# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1859_S182
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

182 How Should a Pastor Conduct Himself at the Sickbed of His Parishioners?

firm, written, unchangeable, evangelical word of grace and promise in the
Old and New Testament, which is directed at him too; that all his sin was,
long before his birth, atoned for and expiated by Christ on the trunk of
the cross; that he has already, in Holy Baptism, been made a partaker of
the infinite and most holy merit of Christ, in which God made with him a
covenant of grace, which, despite his manifold unfaithfulness, still stands
firm on God's side, whose gifts and calling he does not repent of; that he
has, indeed, through renewal of repentance and faith, in genuine
conversion, again sought and found the faithful covenant God; that this
same God speaks today, too, to his soul through the mouth of his servant:
"Be of good cheer, my son, your sins are forgiven you," and confirms and
seals this gracious and comforting absolution through his true body and
blood in the Holy Supper, received with the mouth. In sum, the pastor
thus comfortingly sets before the eyes of the sorrowful the glory of God's
great acts of grace — accomplished for him, the sorrowful one, just as
truly and just as surely as for all — and the power and efficacy of the
means of grace of the Lord that convey, appropriate, and seal these same
acts to him as well, and lays it so urgently and lovingly upon his heart, that
it is not his own fault if the sorrowful one does not become joyful and
glad in the Lord.—"

Now it is not seldom found that the most powerful words of comfort, the
most loving promises of God in his Word — that he so gladly grants grace
and forgives sin, in a word, that he wills to make the sinner blessed —
appear able to accomplish nothing and unable to drive away the trial.
Even so, one should not despair, should not grow faint in speaking words
of courage, and should not grow weary in holding forth the mercy of God
in Christ Jesus; and pastoral love then requires that one visit such a sick
person as often as possible, and also earnestly ask and admonish the
latter's relatives not to leave the sick person alone, and often to read to
him some hymn to be designated, such as "Soar upward to your God," or
"If God be for me, then let there step forward," and the like, or a psalm,
for instance the ninety-first, or a chapter of Holy Scripture, for instance
Romans 8:33ff., John 3, and others. It is certainly also fitting here to pray
together, heartily, with such a sick person, which he will surely always
receive with great joy.

But although a pastor must beware, at the sickbed of one under spiritual
trial, of frightening him still further by applying the Law, he should not,
for that reason, ignore the Law altogether, nor make light of the sins of
which the afflicted one complains. Sin is indeed followed by punishment
and rejection before the face of God, and the Lord God would certainly
have cause enough to forsake us and cast us from him; wherefore the
trial itself — the sense that God has forsaken us — is to be regarded as a
small foretaste of the, for the sinner, indeed terrible justice of God. Such
things, and the like, a pastor can and should