Dying to live [Trinity 16]

 

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 1 Kings 17:17-24

• Ephesians 3:13-21

• St. Luke 7:11-17

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love. (2 John)
 
Who speaks to you this morning saying,

“And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’”

 
When this widow was marching alongside this abomination that was carrying her son away from her, she more than likely had holy Scripture in hand. And between the sobs and wracks of grief, she pounded head and hands against this devil, throwing God’s own words in His face with Deuteronomy 30:16-18, “If you … [love] the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you…but if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish.”
 
Live. Laugh. Love. All those wonderful sayings and promises from God fall flat at the grave. For we live in a world filled with those who are alive and those who are dead. When God commands death, then perhaps when we die, we obey a commandment of God?
 
Indeed, we do. This is the part of God’s Word that everyone who wants to live by the Law skips over. Everyone wants to eat, drink, and be merry, but no one wants to pay for it. For in Genesis 2:17, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
 
And then Genesis 5:5, “Adam lived…and he died.”
 
Live by the Law, die by the Law (Gal 3:10-12). It is very distressing and depressing to find out that God’s command is to die. St. Paul goes on in Galatians to say, “Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?” (4:21). If you are not dying, you are not listening to the Law of God. Sure to spice up your devotions a bit, eh?
 
However, if you are dying then you aren’t listening to it, either. Catch 22. Done and done.
 
Does God ever command you to live? In only two places in Scripture, does God ever say “do this and you will live”. The first is an interesting exchange between Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 42. The famine that Pharaoh’s dreams predicted is in full swing and Jacob has sent his sons to Egypt for grain, because Joseph has stored it all in anticipation of this world event.
 
10 of his brothers come, the 11th being Joseph, who was “lost”, and the 12th being Benjamin, who did not make the trip. Joseph recognizes them, they don’t recognize him. He accuses them of being spies and locks them up. They think they are being punished for betraying Joseph. Joseph just wants his family back.
 
He tells them to leave one behind while the rest go back, and bring the youngest brother to Egypt, so that Joseph can see him. “Do this and you will live”, he says in 42:18. “If you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody, and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households.”
 
Leave one behind and you will live. One. Keep that echoing in your brain.
 
The other place where God says, “do this and you will live” is in St. Luke 10:25-28, the Good Samaritan. There, we immediately find our place under the Law, in other words the actions we undertake, when we ask, “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
 
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
 
Jesus answers, “Do this and you will live.” This man, of course, went away sad, because Jesus then proceeded to tell him to give up his riches in order to show mercy to his neighbor and the man loved his riches more than his neighbor. More to the point, he loved his life more than he loved his Savior, Who was to suffer and die in front of him, lacking every trace of love.
 
One must be left behind, God said. One left behind to pay what is owed and to satisfy to the full. Remember the point of the Good Samaritan was to show mercy, which must be keeping the Law. But we are still not listening to the Law, as God accused us of in Galatians 4. For the command is not to “obey”, but to “love”. LOVE the Lord your God. LOVE your neighbor.
 
Yes, it is love that not only gives the gift of children to us, as the widow in our Gospel, but it is the love of God that moves Him to give His only Child to us. It is not Joseph’s brother, it is not either of the widow’s sons from our Readings, and it is not you. Jesus Christ is the last and the least, on His cross, for you.
 
Jesus does not get around God’s commands. As God-made-man, Jesus is subject to the same rules and regulations we are. Having taken on our body of death, He lives only to be found guilty. And once found guilty, He must also die.
 
We hear from Philippians 2:8, “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”, but we never think that perfect obedience to God includes crucifixion.
 
And yet here we are. The only perfect man to walk the earth and He had to die, just as we will. Jesus is left behind by friends and family. All abandon Him. But He is the ransom. There is no one else after Him and no one will take His place on the cross. His sacrifice is the end of the Law for all who believe (Rom 10:4).
 
Now that’s interesting, from Romans 10. The end of the Law. The completion. The perfection. As in, there is no more Law to keep after Jesus is done with it. What’s to be done after that? St. John 5:25 tells us, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”
 
God’s command to obey is His command to hear. God’s command to live, is His command to rise again. If you want to follow Jesus and obey His Word, get resurrected. And it just so happens that this is what Jesus purchases and wins for you on the cross: a resurrection in baptism.
 
Joseph was raised again to his father, Jacob, and there was much rejoicing. Both widow’s sons were raised again, at God’s Word to them, and their mother’s praised God. We will be raised on the Last Day, hearing a shout, the sound of a trumpet, and we give thanks.
 
But today you have been raised from your sleep of death. The devil, the world, and your own sinful nature have set a snare for you and caught you. Dead to God, Jesus speaks to you and you know you are alive when you hear His Gospel, given and shed for you.
 
Baptized into His death and resurrection, you eat and drink eternal life today. Obeying God’s Word is Hearing God’s Word. Hearing God’s Word creates Faith and Faith receives the gifts of God. 
 
The widow’s son was in no position to obey. But because his Creator was present, he was in the perfect position to hear and obey; hear the Word of Life and obey by rising from the dead. 
 
Now, read your Bibles and continue steadfast in your devotions with this faith. The Hearing Faith, granted by God, that not only lets you hear and obey, but hear and live, forever. For not even death can stop that devotion.