Revelation 7:2-17; 1 John 3:1-3; St Matthew 5:1-12
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Saints, see the cloud of witnesses surround us and fix your eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of your faith. Easier said than done! For even though, when He appears you shall see Him as He is, because you shall be like Him, it has not yet appeared what you shall be. And though it is most certainly true that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, prophets and apostles, martyrs and saints, all the faithful departed who have gone before us in Christ Jesus, you cannot see them.
What you behold is not the Resurrection, nor the glorious life of heaven, as was revealed to St John, but the Cross and suffering, sin and death. You behold the number sealed, the elect of God, this side of heaven in the Church Militant. You behold all the trials and temptations of the great tribulation in which you presently live. You see it in your neighbors and you experience is in yourself, in your mortal flesh and blood, in this poor life of labor.
Above all you behold it in those whom you have loved in this life, who have died, who are now but dust and ashes, hidden away in boxes. Their bodies and their lives are in Christ Jesus, out of sight, hidden from your senses.
Thus do you feel empty and alone. You know the pain of separation, of loss and sorrow, of doubt and uncertainty - which scares you even more because faith is threatened and you are tempted to despair. Or else tempted to become cold and harsh and calloused. Cynicism creeps in, where faith ought to hold sway. So you strive and you wrestle between what is heard and spoken to you in the Word of Christ and what is seen and experienced in your life and in yourself.
Beloved, do not despair, and do not lose heart. Though it does not yet appear to be so, you are a beloved child of Your Father in heaven through Christ Jesus His Son. At the last He shall appear shall stand on the earth, the crucified and risen Lord, and every eye shall see Him, including you, with your own eyes, in your own risen and glorified body.
And just as you are a child of God in Him, you shall be like Him - righteous and holy, innocent and beautiful, never to die again, but alive forevermore. Your body will no longer be tired or sore, frail or falling apart, but immortal and imperishable, glorious, like His own glorious body. This is most certainly true.
But with your eyes you do not yet see the risen, exalted, all-glorious Christ Jesus as St John had revealed unto him. Rather you see Him crucified. In the hurts and heartaches of this mortal life in a fallen, sinful world. You see the Cross all around you in the curse of sin and death, and, even, in the Ministry of the Gospel, since it is the Gospel of the Cross.
What, then, shall we say to these things?
For now fix your hope on Jesus who is your sure and certain Hope. Not just with your eyes, but with your ears, by the hearing of His Word, by repentance and faith. By the confession of His Name in the face of sin and death and hell. By the daily remembrance of your Baptism and by the eating and drinking of His Body and Blood.
For by these are your body and soul cleansed and purified with the water of life flowing from the side of Christ, the Lamb who was slain, yet behold He lives! Your ears hear and receive His Gospel, His Word of forgiveness, and the gracious gift of His Spirit. Your heart believes and with your mouth you confess and eat and drink.
When your eyes behold the hurt and heartache of your neighbor, then behold Christ the Crucified in your neighbor. And so fix your hope in Jesus and help, where you can, in the confession and confidence of the resurrection of the body.
That eternal reality puts all things in perspective in this temporal life. The sufferings and death of the body are real and they are significant. But they are not final; not ultimate. Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb! Building on the hope of our Lord’s own bodily resurrection you are able, by His grace, to love and serve and care for your neighbor’s body while you can. Whether that be in the bodies of our spouses or parents, or in the little, in utero bodies of the unborn. Because it is in the hope of the resurrection that you care for your neighbor in his body and lay to rest the bodies of your loved ones who have died in the faith.
As it is written, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. They rest from their labors and their good works do follow them (Rev 14:13).
Your works of faith and love also follow you. They do not lead the way, but they follow after you, in goodness and mercy with Christ your Good Shepherd leading you in the way of righteousness, by His Cross, for His Name’s sake. Even now, in bearing your cross, you are like Him who bore your sins in His own body on the Tree. He made Himself to be like you that you should become a blessed and beloved son of God in Him, by grace, through faith in His redemption.
Christ has borne your poverty that you should receive the inheritance of His heavenly kingdom. He has come down from heaven to earth in gentleness and meekness so that all of creation is redeemed, made new and sanctified in His crucifixion and resurrection, so that even here on earth, while you are yet on your pilgrimage, you are already at home with your Father in heaven by faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.
And the same Lord Jesus Christ has had compassion on you. He has mourned for you and your loved ones. He has died for you and for all, so that you shall be comforted in Him who is your Resurrection and your Life everlasting. For He has reconciled you to His God and Father by His Cross. He grants you His peace, not as the world gives, but with His forgiveness of your sins. He feeds your deepest hunger and quenches your deepest thirst with His own Word and Spirit. And by His grace and mercy toward you, He purified you with His Gospel, this day and every day throughout the years.
Therefore when you are persecuted and accused of all kinds of evil, and you are insulted for the sake of Christ, and even put to death, rejoice and be glad. For He has also been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, insulted and falsely accused and put to death on the Cross. So also His prophets and apostles, martyrs and all saints, and all of His disciples who take up the Cross and follow Him.
