The first sermon for Sunday, written earlier this week, became inapplicable in
a single moment.
So I wrote this one.
The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost
In Memoriam
+ Bobby Arnold +
WE ARE MEMBERS OF ONE ANOTHER
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ!
Amen! God wants us to know, right there in the center of today’s Epistle, that
“we are members of one another.”
Dear Christian friends,
Tragedy has struck our little flock this week. One of our number, a fellow
sheep in our flock, a member of our body has unexpectedly and terribly departed
to be with Christ. I am not going to say the name. You all know the name. If I
speak the name, we will all probably begin to miss the point.
Your Baptism into Christ is a two-sided coin.
On the first side of the coin, your Baptism gave you your true identity. Your
Baptism did more than give eternal life individually to you and forgiveness of
sins individually to you. Your Baptism also gave you your own personal identity
as an adopted child of God. If you were a cow out on the range, your Baptism
would be God branding your hide with the mark of His ranch and stapling an ID
number into your ear. In Baptism God personally made you who you now are, and
in Baptism God personally made our departed brother who he now is. Each and
every one of you individually, through each of your individual Baptisms, “you
were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).
But your Baptism into Christ is a two-sided coin.
On the other side of the coin, your Baptism did more than give you your
individual identity. Your Baptism also tore your individual identity away from
you.
• You were once a single strand of thread, but in Baptism God wove you
together into a seamless garment “woven in one piece from top to bottom” (John
19:23). Place your hand on the sleeve of your shirt. Roll the hem of your dress
between your fingers. It is not a thread that you feel! It is cloth; many
threads woven expertly together into one fabric. That is your Baptism.
• You were once a single drop of water. In Baptism God the heavenly
Father poured you into the font. On a hot and thirsty day, when you are parched
and nearly gasping, see how far a single drop of water will take you! What
truly will slake your thirst is not a single droplet, but countless droplets
poured together into one refreshing “cup of water” (Mark 9:41). That is your
Baptism.
• You were once dead. In your Baptism, God did more than make you alive
in Christ Jesus. In your Baptism, God grafted and surgically attached you into
a living Body that can never die. The living Body of the Church cannot die
because the resurrected blood of Jesus courses through her veins! Reach out an
touch an hand next to you. Feel the pliable skin; notice the warmth of the
fingers and the moisture of the palm. It is not an individual member that you
hold in your hand. It is a body part; it is part of a body. It is continually
nourished and well-supplied. It is alive because it is connected to something
larger and greater than itself. That is your Baptism!
That is what God is telling you in today’s Epistle. “We are members of one
another.” That is why I am not speaking any names here at the end of this
tragic week. A thread has been torn from the fabric. The water level in the cup
has been lowered. The body as suffered an injury.
Now is the time for each of us—as much as we are able—to be what God has made
us in Baptism.
• To the widows and widowers I say this: now that you have struggled to
learn was it means to be widowed, help others as they must no learn that bitter
lesson. “We are members of one another.”
• Those of you who have given up your sons or daughters, sons-in-law or
daughters-in-law, no matter what their age: “be kind and tenderhearted” to
those who now suffered the same.
• To all of you, I say this: God in your Baptism forgives you all your
sins on account of Jesus’ death and resurrection. “Where there is forgiveness
of sins, there is also life and salvation!” (Small Catechism, Sacrament of the
Altar). Speak the life! Confess the salvation! God “comforts us in all our
troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we
ourselves have received from God” (2 Corinthians 1:4, NIV).
• And come help your pastor tomorrow at noon. If there is any way you can
make it happen, come help me tomorrow at noon, up in Sedalia. Most of the
people who will be attending tomorrow’s funeral have one of two positions
concerning God’s gift of Baptism: they either do not know about it, or they
outright despise it. I am coming straight at them with our brother’s Baptism!
o You can help me be giving me a familiar face to look at.
o Tomorrow we will also sing the hymns of Baptism and eternal life. You
can help me by coming to sing—singing as if it were your last opportunity. You
will be helping our brother’s family, too. Some of them will know it and some
of them will not, but you will be helping them all.
o Finally, you can help me in the coming weeks and months by doing what
you have always done so well, being kind and tenderhearted toward one another,
and especially to the bereaved.
“We are members of one another.” During weeks like this past week, that is a
good think to know and to believe. “We are members of one another.” You need me
and I need you and we all need one another. “We are members of one another.”
Together we will stand and never fall because we are one fabric, one common
cup, one body raised to life by the Conqueror of Death, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore be imitators of God, … beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ
loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
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