Daniel 12:1-3/1 John 3:1-3/St Matthew 6:25-34
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Beloved in the Lord, you have one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father in heaven who loves you, who knows your needs and well provides them; who feeds and clothes you, shelters and protects you. In a thousand different ways He daily and richly provides you the daily bread that you need to support this body and life - even without your prayer.
Out of His fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in you, He has provided for you a Redeemer in the very person of His own beloved Son, crucified and raised; listen to St John, See what kind of the love the Father has given to us! For out of the same fatherly goodness and mercy He has bestowed upon you the grace of adoption as His dear children. The is the kind and quality of the love the Father has given to you. Altogether different from and misunderstood by this world, who scrape and search, chasing after mammon.
But you, beloved, do not be anxious and do not worry, neither about your life nor about your daily bread. For your Father in heaven knows that you need them. He loves you. He has and He will. Even now.
Dolores knew this. This is her trust and her confidence. The words of the Psalm are her prayer: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Ps 46:1). The hymn you just sang is her confession: “What God ordains is always good: His will is just and holy. As He directs my life for me, I follow meek and lowly. My God indeed in every need knows well how He will shield me; to Him then, I will yield me” (LSB 760:1).
And yield she did. Regularly and routinely she would turn over her anxieties to her Lord Jesus in prayer. The struggles of life. The concerns of family. Physical ailments and sorrow. She would faithfully and simply petition her Redeemer and Savior, Jesus Christ, who in love for her would place them on the throne of His dear Father who is also her dear Father. He delights to listen to the prayers of His dear children. He delights in the prayers of His child, Dolores.
Even in the hospital that last time, as we would discuss the next steps. Going home. Therapy. Life. Death. Her children. Grandchildren. Always any anxiety, any worry, she simply said, “I can only leave that to the Lord.”
Perhaps it was her time tending her garden all those years, but she learned well from the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, as our Lord Jesus instructs. Consider them. Learn from them. They are indeed our true schoolmasters and teachers, our theologians and preachers. The lunacy of a birds sowing seed, hoeing and tending, reaping a harvest into their barns! Yet your heavenly Father, Jesus’ heavenly Father, Dolores’ heavenly Father, He feeds them. He provides for them. Are you not of more value than they? Isn’t she?
Of supremely more value, indeed! For you were bought at a price. You are not your own. You are ransomed, you are redeemed, you are purchased, not with gold or silver, not with the mammon of this world, but with the holy, precious blood, the innocent suffering and death of your Lord Jesus Christ. Such is true for you. Such is true for Dolores, the dear child of our Father in heaven.
She knew she wasn’t perfect. She knew her sin. That her anxiety and worry was contrary to proper fear, love, and trust in God above all things. But according to His grace and by His Spirit, she sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. That is, by grace, she confessed her sins, and God, who is faithful and just, forgave her sins and cleansed her from all unrighteousness.
Dolores daily returned to her baptism, by which she was adopted in love and given the right to be called a child of God. There, in the glad streams of that baptismal river, she was clothed with a splendor that exceeds that of Solomon and all lilies; Dolores is clothed with the robe of Christ’s righteousness which covered all her sin. For Christ was cut down like grass and thrown into the oven of the Father’s wrath for her, in order that her name may be written in the book.
This is the eternal wisdom from above, that which the world does not know because it did not know Him: that the Cross and Passion, the Suffering and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ is the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness. Dolores knew this. She believed and confessed this truth, this wisdom. Folly to the world. A stumbling block and foolishness. But to those who are being saved, the power of God and the wisdom of God, Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
And here is more worldly foolishness, but heavenly wisdom: Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ for our Lord prepares for you the feast of salvation, the very Food of Life, His Body to eat and His Blood to drink for the forgiveness of your sins. Dolores believed His Word, for you, and in faith received this medicine of immortality. Her name shall be found written in the book of life, inscribed with the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
And behold I tell you a mystery: Dolores is not dead. She is alive in Christ Jesus who lived and died and rose for her. Today we shall lovingly place her body in God’s acre. She shall sleep in the dust of the earth, from whence shall the Prince of Life, Jesus Christ, awaken her to everlasting life. She hopes in Him. She is pure as He is pure. When He appears, she shall be life Him.
So it is for you beloved, for all who are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, who cling to Him by faith, even in the midst of anxiety and worry, sorrow and doubt. You are God’s children now. You too can sing, as Dolores confidently did, by the mercy of Christ Jesus: “Death, you cannot end my gladness, I am baptized into Christ! When I die, I leave all sadness to inherit paradise! Though I life in dust and ashes faith’s assurance brightly flashes: baptism has the strength divine to make life immortal mine” (LSB 594:4).
