Simply Lutheran

Proclaiming a living Redeemer is thematic of the little gallery below. Pic #1 tells us that the Living Word of God heralds (note the Lily) a living Christ; as well as Pic #2 of Gustave Doré shows Job explaining to his friends that he knows his Redeemer lives; and, Pic #3 is Karl H. Bloch's famous painting heralding Jesus' resurrection (note the lilies); and, lastly, Pic #4 portrays the first Lutheran Mass was celebrated in in Brandenburg, 1539, St. Nikolai-Kirche where Paul Gerhardt ministered and Johann Crüger was the director of music. One of the Easter hymns sung in our churches by Gerhardt (words) and Crüger (tune) is Auf, auf, meine Herz, mit Freuden, translated, "Awake, My Heart, with Gladness.”

This brings me to my Easter Day resurrection address:

“The Physical Resurrection: that Old Certainty”
Job 19: (23-24) 25-27 25) For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; 26) And after my skin is destroyed, this know, That in my flesh I shall see God, 27) Whom I shall see for myself, And my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me.

Halleluiah! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed, Halleluiah!

My Christian friends: In the Bible, Jōb expressed great patience regardless of his outbursts against his Creator: That God would grant his request and crush him (6:9); that God is a tyrant that crushes him and increases his wounds without cause and also fills him with bitterness (9:16-18); that God is a vicious beast who gnashes him with His teeth (16:9); that God is a ruffian who takes him by the neck and shakes him to pieces (16:12). Job is a very submissive man who, despite all the tragedies that came upon him, still would not “curse God with his lips.” What good does it do for a pious man to believe in his Redeemer knowing that God has His hand in all of the horrible misfortune? Many even today in the midst of this new tormenting virus would ask the same question, namely, “What good does it do to believe in Jesus Christ and worship Him this Easter?”

Yes, that same question presents itself to all of us during this coronavirus pandemic. It seems to be in the thoughts of some Christians, who claim that God is not just, even though they might confess that Jesus died on the cross for their sins and on the third day rose again. It seems that no matter what you might say to edify these types of Christians in the faith, they still insist on ignoring the One who has not only comforted them in times past but also has redeemed them. It is written that if you indeed love God you will keep His commandments and first commandment, as Luther explained, is to fear, love and trust in God above all things.

Too often weak Christians acknowledge Christ’s resurrection and come to worship services on Easter but don’t care enough about their Savior to worship, thank, and praise Him on any other day. And it is truly amazing because, as generations come and go, the liberal thinking Christians deny a physical resurrection because that is the way they are brought up to believe. The Bible to them is not a testimony to the truth neither is it seen as the very Word of God but a book merely “containing the word of God” written by men, which is to be researched and critiqued just as they do any other book. But the Bible is a tool, yes even the living Voice of God today that reveals your Redeemer that He may live in your heart by faith! For if you can remember only one thing from today’s sermon, let it be this, namely, that Christ’s resurrection from the dead assures you of God’s love and of your own promised physical resurrection to life.

Much too often, many weak Christians come under the spell of these deniers of the faith so that they no longer trust in what God promises them in Scripture. Jesus becomes just another redeemer; the liberator of the socially oppressed without regard to the fact that it is really sin that holds them in bondage.

Whenever Jesus is viewed by the secular news media, the question usually asked is what would Jesus do if He walked the streets of our cities today or what kind of car would He drive? This Jesus is portrayed by today’s preachers and teachers as the great professor of sociology. You could swear by their portrayal of the Savior that He is merely a political leader of this world who believed in a Marxist view of governing. And if perchance the notion should slip out that Jesus’ mission on earth was to atone for the sins of the world in order to save mankind from the curse of God’s Law, and that His concern wasn’t for the social needs of the people but the spiritual needs of salvation from their own bondage to sin – well – then the ridiculing of faithful Christians begins.

But this is nothing new. There was a pagan philosopher of the second century named Celsus whose claim to fame was that he was the first to put in writing how ridiculous this religion of Christianity was. He wrote how our faith was utter nonsense and how the Christian teaching that there is a God who takes an interest in His creation, was absurd. Celsus’ pen was to have its believers in every generation. And the atheist, American, writer and lecturer of the 19th Century, Robert Ingersoll was one of them. He himself spoke of one of the “great liberators” of the human soul as he wrote: “On Sunday, November 21, 1694, a babe was born – Voltaire! a name that excites the admiration of men, the malignity of priests. Voltaire was the greatest man of his century and did more to free the human race than any other of the sons of men.”

But what is it that made Job so different, a man who was terribly afflicted, that he could confess: “I know that my Redeemer lives” while other men remain the doubters and despisers of the Savior of the world? What made Job boldly state, “Though He slays me, yet will I trust Him”? (Job 13:15) Others of lesser pain and anguish would opt to take their own life, thinking that it is theirs to dispose of as they wish. But it is God that gives man his life and God who takes that life away. I believe the contrasts can be attributed to the secular counseling a person receives.

For example, Job had many counselors who tried to probe his psyche and isolate his problem. But the counsel from Scripture far surpasses human wisdom. For what St. Paul (himself a highly educated man) wrote to the Roman Christians is a certainty: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

People who don’t fear and love God might even take their own life rather than live as a so-called vegetable, or face a terminal illness, or even consider death to the mental anguish of losing a girl friend or boyfriend, or long-time spouse.

