LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 102

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coming soon, when the dead in Christ will be raised,
and they will meet their returning Lord, and those who
are still alive, too, will meet together with them, and we
will ALL be reunited, and never sundered again. In the
end, death cannot snuff out the joy given in Christ.
Death cannot part us from sharing together in our Lord’s
eternal joy. Paul writes, “And so we [all] will be with the
Lord forever” (1 Thess. 4:17).
Joy in Christ is a shared joy. It is the shared joy of the
One, Holy, Christian and Apostolic Church. It is the
shared “Yes!” and “Amen!” of the church through all
time, of those who have gone before us and, if Jesus
does not return first, of those who will come after us. It
is a joy and rejoicing shared even with the angels in
heaven, as angels and archangels, bright seraphim and
cherubim, say “Yes!” and “Amen!” to all which God has
done for sinners in Jesus Christ. It is a joy shared by our
Lord Jesus Himself, as Daniel Preus so beautifully
reminded us this morning, and by God the Father who
sent Him.
CONCLUSION
It is the joy we share together HERE. Even here at a
Missouri Synod Convention, St. Paul’s appeal rings out:
“Rejoice always.” Pántote chaírete. We are the baptized
children of God; we are the fellow redeemed of Christ.
1
Lutheran Service Book: Altar Book (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 2006), 522.
2
2 Cor. 1:18–20.
3
1 Thess. 1:8–9; 2:14–16.
4
2 Cor. 6:4b–5, 10a. Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible
(The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright © 2001 by
Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used
by permission.
5
Luther on 1 Peter 1:8–9 (St. Louis Edition, 9:1134). Cited in
translation in Ewald M. Plass, ed., What Luther Says: A Practical InHome Anthology for the Active Christian (St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 1959), 688.
6
Gary Hayden, “When a Moment of Joy is Tinged with Sadness,”
The Straits Times, Nov. 28, 2013. asiaone.com/health/whenmoment-joy-tinged-sadness.
7
Weimar Tischreden, 1:124. Cited in translation in Plass, What
Luther Says, 689.
8
Martin Luther, Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians,
corr. and rev. Erasmus Middleton (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1930), 494. Cited in Ewald M. Plass, This Is Luther: A Character
Study (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1948), 179. See also
AE 27:93.
9
LC 3:92 (Lord’s Prayer). All citations from the Lutheran
Confessions are from Paul T. McCain, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran
Confessions: A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord (St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, 2005).
10
AE 75:159, from Luther’s postil sermon on Phil. 4:4–7. Following
his final sentence here, Luther recites 1 John 2:1–2 and 1 John 3:20.
11
From Luther’s explanation of the thirty-seventh of his NinetyFive Theses, 1518 (WA 1:593). Cited in translation in Plass, What
Luther Says, 691.

102 | PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2019 (67TH) LCMS CONVENTION

Shoulder to shoulder we will continue “rejoicing,
always.”
We will rejoice until the end of the world. And at the
end of the world, we will stand, full of joy and joy-fully
Lutheran, confessing with resolute hearts, with a
certainty wrought by God’s Spirit, confessing before
the judgment seat of Christ, the sufficiency of Christ’s
holy, innocent, bitter suffering and death, and the
power of His resurrection, for our salvation. As our
forefathers wrote in the Preface to the Book of Concord:
“By God’s help, we will retain this Confession to our last
breath, when we shall go forth from this life to the heavenly
fatherland, to appear with a joyful, undaunted mind and a
pure conscience before the court of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Lutherans cling to the Good News of Jesus Christ. And
Jesus Christ brings joy.
Therefore (to borrow again from Luther), “let the
accursed devil and his despondency scamper away like
a whipped dog. He wanted to make me sad …; he
wanted to dash my joy in the Lord. Yes, if he could, he
would swallow us all up in one gulp. But may Christ,
our Lord, rebuke and punish him, and may He
strengthen, comfort, and preserve you by His Spirit!”28
Let us then rejoice, in Christ, always! Amen.
Walch XXII:305. Cited in translation in Plass, This Is Luther, 180.
"Lo! He comes with Clouds Descending," (LSB, 336).
14
AC XVII:2; Apol XVII:1.
15
See Luke 10:20.
16
Paraphrased from C.F.W. Walther, Law and Gospel: How to Read
and Apply the Bible ed. Charles P. Schaum (St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 2010), 425.
17
Walther, Law and Gospel, 168.
18
Walther, Law and Gospel, 181.
19
Luther’s Explanation of the Ninth Chapter of Isaiah, presented as
an interruption of his Genesis lectures during the
Advent/Christmas season of 1543. WA 40 III, 652. Cited in
translation in Plass, What Luther Says, 693.
20
FC SD VI:25.
21
SC VIII:8
22
LC 1:120 (Fourth Commandment). *In place of “monks,” the
original has “Carthusians.”
23
LC 1:218 (Sixth Commandment).
24
C.F.W. Walther, The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel,
trans. W.H.T. Dau (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1986),
137–38.
25
1 Thess. 3:9–10.
26
1 Thess. 3:8.
27
Luke 15:1–10.
28
From Luther’s August 21, 1544 letter to George Spalatin, who
was experiencing guilt and inconsolable melancholy (St. Louis
Edition, 10:1733). Cited by Walther, Law and Gospel, 122. Here the
English word “despondency” (from Dau’s translation) is
substituted for “desperation,” better rendering the German word
Traurigkeit.
12
13

Convention Essays