesus secured on the cross, now belongs to us. The salvation that He procured when was forsaken by God in our place, now is laid into our lap. The perfect obedience that avails before God as righteousness, which Christ alone achieved, now covers us like a garment. Baptism is the Gospel. Saying that Baptism cannot save is the same thing as saying the Word of God cannot save. But that is ridiculous. Of course, the Word of can save. It is the only thing that does save.

Yes, a person can come to know of the salvation that is theirs in Jesus simply by listening to message of the Scriptures. And yet, in Baptism God goes out of His way to give us something even more personal and more tangible so that there will be no doubt in our minds that everything that Jesus did, He did for us. And we get all of it through this one Baptism, the washing of Water and the Word.

Now, besides reminding us that there is only one Baptism that we need, and only one Baptism for us to seek after, the words of Saint Paul in our Epistle lesson from Ephesians chapter 4, also remind us that we only need to receive that Baptism one time. Again, there is “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”

It has become increasing popular these days for Christians to get baptized on more than one occasion. Sometimes this happens when an individual who was baptized as a baby gets involved with a group of people who deny infant Baptism and convince them that their first Baptism didn’t count. In other instances, people try and get rebaptized when after getting baptized in the past, they start living a godless life in the present, and then come to realize just how far they have strayed from God’s will. So, in an effort to fix it, they go back to Church and try and do it over again.

All of this though, stems from the same sad misunderstanding that Baptism is something that we do to show our commitment to God. But where in the Bible do we learn that Baptism is something that we do to show our commitment to God? It doesn’t teach us that anywhere. Rather, it teaches us that Baptism is God’s work through which He shows His commitment to us. That is why almost every time the word baptism is used in the Bible, it appears in the passive voice. It’s always “be baptized” not “baptize yourself,” because baptism is something that happens to us, not something that we are accomplish for ourselves. Remember what Jesus says in John chapter 15. He says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” And what does it say in Isaiah 43, “I have called you by name, you are mine.” Just like God called the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and led them through the Red Sea on dry ground, which the Scriptures teach us elsewhere was a pre-figurement of Holy Baptism, when we receive the washing of Water and the Word, God calls us out of slavery too. He calls us out of bondage to sin, by giving us the forgiveness of our sin. He chooses us and sets us apart as His own son or daughter. As we read in Galatians chapter 3, “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Teaching someone that they need to get rebaptized because at one point in time they fell away from their Baptism, is like if a child who got adopted, and ran away from home because he found out about it, then came to his senses later on and returned back only to tell his parents that they needed to re-draft the adoption papers. Not only would that be unnecessary, it would be insulting. And the same thing is true for those who try and get rebaptized. It is unnecessary and it is insulting to God.

The work of God cannot be undone. The promises of God cannot be revoked. Yes, it is possible for a person to turn their back on their Baptism and reject it. Sadly, that happens all of the time. But it doesn’t mean that their Baptism is destroyed. It doesn’t mean that their Baptism is not still there waiting for them to make use of it again. In John chapter 4, Jesus told the woman at the well that He has to power to give us a drink of water that will make us never thirsty again. Baptism is like a drink of water that takes away out thirst. It is like a well dug into the very heart of God, which we can draw from whenever we need His forgiveness. The water never runs dry. The well never needs to be dug again.

The is not greater comfort in our life as Christians than the gift that God gives to us in our Baptism. Many people today limit that gift, and say that you should only give it to adults. They say that little children cannot understand what is happening in their Baptism, therefore we should not let them have it until they are older. But you tell me what parent or grandparent doesn’t give gifts to their kids until they can appreciate them? You tell me what one year old, or even what new born baby, doesn’t get presents long before they can explain them. That’s not how it works. You give the gift and then you show the child how to use it. You baptize your kids, and then you teach them to love it more and more.

There will never be a time in little Gregory’s life when he will not have something to remind him that Jesus loves him. He may have to go through some very hard things as he gets older. I look around at the world we live in today and I would be lying if I said that I was not concerned for my boy. But now I know that my boy belongs to Jesus. Now I know that He is not just my son, He is a son of His heavenly Father. Now I know that no matter that happens him, He has been joined to Christ.

