Grace to you and peace from Him Who is and Who was and Who
is to come; from Jesus Christ the faithful Witness, the firstborn of the dead,
and the ruler of kings on earth.
Who speaks to you in today’s Gospel saying:
“Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, ‘Take heart,
daughter; your faith has saved you.’ And instantly the woman was saved.”
Thus far from our Gospel reading today, which is included in
God’s Word to give us heart, to give us courage in faith alone. Jesus is
death’s Conqueror and Faith’s Giver and He does not leave us in the face of
death or even in death. Holy Scripture points to God’s Will for us, on the
cross, that we may remember we are mortal and live a life of forgiveness.
With the passing of All Saints Day and having glanced into
heaven and the promise that waits for our arrival, the Church turns towards the
Last Day, in these final Sundays of the Church Year. Not that we haven’t been
staring down death all the Sundays of the Trinity Season, but today’s staring
contest is a little different.
Death is the last enemy to be defeated and we have yet to
face it. We feel we get close when our loved ones die, but facing it ourselves
is on a whole different level. This is the lesson we learn from today’s two
women in the Gospel. One died young, the other had to watch her life slowly
drain from her, day after day.
This we must face. It cannot be avoided. No matter the good
days, no matter the bad days, when the Boss says its time to go, its time to
go. That’s true and yet not true. God did not create death and He does not use
it in that way. He uses death, allows death we should say, in order to
accomplish His Will. That is all that matters. His Will. His Honor. His Name’s
Sake.
This Will, Honor, and Name are all so mysterious for us. In
our sin, we fail to see God and anything He is doing. At best we interpret His
action through the lens of our own actions, which is a poor, sinful measure to
use. This leads to misunderstanding and unbelief because if God is all
powerful, why doesn’t He end all the unpleasantries today? Just like that.
Listen to the hint the Lord gives us in Ezekiel 36
(v.22-23),
“Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of
Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you
have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the
holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which
you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord,
declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their
eyes.”
Through You. Now we can take this in a few ways. The
simplest way would be to chalk it up to miracles. That Jesus proves He is God
by performing magic healings and feedings and counselling sessions on us,
people. Technically, that is “through you” because He is using bodies to show
His power. So, “through the miracles performed upon man, I vindicate my
holiness”, or something like that.
However, not everyone received a miracle from Jesus, which
would amount to His holiness not being very much. Another way would be to see
that the Lord takes His own Body. “Through you” could also mean that God is
going to do His work, but as a man, subjecting Himself to the same
limitations.
This is closer to the truth, because now God is doing the
work Himself, not just through proxies. He has taken on our flesh and a
reasonable soul, that is He is just like us in every way. He is doing the work
behind a mask, we would say. A mask that allows Him to live among us without
the mountains melting and the seas boiling.
A third, less truthful way to understand it, at least by
itself, would be to believe that God has left the work to us. That somehow
Jesus finished most of the work, but left some loose ends for us to figure out
and tie up, proving that we are true followers of His Word. Less truthful, but
still some truth in it.
Jesus takes a fourth way. Jesus does perform miracles, but
they are not offered infinitely. Jesus does work in His own Body, but that is
still “through God” and not “through man”. He also does allow His Name to stand
upon our foreheads in baptism, but we are poor representatives of God.
While all these are in action, in Christ, the fourth Way is
all of those, but most importantly, Jesus vindicates and creates His holiness
through sinners! His rule is not an Iron Fist of mandates, but the meek and
mild Gospel. His Way is the Way of the Cross, the bearing of the sins of
transgressors, rebelling against His Will, His Honor, and His Name in order that
He win them all back!
Repent! It is not clean work. The Lord’s Will is to create
things that are Very Good, as He said in the beginning. His honor is to hand
all things over to us as caretakers, and He stakes His Name on this
transaction, even going so far as to call us “His People”, such that, the real
tragedy of sin is: when we commit it, we are publicly declaring that God would
sin.
Therefore, it is with these same sins that Jesus heads to
His bout with death. He does not shoot miracles at sin and death. He does not
just use a stand-in to get the work done for Him, neither does He leave it up
to us to face such impossible opponents.
The weapons He employs and the armor He dons are what have
been corrupted by sin, death, and the power of the devil. He is not
super-shiny, He is super-bloodied. His tools of salvation amount to betrayal,
fatal scourging, injustice, dishonor, unbelief.
This is what our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ takes to the
cross and grave in His iron grip and when He rises on Easter, they are no
longer with Him. Though they are of no use to you, your sin, your death, and
your siding with the devil only aided God’s work of salvation. Super-backwards,
right?
Now, before you get any funny ideas, we do not sin to make
the Gospel abound even more (Rom 6:1). There is no such thing. For all those
who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is no more death
in Him. There is no more sin in Him. Therefore, there is no more death or sin
in you. The Gospel, grace, cannot abound anymore than it already is, in you, in
Christ.
You are all on your way to the Last Day, therefore we must
gird our loins and keep our lamps burning, as our Lord says in St. Luke 12 (v.35).
It is only our lamps of faith that enlighten our eyes to see and our ears to
hear that our cries are directed to the Arm of YHWH. The Arm Who made us worthy
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light (Col 1:12) as our
Epistle taught.
You have been saved, not just made well. That is, the Light
of the World has shone light upon you, in your darkness, and has also fed you
His Light in His Body and Blood, so that now the Light shines in you, as well.
This light is the light of your inheritance. You are a descendant of darkness
no longer.
The Church of the Holy Spirit Calls out to you. The Gospel
He speaks delivers you from darkness, suffering, and death. And even though
those were key to purchasing salvation, that was only for God. For you, there
are no such things. For you, you have been given the Kingdom. For you, you have
the garment of Christ. For you, you have the touch of Jesus in Word and
Sacrament.
His Word and Sacrament He keeps in His Church and these
things guide you and keep you within His Will, Honor, and Name. For it is the
Will of God to save you. It is the Honor of God to forgive you. It is the Name
of God that names you: Saint.
Through our Gospel heard today, the Church wishes to say:
Look, just as the Lord healed the sick woman the instant she touched His
garment, so will it be on the last day when all diseases and suffering will
suddenly disappear. And as the maiden was awakened from death by the mighty
word of Christ, so will the dead rise up from out their graves and shine with
the freshness of youth.
When we visit a cemetery, we could well say in the words of our
Savior:
They who lie here in their graves only sleep. What till now
we have called death is but a sleep.
Yes, let us believe firmly in the resurrection of the body.
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