Christ Jesus is the Blessed of the Lord who bestows the blessing of His Father upon you by way of His own Cross and Passion. You who bear the Cross and suffer and die with Christ, shall indeed rise with Him. Though you die, yet shall you live, and you shall never die.
By His Word and Spirit He has gathered you here around the Lamb upon His throne, His Altar within His Church, to worship and confess Him by faith. It is true, the world cannot see Him here. But neither can you, not in the way that you shall at the Last. And yet, St John exclaims to you, See what kind of the love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God and so we are! You love because He first loved you. He has given Himself for you. He has risen for you. And He is here with you. He shall never leave you nor forsake you, but here gives Himself to you. He abides with you in order that you may live and abide in Him forever.
It is a sure and certain hope that you confess. And this is the new song that you sing, joining with the angels and living creatures, the whole company of heaven in the one voice of His Word by His Spirit, ringing out here in His divine liturgy, where He joins you together with them in His own Body and Blood around the Throne of the Lamb in enteral adoration and praise.
Thus when you give thanks to the Lord for those who have gone before us in the faith, they are indeed, in Him, present here with you. Heaven is where Jesus is. He brings heaven down to you in the divine liturgy, with His life giving Body and death defying Blood. Sin and death and devastation are not the end. Christ, not these things, is trustworthy and true!
In the great tribulation of the Cross you also have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. Your nakedness is clothed and your shame is covered by the white robes of His perfect righteousness. And here at His Altar, in the company of angels and archangels and all the host of heaven, with the great cloud of witnesses who surely do surround us, though hidden from your eyes, you eat the Body of that same Lamb and drink His Blood.
His Blood which shelters and protects you, covers over you in love and marks the doors and lintels of your hearts in order the the Angel of Death may Passover you. His Body nourishes and strengthens you, as true Manna, even through the wilderness and the valley of the shadow of death, unto the resurrection of your body and the life everlasting.
Likewise, in these, His Body and Blood, He presents you to His Father in Himself as He has made Himself one with you through His suffering and death. His sacrifice atones for you. In Him, your sacrifices of love and care and devotion to your neighbor, are acceptable and holy. In this way, beloved, you are purified by faith in Christ and exercise this faith in love for one another.
At the Last, whether in death or at the coming of Christ, you shall see Him in perfection, even as He has completed and finished all things for you in the goal and end of His Cross and Passion. When He appears, you shall be like Him and on that account, you shall see Him as He is and you will know fully, even as you have been fully known. The Lamb of God who is your merciful King, shall sit upon His glorious throne and shelter you with His abiding presence, eternally your Shepherd, guiding you to the springs of living water.
In the Name of the Father + and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Saints, see the cloud of witnesses surround us and fix your eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of your faith. Easier said than done! For even though, when He appears you shall see Him as He is, because you shall be like Him, it has not yet appeared what you shall be. And though it is most certainly true that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, prophets and apostles, martyrs and saints, all the faithful departed who have gone before us in Christ Jesus, you cannot see them.
What you behold is not the Resurrection, nor the glorious life of heaven, as was revealed to St John, but the Cross and suffering, sin and death. You behold the number sealed, the elect of God, this side of heaven in the Church Militant. You behold all the trials and temptations of the great tribulation in which you presently live. You see it in your neighbors and you experience is in yourself, in your mortal flesh and blood, in this poor life of labor.
Above all you behold it in those whom you have loved in this life, who have died, who are now but dust and ashes, hidden away in boxes. Their bodies and their lives are in Christ Jesus, out of sight, hidden from your senses.
Thus do you feel empty and alone. You know the pain of separation, of loss and sorrow, of doubt and uncertainty - which scares you even more because faith is threatened and you are tempted to despair. Or else tempted to become cold and harsh and calloused. Cynicism creeps in, where faith ought to hold sway. So you strive and you wrestle between what is heard and spoken to you in the Word of Christ and what is seen and experienced in your life and in yourself.
Beloved, do not despair, and do not lose heart. Though it does not yet appear to be so, you are a beloved child of Your Father in heaven through Christ Jesus His Son. At the last He shall appear shall stand on the earth, the crucified and risen Lord, and every eye shall see Him, including you, with your own eyes, in your own risen and glorified body.
And just as you are a child of God in Him, you shall be like Him - righteous and holy, innocent and beautiful, never to die again, but alive forevermore. Your body will no longer be tired or sore, frail or falling apart, but immortal and imperishable, glorious, like His own glorious body. This is most certainly true.
But with your eyes you do not yet see the risen, exalted, all-glorious Christ Jesus as St John had revealed unto him. Rather you see Him crucified. In the hurts and heartaches of this mortal life in a fallen, sinful world. You see the Cross all around you in the curse of sin and death, and, even, in the Ministry of the Gospel, since it is the Gospel of the Cross.
What, then, shall we say to these things?
For now fix your hope on Jesus who is your sure and certain Hope. Not just with your eyes, but with your ears, by the hearing of His Word, by repentance and faith. By the confession of His Name in the face of sin and death and hell. By the daily remembrance of your Baptism and by the eating and drinking of His Body and Blood.