And so have all of you. If you have been baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, you are God’s beloved child. Even if you don’t feel like it sometimes. Even if you can’t see it sometimes. Even if the devil, the world, and your sinful nature tell you otherwise. You can be certain that it is true. For as Saint Paul tells us, there is “One Lord, one faith, one Baptism.” In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Even though Jesus did many different miracles during the time of His earthly ministry, there are only three instances recorded for us in the Bible of Him actually raising someone from the dead. There is the raising of Jairus’s 12-year-old daughter, the raising of His friend Lazarus of Bethany, and the raising of the widow’s son at Nain, which we heard about in our Gospel lesson today from Luke chapter 7. In the same way that the Holy Spirit uses special numbers elsewhere, like 40 and 12, so that we can make connections between Biblical events and teachings, these three different resurrection accounts remind us of how our Lord gives us the victory over three different kinds of death.

So, in today’s sermon, what I’d like for us to do is consider together what those three kinds of death are and how Jesus alone saves us from all of them.

The first kind of death that we learn about in the Bible is spiritual death. In the garden of Eden, God warned Adam and Eve that on the day that they disobeyed Him and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. And yet, if you recall, when Adam and Eve eventually did eat from the tree, it was not that they immediately fell to the ground without a pulse. Yes, they died, but their death was not a physical one. Rather, it was a spiritual one. Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, and lost the image God along with their original righteousness. From that moment on, they made it so that every one of their descendants would inherit from them a fallen and sinful nature.

This is exactly what Saint Paul explains to us in Ephesians chapter 2. There he writes, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” All of us, from the moment of our conception, as Psalm 51 also tells us, are conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity. What that means is that even though we are born physically alive, apart from Christ, we are spiritually dead, just like Adam and Eve were after they sinned. Now, instead of being aligned with the will of God, and wanting to do the things that please Him, we constantly fight against Him. We don’t fear God as we should. We don’t trust God as we should. We don’t love God as we should. 

And because of our spiritual death, that is, because of our sinful condition, the Bible also teaches us that every one of us will eventually also experience the next kind of death, which is physical death. Of the three different kinds of death that there are, this is the easiest one to recognize by far. We see it very clearly in the account of the widow’s son at Nain, and many of us have seen it up close and personal with people that we know and love. But even though it is the easiest kind of death to see, that doesn’t mean that people always see it correctly. Many times, when people look at physical death, they think of it simply as the circle of life. Since everybody dies, they assume that death is just a natural part of our existence. And yet, nothing could be further from the truth.

God’s Word teaches us that far from being a part of His original design for the world, death is the wages of our sin. Death is the just punishment and consequence that we bring upon ourselves because of our disobedience to God. That’s what the Saint Paul tells us in Romans chapter five, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.” How do we know that every single man, woman, and child is a sinner who is spiritually dead apart from Christ? We know it because without the special intervention of God, every single man, woman, and child eventually dies. As James tells us in his epistle, “Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

In addition to spiritual death and physical death, though, which are both bad enough as it is, there is also a third kind of death, which is the worst one of all, and that is eternal death. Despite the dominant religious perspective in modern American, not everyone goes to a better place when they die. Sadly, as we learn throughout the Scriptures it is possible for an individual to die apart from the grace of God, while still in a state of spiritual death, and spend forever in hell because of it. Eternal death is not annihilation where a person ceases to exist at all and no longer has consciousness. Rather, as Jesus describes it elsewhere, it is a place of weeping and gnashing of death, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. The most awful thing about hell, though, is not that it is filled with all kinds of terrible suffering, but that there is no access to the love of Jesus in the midst of it. Hell is separation from God for all eternity. As Saint Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians 1, “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might.”

So, those are the three different kinds of death that we learn about in the Bible: spiritual death, physical death, and eternal death. All three of these kinds of death are the result of sin and all three of them can only be overcome by the one who alone can save us from our sins, namely, Jesus. In fact, when Jesus raised the widow’s son at Nain, He showed us how He has the power to deliver us from every kind of death that there is.

First, our Lord has the ability to deliver us from spiritual death. Jesus does this when He forgives us of ours sins and gives us the gift of faith to trust in His atoning sacrifice on the cross. Just as Jesus touched the casket of the man at Nain, and then spoke to Him saying, “Young man, I say to arise,” Christ draws near to us through His Word and Sacraments, and raises us to new spiritual life through the power of the Gospel. Listen, for example, to what Saint Paul says in Romans chapter 6 about the gift of Holy Baptism, something that, God willing, we will get to see take place next week for little Gregory. He writes, “We were buried therefore with Him by Baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” And then there is also what we read in Colossians 2, “In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in Baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God.”