Therefore, dear List family, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. You have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father in heaven who loves you. Be still and know that He is God.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Beloved in the Lord, you have one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father in heaven who loves you, who knows your needs and well provides them; who feeds and clothes you, shelters and protects you. In a thousand different ways He daily and richly provides you the daily bread that you need to support this body and life - even without your prayer.
Out of His fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in you, He has provided for you a Redeemer in the very person of His own beloved Son, crucified and raised; listen to St John, See what kind of the love the Father has given to us! For out of the same fatherly goodness and mercy He has bestowed upon you the grace of adoption as His dear children. The is the kind and quality of the love the Father has given to you. Altogether different from and misunderstood by this world, who scrape and search, chasing after mammon.
But you, beloved, do not be anxious and do not worry, neither about your life nor about your daily bread. For your Father in heaven knows that you need them. He loves you. He has and He will. Even now.
Dolores knew this. This is her trust and her confidence. The words of the Psalm are her prayer: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Ps 46:1). The hymn you just sang is her confession: “What God ordains is always good: His will is just and holy. As He directs my life for me, I follow meek and lowly. My God indeed in every need knows well how He will shield me; to Him then, I will yield me” (LSB 760:1).
And yield she did. Regularly and routinely she would turn over her anxieties to her Lord Jesus in prayer. The struggles of life. The concerns of family. Physical ailments and sorrow. She would faithfully and simply petition her Redeemer and Savior, Jesus Christ, who in love for her would place them on the throne of His dear Father who is also her dear Father. He delights to listen to the prayers of His dear children. He delights in the prayers of His child, Dolores.
Even in the hospital that last time, as we would discuss the next steps. Going home. Therapy. Life. Death. Her children. Grandchildren. Always any anxiety, any worry, she simply said, “I can only leave that to the Lord.”
Perhaps it was her time tending her garden all those years, but she learned well from the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, as our Lord Jesus instructs. Consider them. Learn from them. They are indeed our true schoolmasters and teachers, our theologians and preachers. The lunacy of a birds sowing seed, hoeing and tending, reaping a harvest into their barns! Yet your heavenly Father, Jesus’ heavenly Father, Dolores’ heavenly Father, He feeds them. He provides for them. Are you not of more value than they? Isn’t she?
Of supremely more value, indeed! For you were bought at a price. You are not your own. You are ransomed, you are redeemed, you are purchased, not with gold or silver, not with the mammon of this world, but with the holy, precious blood, the innocent suffering and death of your Lord Jesus Christ. Such is true for you. Such is true for Dolores, the dear child of our Father in heaven.
She knew she wasn’t perfect. She knew her sin. That her anxiety and worry was contrary to proper fear, love, and trust in God above all things. But according to His grace and by His Spirit, she sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. That is, by grace, she confessed her sins, and God, who is faithful and just, forgave her sins and cleansed her from all unrighteousness.
Dolores daily returned to her baptism, by which she was adopted in love and given the right to be called a child of God. There, in the glad streams of that baptismal river, she was clothed with a splendor that exceeds that of Solomon and all lilies; Dolores is clothed with the robe of Christ’s righteousness which covered all her sin. For Christ was cut down like grass and thrown into the oven of the Father’s wrath for her, in order that her name may be written in the book.
This is the eternal wisdom from above, that which the world does not know because it did not know Him: that the Cross and Passion, the Suffering and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ is the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness. Dolores knew this. She believed and confessed this truth, this wisdom. Folly to the world. A stumbling block and foolishness. But to those who are being saved, the power of God and the wisdom of God, Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
And here is more worldly foolishness, but heavenly wisdom: Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ for our Lord prepares for you the feast of salvation, the very Food of Life, His Body to eat and His Blood to drink for the forgiveness of your sins. Dolores believed His Word, for you, and in faith received this medicine of immortality. Her name shall be found written in the book of life, inscribed with the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
And behold I tell you a mystery: Dolores is not dead. She is alive in Christ Jesus who lived and died and rose for her. Today we shall lovingly place her body in God’s acre. She shall sleep in the dust of the earth, from whence shall the Prince of Life, Jesus Christ, awaken her to everlasting life. She hopes in Him. She is pure as He is pure. When He appears, she shall be life Him.
So it is for you beloved, for all who are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, who cling to Him by faith, even in the midst of anxiety and worry, sorrow and doubt. You are God’s children now. You too can sing, as Dolores confidently did, by the mercy of Christ Jesus: “Death, you cannot end my gladness, I am baptized into Christ! When I die, I leave all sadness to inherit paradise! Though I life in dust and ashes faith’s assurance brightly flashes: baptism has the strength divine to make life immortal mine” (LSB 594:4).
Therefore, dear List family, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. You have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father in heaven who loves you. Be still and know that He is God.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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