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LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 89

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

CONVENTION
SERMON • 9

Commemoration of the Faithful Departed
IS. 25:6–9

by t he R ev. Dr . John C. Will e, Presi d en t o f th e L C M S S o uth Wis c o n s in D is t r i c t
66th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod • July 13, 2016

The commemoration of the faithful departed is about
remembering those faithful church workers who have
died. Death gobbles up one person after the next.
That’s why we have these “commemorations” every
three years at Synod convention, at district conventions, and also the first Sunday in November each
year. With the passing of time, death devours children and parents, grandparents, great-grandparents,
and their grandparents before them.
Death is no friend to the human race. Death is no
respecter of persons. The prophet calls it “the veil
that is spread over all nations,” “the reproach of his
people.” There is shame and disgrace in death. Death
is the consequence of sin. You know the words God
speaks to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: “For
you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” That curse
comes because of sin. St. Paul says in Galatians 3:
“Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things
written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”

who have felt the sting of death in their lives. These
are the survivors who witnessed the destruction and
death that the Babylonians brought upon the city of
Jerusalem. Their friends, their neighbors, their family
members died in the siege. Thousands died as the
city fell into the hands of the Babylonians. Their dead
bodies were everywhere.
Yet, there is hope. There is a God in heaven. There
is a Savior. There is life. Listen to the way Isaiah
describes it: “He [the Lord God] will swallow up
on this mountain the covering that is cast over all
peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He
will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will
wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of
his people he will take away from all the earth, for the
Lord has spoken.”

Death. Eyes glazed over with a distant, cold stare.
The breath of life gone. Death is a scourge upon all
humanity, a curse upon you and me. Those whom
we remember have felt the sting of that curse as well.
Each cemetery, every headstone, every buried coffin bears silent witness to the scourge of sin and the
curse of death. If you have ever stood at the coffin of
a loved one, you know the sting of death. If you have
ever come nose to nose with your own mortality, you
have smelled the stench of death.
That’s why the words the prophet Isaiah speaks are so
powerful, so comforting. They are amongst the sweetest in all of Holy Scripture. Isaiah speaks to a people

“Commemoration of the Faithful Departed”

U P O N T H I S R O C K • Sermon