Jesus raises us from spiritual death to new spiritual life in our Baptism, because in our Baptism God joins us to the death and resurrection of Christ and washes away our sins. God makes us a new person by filling us with the Holy Spirit and giving us the gift of faith so that we can trust in Jesus. Therefore, as we read in Mark chapter 16, “Whoever believes and is Baptized will be saved.” This is also why the very first thing that we Lutherans do at our funeral services is point people to the comfort of our Baptism. After the invocation, the pastor reminds the congregation that in their Baptism the deceased was “clothed with the robe of Christ’s righteousness that covered all their sin.” Jesus has the power to save us from spiritual death, and He does that through His Word and Sacraments.

Likewise, our Lord also has the ability to save us from physical death. As we see very clearly with the widow’s son at Nain, Jesus can cause a person to come back to life again simply through the proclamation of His Word. Christ can command death to depart from an individual and for their soul to re-enter into their body. And yet, while Jesus did do this for the widow’s son at Nain, it is also not the normal way that He delivers us from physical death. Usually, Jesus does not save us from this kind of death by not allowing us to experience it all, or reversing its effects temporarily in this life, but by delivering us from it completely on the Last Day.

It’s good to remember that not even the people who experienced a special resurrection in the Bible remained alive in that exact same way forever. Where is the widow’s son from Nain now? Where is Jarius’ daughter now? Where is Lazarus of Bethany now? All of those individuals eventually died again and are now buried somewhere in the ground. But that does not mean that they will stay that way forever. In fact, because of Christ’s own resurrection, we know that God has promised a universal resurrection for all people. As we read in John chapter 5, “An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” On the day that Jesus returns in glory, just as He commanded the young man of Nain to rise again from the dead, He will command every individual to be raised too. After that, those who died believing in Jesus will live with Him in a new heaven and a new earth, and those who died not believing in Him will come into the fullness of their punishment.

Regardless though, Jesus will undo the effects of physical death. He will join the souls of every person back to their bodies and make them alive together once again. This is why the Bible repeatedly refers to the death of Christians as a form of sleep. Remember what Jesus said about Jairus’ daughter when she died? He said, “the girl is not dead, but sleeping.” And what does Saint Paul tell us in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4? He writes, “We do not want you to be uniformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep.”

Because of what Jesus did for us, and how He died and rose for our sins, we can have confidence that everyone who have been joined to Jesus through faith will share in His resurrected glory. Even if they die in the most horrific way imaginable, our Lord will restore them and make them whole on the Day that He makes all things new. He will deliver us from physical death.

And lastly, and most importantly of all, Jesus has the power to save us from eternal death. Unlike spiritual death and physical death, which all of us have to experience no matter what, it is possible through the merits of Christ to avoid eternal death completely. As Saint John tells us so clearly with those famous words from the third chapter of his Gospel, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have eternal life.” To perish is to die and go to hell. But Christians don’t perish. Even though they die, they continue living on in Jesus, and one day Jesus will bring them back to life entirely through the resurrection of their bodies. That is exactly what Jesus once taught Mary and Martha after the death of their brother. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

What did Jesus say to the widow from Nain when she lost her only son? He told her, “Do not weep.” It’s not that Jesus was teaching her that we shouldn’t be sad when people die. After all, even our Lord wept at the death of His friend Lazarus. But rather Jesus was showing her how He takes away our eternal weeping and promises to bring our sorrow to an end completely in the resurrection. Eternal death is eternal weeping. But eternal life is eternal joy. As we read in the book of Revelation, in heaven God will “wipe away every tear from our eyes.” That is what we have in Jesus. That is the hope that is ours because of His victory over sin and the grave. We have the assurance of everlasting life for all believers.

In the Bible we learn that there are three different kinds of death: spiritual death, physical death, and eternal death. No matter what form death takes, God’s Word teaches us that death is always our enemy. But Christ puts all of our enemies under His feet. He did that when died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead for our justification. Now we know that even when we do die, someday, the Lord will say to us like He said to the widow’s son at Nain, “Young man, I say to you arise.” Christ has already spoken those words to us once in our Baptism when He made us God’s children and washed away our sins. And on the Last Day He will say those words to us again and bring our Baptism to completion.

So, now we can rest assured of our salvation and look forward to eternal life even though we still see death all around us. We can look at our dying bodies and take comfort in the words that the pastor will one day speak over us at our burial: “May God the Father, who created this body; may God the Son, who by His blood redeemed this body; may God the Holy Spirit, who by Holy Baptism sanctified this body to be His temple, keep these remains to the day of the resurrection of all flesh.” In Jesus’ Name. Amen.