# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1859_S184
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

184 How should a pastor conduct himself at the sickbed of a member of his congregation?

heartfelt courage, that they should hold fast to Christ's word: "Given for you,
shed for you for the forgiveness of sins." With them
the absolution that precedes the receiving of the sacrament is certainly
in its proper place, whereby one must earnestly impress upon their hearts that they
hear in the absolution the voice of Christ, who promises them all grace; and
who in the Holy Communion, with his suffering and blood, by which forgiveness
of sins was won for us, will feed and nourish, strengthen and preserve
them unto eternal life.

It is certain, however, that wherever an upright heart is found, the merciful
God will let no soul perish in temptation, but will turn the temptation
into all the greater joy.

Little remains for us to say about the pastor's conduct
at the sickbed of a joyfully believing penitent. For the Law
has done its work on such a one and has brought him to the knowledge of his natural
spiritual misery and corruption and his manifold sin,
so that he knows and can say in truth Paul's words: I know
that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells nothing good; wherefore with heartfelt
sorrow he confesses himself the foremost of sinners, whom no
works or merits of his own could save from this corruption. But
this knowledge, which, were it found alone, would work only wrath and despair,
proves itself in him a schoolmaster unto Christ. To
Christ, the fountain of all divine grace and mercy, whom he
has come to know from the Gospel to his great comfort, he is driven
by the knowledge of his sinful misery. Him, the Savior
of sinners, the believing heart lays hold of, and rejoices that in him it has
the Reconciler and Blotter-out of its sins and the Advocate with the Father,
who already in Holy Baptism has bestowed on him the holy merit and the full
satisfaction of his beloved Son Jesus Christ, and has promised
to be a gracious God to him, indeed to make his dwelling in him.
And with heartfelt longing it will yearn for the absolution and the
Holy Communion as provision for the journey to eternal life.
It is certain that the visit to such a sick person is something very comforting
and edifying for the pastor himself. For how should his heart
not rejoice, when he sees how strong and mighty Christ is
in the weak; and how his grace, amid all the cross and misery of this life,
can make a human heart so joyful and comforted.

Yet it does happen, especially when the illness is
prolonged, that believing children of God still have various causes for
complaint and sighing, as for instance that they are assailed by impatience,
or that the memory of their former sins wrings sighs from them
and the like; and when they then lament such and other distress to their
visiting pastor, he will make it his concern to raise up
the faltering soul through God's grace, and through the comfort of the Gospel
to strengthen and gladden it again. For at such a sickbed there belongs