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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Betty; Linda, Diane, Nancy, Bruce; other family and friends of Wayne, and Brothers and Sisters in Christ here at Pilgrim Lutheran Church,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
As you may know, near the end of Wayne’s life, his appetite seemed to vary. When he was last at home, our members reported his only drinking ice-cream shakes, maybe with a little Ensure or similar nutritional supplement mixed in. When I saw Wayne on Tuesday just after lunch at Highland Pines, I could tell from his tray that he had eaten most of what was set before him. That same day, while I was there, Wayne also hungered and thirsted for the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar, and I was pleased to satisfy that hunger. My reflecting on what may have been Wayne’s “final” meals in part led to my selecting the three Readings we heard today, which Readings all at least in part focus on the meal of eternal life. This morning we consider those three Readings under the theme “Wayne is feasting, and you can, too”.
I mentioned that all three Readings at least in part focus on the meal of eternal life, and that is true despite the fact that the three come from different times, places, and circumstances. The Old Testament Reading’s prophecy through Isaiah is part of God’s promising not only to bring about the downfall of Judah and its capital city of Jerusalem but also promising to restore them (Isaiah 25:6-9). The Epistle Reading’s revelation to St. John is part of God’s describing what He will do after His ultimate victory over His enemies (Revelation 19:4-9). And, the Gospel Reading’s excerpt is from Jesus’s teaching about Himself as the Bread of Life (John 5:27-40), which teaching in its entirety moves past His wedding-feast parables and feeding miracles to explicitly connect our eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood to our having eternal life and being raised up on the last day.
Since his cancer and the resulting surgeries, Wayne may not have had much of an appetite or been much of a verbal conversationalist, but he sure could say a lot non‑verbally. Our members recall his big smile, and even medical staff this week remarked about the frequent twinkle in his eyes. Sometimes I was inclined to think that the smile and twinkle were a little mischievous, and sometimes maybe they really were. It is not speaking ill of the dead to say that Wayne was—like all of us are—sinful by nature, and that sinful nature leads us to commit all sorts of actual sins of thought, word, and deed, not to mention to omit thoughts, words, and deeds that we should think, say, and do. You may be able to think of some of Wayne’s specific sins, just as others, including we ourselves, surely can think of our own specific sins. And, of course, God knows our specific sins best of all. The death all too evident before us—what the Old Testament Reading called “the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations”—such death is both the consequence of sin and the just penalty for sin, and not only such death here in time but also, apart from repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, the death of eternal torment in hell.
But, God does not want us to suffer such temporal and eternal death, so He calls and thereby enables us to repent and believe: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin—our sinful nature and all our actual sins, whatever our specific sins might be—God the Father forgives our sinful nature and all our actual sin for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
I would imagine that as a long-time mechanic for the Midland, Michigan, school system, Wayne was pretty good with all the tools and parts needed to solve the various problems he faced. But, neither Wayne nor anyone else, including any of us, could ever come up with a tool or part to solve our problem of sin. Only the God-man Jesus Christ could and did solve that problem, as He solved other physical problems during His earthly ministry. In the verses before today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus not only used five barley loaves and two fish to miraculously feed more than five‑thousand men, not to mention women and children, and still have twelve baskets full of leftover fragments (John 6:1‑13), but, as we heard in the Gospel Reading itself, Jesus also was and is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. God the Father loved this sinful world—you and me—by giving His only Son to be lifted up in death on the cross that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:14-16). There on the cross Jesus once gave His flesh for the life of the world then (John 6:51), and in a different way He repeatedly gives His flesh for the life of the world today. Whoever looks on the Son of Man and believes in Him Whom God has sent has eternal life already now and will be raised up on the last day. So, our Hymn of the Day (Lutheran Service Book 540) rightly refers to Jesus Christ as the Living Bread from heaven, Food for Body and Food for Soul, and Manna daily given; and the Hymn calls on Jesus to nourish, strengthen, and make us whole; to feed us with the Food of Heaven, the foretaste of the feast to be; and to lead us to His heavenly mansions, there to share His wedding feast.
As Wayne was Baptized back on October 25, 19‑53, by Pastor Knauff at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Reed City, Michigan, so the whole Church is cleansed by the washing of water with the word, made holy and without blemish in order to be Christ’s Bride (Ephesians 5:26-27). At the Baptismal Font, God makes us His children, and, as we sang in the Entrance Hymn (LSB 725), God His own doth tend and nourish, and in His holy courts we flourish. The greatest part of God’s tending and nourishing us is His giving us, in the Sacrament of the Altar, the true food of Jesus’s Flesh with bread and the true drink of Jesus’s Blood with wine; thereby, we abide in Him and He abides in us, and we feed on Him and live forever because of Him, and He will raise us up on the last day (John 6:53‑58). Likened unto but far better than rich food full of marrow and well‑aged wine well refined, this food and drink gives all repentant believers the forgiveness of sins, and so also life and salvation. Wayne in particular so ate and drank, as recently as Tuesday, and Wayne will be so raised up. In a sense, Wayne is already feasting now, and you and I can, too, in order for us to feast together with him for eternity.
As we grieve Wayne’s loss from this world, we may be comforted in part that his suffering from his various health issues has ended, but our greatest comfort is the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the body and the blessed reunion in heaven. But, that particular comfort, strictly speaking, only applies to repentant believers who, like Wayne, feast here and now. God graciously invites all people to His feast of salvation, but, as we heard in the Gospel Reading, sadly some do not believe, and so they do not come with repentance and faith. As we heard in the Epistle Reading, those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb are truly blessed, but they are only truly blessed insofar as they come. On the last day, when God has raised all people, separated the unbelievers from the believers, and given the believers glorified bodies like unto His own, then, as described in the Old Testament Reading, God will wipe away tears from all faces, and we will fully feast with Him and so be glad and rejoice in His salvation.
Wayne hungered and thirsted for righteousness and is being satisfied (Matthew 5:6; confer Luke 6:21). Wayne has a greater appreciation now of God’s gift of eternal life for Jesus’s sake, but the greatest appreciation of that gift is still to come, both for him and for us. The final stanza of our Recessional Hymn (LSB 708), which we will sing in a few minutes and I sang with Wayne late Wednesday night, well describes that greater appreciation. Yet even now, in the words of Psalm 23, which I shared with some of you several times in the last few days, even walking through the valley of the shadow of death, God’s rod and staff comfort you; He prepares a table before you and your cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy follows all His repentant believers all the days of our lives, and we shall dwell in His house forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +