Trinity 16
Dear friends in Christ. Last week’s Gospel reading was part of our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. In it He was teaching us contentment. He was pointing out to us that just as He provides what the plants and animals need—that is, as He provides for and preserves His creation—how much more so will He provide for us in all of our physical needs! There Jesus says [Mt. 6.26]: Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? That’s the secret to being content: knowing that the Lord will provide for us in the way that He knows is best for us. That’s why the Christian need not excessively worry: all things are in our Lord’s hands. We need not worry because the Lord provides for us what and in what way He knows is best for us.
Precisely this makes contentment so difficult! Our old sinful nature that we all have distrusts God. Our old sinful nature—led on and encouraged by the devil and the world around us—leads us not to look at God and His gracious providing but to ourselves, our abilities, etc. That’s where faith in the Lord’s word and promise comes in. Faith holds to God’s word and promise; faith knows that whatever way the Lord is leading and providing is the best way. The secret of being content, then, is faith in our Lord and trust in His word and promises. Here it is also vital to remember that wherever it depends upon us and our efforts and strivings all is uncertain—we instinctively know that, and that’s what we tend to focus on and that’s why we are so often filled with worry; but whenever it depends upon God and His word, promise and work everything is certain.
Maybe we can accept the fact that the Lord provides for us in all our spiritual needs—forgiveness of sin, life, salvation—but for all our physical needs as well? Absolutely! Not only remember what we heard last week [Mt. 6.25]: Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on, but also what we see Jesus doing in today’s Gospel reading: raising from the dead the son of the widow from Nain. Notice, Jesus didn’t just tell her to cheer up, that the soul of her son is in heaven. Jesus didn’t tell her not to worry about it, that the body doesn’t matter since the soul lives on; Jesus certainly didn’t tell her the putrid sentiment so common today that her son lives on in her heart and memory. Instead, what did Jesus do? He raised her son; He undid death: body and soul were reunited!
What makes a person a person is that they are both soul and body. Like we saw in last week’s Gospel reading—God cares for and provides for the body; He doesn’t just care for the soul but the soul and body. In today’s Gospel, Jesus restores life to the body as He reunites soul and body. By that He gives a glimpse and foretaste of what He will do on the Last Day—raise all the dead from their graves—no matter where they may be—and rejoin soul and body; as we confess in the Creed: I believe in…the resurrection of the body.
1. The point behind all this? The body is important. It’s not as if the only thing God cares about is the soul and the body is only at best incidental. Not only that, but for the Christian, the importance and glory of our bodies we find also in the words of today’s Epistle, our text: that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Christ lives in us. That’s how special and significant we should consider our bodies—as that place that Christ—in fact, the holy Triune God—lives. That will affect how we look at and treat our bodies and how we handle/ deal with the end-of-life issues.
Although certainly not St. Paul’s main intent, he begins our text: Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. Paul was enduring suffering on account of the Gospel, so that he could bring the Gospel and continue to bring the Gospel to people and strengthen them in it. Certainly some of it was spiritual sufferings and spiritual attacks of the devil on Paul and his faith; but Paul also suffered bodily. In another epistle [2 Cor. 11.23-33], Paul lists some of his physical/ bodily sufferings: imprisonments, beatings, stoning, shipwreck, hunger, thirst, cold, toils, etc. The point is this: whatever is good and of God the devil attacks and tries to destroy. He tried to destroy St. Paul bodily. And why? Because the body is a good thing, a gift of God, and in the case of St. Paul and all Christians, it is the dwelling place/ temple of the holy Triune God.
Our bodies are not the result of chance or fluke; the natural result of a certain act. Instead, each of us is a special creation of God. Yes, the Lord uses natural means, but each of us—soul and body—is a special and glorious creation of God. Ever since the creation of Adam and Eve the devil has hated God’s creation of human life. That’s why it was such a coup for him to get Adam and Eve to sin; because when he did that the devil not only brought sin and death into the world and all sorts of toil and trouble, but he also corrupted humanity so much that now all of us who are conceived and born and already conceived and born as sinners and guilty [Psalm 51.5]. So what does all this mean? It means that each ache and pain you feel, each sickness/ disease that you suffer, every diminishing capacity to hear, to see, to think should serve you as a reminder that your body is God’s wonderful gift to you and precisely because it is God’s wonderful creation the devil attacks it! Never adopt the attitude of many who only think the soul is important and the body “immaterial”. That attitude is the “camel’s nose” into adopting all kinds of anti-life attitudes like killing the sick and elderly—“after all,” goes the corrupted reasoning, “it’s just a body/ a shell.”
