LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 95

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scarred hands of Jesus, our crosses can be God’s tool to
strip away anything and everything that gets in the way
of our relationship with God. Suffering, you see, has a
way of crushing our idols. The saddest thing is when, in
our pain, instead of clinging to Jesus, we cling to all that
is crumbling before our eyes and turning to dust in our
grasp, when God desires nothing more than to carry us
through. At the end of the book of Job, after all Job’s
suffering, all his questions, all the foolishness of Job’s
friends, God appears to Job out of the whirlwind. He
does not bring a logically reasoned out philosophical
answer for Job’s questions, but He shows up. He comes.
That’s what we have in Christ for us. God Himself
shows up to suffer with us and for us, and to conquer
even death by His resurrection. This leads to…
CHRIST FOR YOU AT THE ALTAR
I learned anew the meaning of this when I had the
privilege of attending worship at one of our partner
churches, Jesus Lutheran Church in Riga, Latvia.
During the Agnus Dei, I sensed this great movement
behind me. All the older members of the parish were
surging forward. Out of respect, the younger people
allowed them to approach the altar first, sometimes in
walkers and wheel chairs. I thought of things they must
have endured during the 50 years Latvia was ruled by
the Soviet Union, when pastors were hauled off to
Siberia never to be seen again simply for teaching
children the Catechism. These older saints were
pressing forward, hungry for the “medicine of
immortality,” Christ’s body and blood. The Lord of
heaven and earth, the one with all authority and power,
the one who gave Himself into death for us, who
allowed His body to be broken, His blood poured out,
the one who rose again from the dead — this One was
coming to meet them in His body and blood. What joy!
Heaven itself touches our lips! It is not that we climb up
somehow to the highest heaven to find Him in our
hearts, but that He Himself deigns by His Word to come
down, as the angel in Isaiah with the burning coal, to
touch our lips with His grace. “Your guilt is taken away,
and your sin atoned for” (Is. 6:7). It is not a matter of
our doing, but simply receiving the gifts Jesus gives.
Our joy at the altar gives a quick glimpse of the eternal
joy already ours in Jesus. Our congregations are part of
that assembly “in which the Gospel is purely taught
and the Sacraments are correctly administered” as we
confess in the Augustana. 30 Our theme, “Joy:fully
Lutheran” has nothing to do with a sectarian
triumphalism but simply reflects the joy of living in the
full and free Gospel, for there is “one Lord, one faith,
one baptism” (Eph. 4:5), which is why we joyfully
Convention Essays

confess “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.”
When Jesus gathers us around His throne, He will open
our eyes to see the whole assembly,
a great multitude that no one could number, from
every nation, from all tribes and peoples and
languages, standing before the throne and before the
Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in
their hands, and crying out with a loud voice,
“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:9–10).
Amazingly, our worship there begins here and now
when we received His body and blood.
JOY THROUGH OUR TEARS
Even as Holy Communion is a joyful foretaste of the
feast to come, so also, every time we take one of our
loved ones out to the cemetery, there can be, despite
our tears, joy in Christ for us. Remember Luther saying,
“Death, you have nothing on me!” Though we are
staring death in the face, we truly defy that open grave
when we commit the body to its resting place,
earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure
and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life
through our Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our
lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body,
by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to
Himself. 31
We spit death in the eye whenever we confess, “I
believe… in the resurrection of the body and the life
everlasting.”32
Even now, though culture may be against us, though it
may seem the leadership of our world is losing its
collective mind, we can look around and see the signs
foretold, remembering the words of Jesus, “when these
things begin to take place, lift up your heads, because
your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28, 31). Just
as Jesus called Lazarus from the grave, so will He call
you forth, and raise you to eternal life with Him. There
shall be a new heaven and a new earth where
righteousness dwells. 33 And God Himself will be with
us as our God.
He will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes, and
death shall be no more, neither shall there be
mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the
former things have passed away. For the One who sits
on the throne says, “Behold, I am making all things
new” (Rev. 21:4–5).
CONCLUSION
We have taken a quick dash through the heart of
Lutheran theology, which is biblical theology! 34 Christ
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2019 (67TH) LCMS CONVENTION | 95