For by these are your body and soul cleansed and purified with the water of life flowing from the side of Christ, the Lamb who was slain, yet behold He lives! Your ears hear and receive His Gospel, His Word of forgiveness, and the gracious gift of His Spirit. Your heart believes and with your mouth you confess and eat and drink.
When your eyes behold the hurt and heartache of your neighbor, then behold Christ the Crucified in your neighbor. And so fix your hope in Jesus and help, where you can, in the confession and confidence of the resurrection of the body.
That eternal reality puts all things in perspective in this temporal life. The sufferings and death of the body are real and they are significant. But they are not final; not ultimate. Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb! Building on the hope of our Lord’s own bodily resurrection you are able, by His grace, to love and serve and care for your neighbor’s body while you can. Whether that be in the bodies of our spouses or parents, or in the little, in utero bodies of the unborn. Because it is in the hope of the resurrection that you care for your neighbor in his body and lay to rest the bodies of your loved ones who have died in the faith.
As it is written, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. They rest from their labors and their good works do follow them (Rev 14:13).
Your works of faith and love also follow you. They do not lead the way, but they follow after you, in goodness and mercy with Christ your Good Shepherd leading you in the way of righteousness, by His Cross, for His Name’s sake. Even now, in bearing your cross, you are like Him who bore your sins in His own body on the Tree. He made Himself to be like you that you should become a blessed and beloved son of God in Him, by grace, through faith in His redemption.
Christ has borne your poverty that you should receive the inheritance of His heavenly kingdom. He has come down from heaven to earth in gentleness and meekness so that all of creation is redeemed, made new and sanctified in His crucifixion and resurrection, so that even here on earth, while you are yet on your pilgrimage, you are already at home with your Father in heaven by faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.
And the same Lord Jesus Christ has had compassion on you. He has mourned for you and your loved ones. He has died for you and for all, so that you shall be comforted in Him who is your Resurrection and your Life everlasting. For He has reconciled you to His God and Father by His Cross. He grants you His peace, not as the world gives, but with His forgiveness of your sins. He feeds your deepest hunger and quenches your deepest thirst with His own Word and Spirit. And by His grace and mercy toward you, He purified you with His Gospel, this day and every day throughout the years.
Therefore when you are persecuted and accused of all kinds of evil, and you are insulted for the sake of Christ, and even put to death, rejoice and be glad. For He has also been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, insulted and falsely accused and put to death on the Cross. So also His prophets and apostles, martyrs and all saints, and all of His disciples who take up the Cross and follow Him.
Christ Jesus is the Blessed of the Lord who bestows the blessing of His Father upon you by way of His own Cross and Passion. You who bear the Cross and suffer and die with Christ, shall indeed rise with Him. Though you die, yet shall you live, and you shall never die.
By His Word and Spirit He has gathered you here around the Lamb upon His throne, His Altar within His Church, to worship and confess Him by faith. It is true, the world cannot see Him here. But neither can you, not in the way that you shall at the Last. And yet, St John exclaims to you, See what kind of the love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God and so we are! You love because He first loved you. He has given Himself for you. He has risen for you. And He is here with you. He shall never leave you nor forsake you, but here gives Himself to you. He abides with you in order that you may live and abide in Him forever.
It is a sure and certain hope that you confess. And this is the new song that you sing, joining with the angels and living creatures, the whole company of heaven in the one voice of His Word by His Spirit, ringing out here in His divine liturgy, where He joins you together with them in His own Body and Blood around the Throne of the Lamb in enteral adoration and praise.
Thus when you give thanks to the Lord for those who have gone before us in the faith, they are indeed, in Him, present here with you. Heaven is where Jesus is. He brings heaven down to you in the divine liturgy, with His life giving Body and death defying Blood. Sin and death and devastation are not the end. Christ, not these things, is trustworthy and true!
In the great tribulation of the Cross you also have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. Your nakedness is clothed and your shame is covered by the white robes of His perfect righteousness. And here at His Altar, in the company of angels and archangels and all the host of heaven, with the great cloud of witnesses who surely do surround us, though hidden from your eyes, you eat the Body of that same Lamb and drink His Blood.
His Blood which shelters and protects you, covers over you in love and marks the doors and lintels of your hearts in order the the Angel of Death may Passover you. His Body nourishes and strengthens you, as true Manna, even through the wilderness and the valley of the shadow of death, unto the resurrection of your body and the life everlasting.
Likewise, in these, His Body and Blood, He presents you to His Father in Himself as He has made Himself one with you through His suffering and death. His sacrifice atones for you. In Him, your sacrifices of love and care and devotion to your neighbor, are acceptable and holy. In this way, beloved, you are purified by faith in Christ and exercise this faith in love for one another.
At the Last, whether in death or at the coming of Christ, you shall see Him in perfection, even as He has completed and finished all things for you in the goal and end of His Cross and Passion. When He appears, you shall be like Him and on that account, you shall see Him as He is and you will know fully, even as you have been fully known. The Lamb of God who is your merciful King, shall sit upon His glorious throne and shelter you with His abiding presence, eternally your Shepherd, guiding you to the springs of living water.
In the Name of the Father + and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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