Instead, so precious is the body to God who created it that Christ…dwell[s] in your hearts through faith. That’s God’s verdict on the body—this seemingly lowly thing full of sickness and death and under attack of the devil. May we see the true gift and glory of our bodies: the body is a good thing, a special/ glorious creation of God that He has entrusted to us and in which in His dear Christians He dwells; and on the Last Day Christ will bodily raise all the dead.
2. So precious and vital are our bodies that God Himself, the Son, the 2nd Person of the blessed and Holy Trinity took on human flesh and blood as St John records [1 John 1.1]: He Who was from the beginning, Whom we have heard, Whom we have seen with our eyes, whom we looked upon and have touched with our hands... The Son of God became true man so that He could save us soul and body! That’s how much God valued us, even our bodies—His creation. Now from the moment of His incarnation—that is, when the Son of God took on human flesh and blood in the womb of Mary—into all eternity, Jesus is true God and true man.
Since the Son of God became also a true man, it should not surprise us when St. Paul writes in our text: that Christ…dwell[s] in your hearts through faith. Jesus, in fact the Triune God dwells within the Christian, within our bodies. That’s what is called the mystical union. That’s all because of Jesus and His saving work!
Jesus became true man for a reason: to place Himself under God’s holy Law in order to keep it for us. He had to do this for us because we are sinners who daily sin against God’s law and can in no way keep it. By our sins we earn/deserve nothing but His wrath and eternal damnation. Jesus gives to God in our place the perfect holiness/ righteousness that He demands if we are to enter heaven.
Not only that, but because God is not only a holy God who must punish sin, but also a merciful God, Jesus took all our sins upon Himself—became the world’s sinner—and there in our place endured all of the punishment for the sins of the world; there on the cross all of God’s wrath over our sin has been poured out of Christ—instead of on us! Now in Christ, the whole sinful and corrupt world has been reconciled to the holy God. Because Jesus offered the once for all, perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world, He was raised from the dead. Easter is the pronouncement that the world is forgiven/ declared righteous.
Now because we are forgiven our sin in Christ and declared righteous, the Holy Spirit working in the word and sacrament brings us to faith in Jesus and His saving work and so we receive the gifts and blessings He brought about; as faith receives that forgiveness of sins and perfect holiness of Jesus, God declares us righteous. By the work of the Holy Spirit working this faith in Jesus and His work in our hearts, we then love Jesus. And what happens? Jesus tells us [John 14.23]: If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and we will come to Him and make Our home with him. Did you catch that? The holy Triune God comes into us, into our hearts, our body, to make His home with us—or as St. Paul puts it in our text: Christ…dwell[s] in your hearts through faith. What a blessing for us! What a great grace of God toward us—He condescends to come and dwell in our hearts. God Himself is dwelling within our bodies. What a worth, value, dignity that our bodies have! Not only did God create them, but He makes His home in His dear Christians. Who can sufficiently understand God’s grace here: He, the holy God, dwells in our bodies—the bodies that are weakened by sin and its effects and attacked by the devil? That Christ…dwell[s] in your hearts through faith, God’s dwelling within us, His Christians, is not just His general presence like He has with all His creatures; it’s not just His mere influence on us or the giving of divine gifts. Who can fully grasp that most glorious description of the Christian that St. Paul gives [1 Cor. 3.16; 6.15; also 6.19; 2 Cor. 6.16]: Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? And Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Dear Christian, what a grace! We are called and are the temple of God! In this our body—what Luther calls this sack of maggots—dwells in some inexplicable way the Holy God Himself! What a dignity our bodies have and how that should/ must influence what we think of and how we treat our bodies for not only are they God’s special creation but they are His temple, where He dwells.
What a glorious comfort to us that Christ…dwell[s] in your hearts through faith. God did not way off at some distance declare us righteous in Christ—as if that wouldn’t be great and gracious enough—but He comes to us personally to dwell within us. Faith is the blessed means/ instrument of union with Him. Where there is faith in Christ and His work, where there is that Spirit worked faith in the word and promise of God to forgive us our sin, that faith is receiving not only our Lord’s gifts, graces and blessings but also the Lord Himself: If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and we will come to Him and make Our home with him [John 14.23].
Dear Christian, our Lord is rich in grace as He gives us a “visual” that He comes to dwell in [our] hearts through faith. That’s in the Blessed Sacrament. There with His Body and Blood under the bread and wine, we see Jesus coming to us. In humility we pray [Mt. 8.8]: Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof; but He does—coming bodily/ physically with all His graces and blessings.
Christ—in fact, the Triune God—dwells within us, dear Christian. What a glorious comfort and assurance of what today’s Gospel foreshadows: our bodily resurrection on the Last Day [Rom. 8.10-11]: But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. The holy God dwells in His dear Christians—a most comforting doctrine and a vital reminder of the value and dignity of our bodies. INJ