At least Job’s friends saw God as a major factor in Job’s problems. Yet Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, weren’t much better in crisis counseling. Eliphaz , in Job chapter 4, isolated the problem to say that Job’s suffering was caused by guilt and urged his friend to repent. Bildad’s first speech emphasized the premise of Eliphaz, namely, that Job lost his children, and servants, and was suffering his own torments because of some previous sin. Zophar gave his counsel on the premise of God’s inscrutable wisdom and urged Job to repent of something anyway! (I like to think of this third friend of Job as being this way: Zophar…zo good.) So, the maxim is proven: “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”

It is correct that daily repentance is necessary, but repentance was not the problem here. Job remained right before the Lord who was ever more strengthening his faith from the trials with which God permitted Satan to try him. So, I find it a remarkable thing that even with all the terrible advice he had to endure, the fact remained that Job’s faith in his living Redeemer brought forth this great trust and faith in the midst of extreme suffering.

As an undergraduate at The Ohio State University, one of the courses required in the college of education was the Philosophy of Education. The textbook for the course was Authority and Freedom in Education by Paul Nash. Speaking on the perils of commitment, Nash said that “Carl Jung pointed out that creeds and dogmas may be substitutes for, indeed protection against immediate experience of God. Commitment to a firm dogma…may constitute a screen between the individual and direct experience” (p.298). Somehow, I don’t think Job’s trust in God and the firm belief that his Redeemer lives came between him and what he was directly experiencing. Nash wrote that Christianity was, indeed, responsible for much of the world’s problems.

Nash persisted in saying that the “genuine person” is “an autonomous person.” Nash himself firmly believes his own instruction, and I quote: “Young people need to be shown how to grow into a state of intellectual and emotional self-reliance that will enable them to face life without depending on old certainties that are no longer valid.” But it is these “old certainties” that sustain a person’s life and brings that same life through death into eternal life in a glorified, physical body.

Luther comments, in his time, about these “old certainties” (that Paul Nash so derides) and what would become of people who live contrary to the faith in the resurrection from the dead. Commenting on 1 Corinthians 15:16ff, Dr. Luther says:
“Therefore, if we knew of no other life, we should also hold our peace and let the people live like cows and pigs, which probably also know very well what is good for them. We should let it rest at that and neglect pulpit and all. We should not devote so much attention to it as to create such a stir over it in the world, if it were but effort lost and if it would serve and help neither this nor that life.
“Therefore, if you desire no other life nor believe in it, just disregard preaching. If you do not care to have a God, you also do not need to hear us, nor need we preach to you. For, God be praised, we are not so stupid that we should wish to propagate this doctrine in vain, or only to regulate this body and this life with it. No, we find that ordered very well already by the heathen and by reason. Our only concern is to teach how—after our Baptism—we may get from this to yonder life. To that end we have to preach and to admonish daily. But if there were nothing to the resurrection, all of that would be entirely in vain and futile.”

It is amazing that Job confessed a belief in the physical resurrection to a glorified body, and stated that after his fleshly destruction, he will, in his own flesh, see God, and will behold Him with his own eyes! But yet today, many cannot see this Redeemer because they cannot reconcile, by their reason, the horrible things that happen in their lives and in the world if there were a God.

Therefore, they fall prey to the 19th Century “God is Dead” philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche who wrote: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

For me, earlier in my liberal theological training, my Redeemer was not pictured as being alive for there were no certainties: No real heaven, no real hell, no physical resurrection, essentially no real hope for eternal life. As it is written, “For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!” And just before that, Paul told the Corinthians (1 Cor.15:12-14): Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection from the dead?” (Well here you could say as several Lutheran pastors and teachers would have to say if they are truthful, that the resurrection of Christ is only symbolic for some greater truth, and that what is certain is that it was not a physical resurrection). But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.

Job didn’t come to trust in God because of the earthly knowledge of his wife and friends. No sir! The teacher that brought him such great trust in his Redeemer was the Holy Spirit of God. And each one of us has such a tutor, a teacher and adviser to our families. This Tutor is the Bible: It never takes a vacation; it has no bad habits. This Tutor won’t borrow money from you or raid your refrigerator; this Tutor will be up as early in the morning as you are; it will stay up all night; it will help to solve problems your children may have; it answers questions from “how did I get here” to “where am I going.” This Tutor will comfort you in your worst hours and cure your worst fears. This Tutor will keep you on the right pathway through life and will see you safely through all trials. This Tutor is your Bible, where all the “old certainties” are found and are proven time and again to be true. It is through the Written Word of God that you know that your Redeemer lives.

See how the angels that first Easter morning addressed the women at the empty tomb, using the very words of Jesus as recorded in Luke 24:5-7, They said to the women, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’” And these words still speak to you in the Bible, the Living Voice of God.

Just look again this morning as we sing of those old certainties as our sure hope; look to verses four and five of that great Easter hymn, I Know that My Redeemer Lives, to see how much your living Redeemer loves you and still works for you: He lives so that you can receive your heavenly mansions when you die; He lives to guide you with His eye, He lives to comfort you when faint, He lives to hear your soul’s complaint. And that was what our friend Job was counting upon.

Yes, your Redeemer lives and is working in you and through you this hour. He also lives so that you can feed on Him by taking His physical, precious, body and blood again today, in a miraculous, sacramental way with the elements of bread and wine. Through these means He strengthens your faith and increases your love toward God and neighbor.

Oh, friends, you can still trust in that saying of Job, “I know that my Redeemer lives!” For Jesus lives to give to you all His blessings, yes even that old certainty of your own physical resurrection from the dead. Amen.