LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2026, Page 204

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
PA S T O R A L A N D S P I R I T UA L D I M E N S I O N S

PA S T O R A L A N D S P I R I T UA L D I M E N S I O N S

the spirit of the times with its teachings about how to prepare for a “blessed death.” He warns that Satan would have us fix
our gaze on death’s terror and God’s wrath, brooding over our sins.176 Luther stressed that instead of looking to oneself and
one’s own works, “we must turn our eyes to God, to whom the path of death leads and directs us.”177 Specifically, he points
to “the picture of Christ” or “the picture of grace” — the image of Christ suffering on the cross for the sins of the world.178
Because of God’s promise of the forgiveness of sins, believers are encouraged to focus on “the glowing picture of Christ” in
the confidence that “death, sin, and hell will flee with all their might.”179 Or as Luther summarizes: “In Christ [God] offers
you the image of life, of grace, and of salvation so that you may not be horrified by the images of sin, death, and hell.”180

Lutherans may particularly benefit from a consideration of lament as a way of living out our faith in times of crisis and
grief. Luther’s moving writings on his trials and afflictions, his Anfechtungen (variously translated as trials, temptations and
assaults), coupled with his teaching on what it means to be a “theologian of the cross” speak eloquently to our pastoral task
with the bereaved. Robert Kolb captures it well when he notes, “In the midst of Anfechtungen of various kinds, Luther recognized that he had no answer that would give him mastery over the question of the ‘why’ of sin and evil. Therefore, Luther
let God be master and simply turned to him in days of trouble, often with the cry of lament.”185

End-of-life issues at the bedside soon give way to those of the grieving ones left behind. The pastoral ministry at
the point of death does not end with the one who died. Rather, it carries over into the ongoing ministry to the family
and friends of the deceased. Here, too, the glorious promise of the Gospel needs to be heard. Perhaps no hymn captures
the soaring truth of Christian hope based on the finished work of Christ and His promise to us better than the words of
Hamburg pastor Erdmann Neumeister’s “God’s Own Child, I Gladly Say It” (1718). Every verse revels in the sacramental
benefits of Christian Baptism as the believer’s “great treasure of redemption and eternal salvation” and being baptized into
Christ as “the shower from heaven.”181 Such strong and certain hope offers strength not only to the dying but also to those
who grieve in the face of death and loss.

Luther likens the human heart to a ship on the seas driven by a storm. Sometimes the buffeting of circumstances and
our particular experiences plunge us into the waters of despair. At other times, “the breezes of hope” bring us the prospect
of potential happiness. Luther points to the biblical psalms as a rich resource for prayer in each of these seasons of life,
including the darkest hours:
Where does one find finer words of joy than in the psalms of praise and thanksgiving? There you look into the
hearts of all the saints, as into fair and pleasant gardens, yes, as into heaven itself. There you see what fine and
pleasant flowers of the heart spring up from all sorts of fair and happy thoughts toward God, because of his
blessings. On the other hand, where do you find deeper, more sorrowful, more pitiful words of sadness than in
the psalms of lamentation? There again you look into the hearts of all the saints, as into death, yes, as into hell
itself. How gloomy and dark it is there, with all kinds of troubled forebodings about the wrath of God! So, too,
when they speak of fear and hope, they use such words that no painter could so depict for you fear or hope, and
no Cicero or other orator so portray them. And that they speak these words to God and with God, this, I repeat,
is the best thing of all.186

D. Christ’s Comfort for the Grieving

The Pastoral Care Companion provides a number of liturgies, prayers and counsel for the aftermath of death. We have referenced the “Commendation of the Dying” liturgy as a tool to use with families as they surround the bedside of a dying loved
one. The Pastoral Care Companion also includes helpful sections on “Comforting the Bereaved,” “Entrance of the Body into
the Church,” the “Funeral Service” and the “Committal.”182 Pastors may find these resources appropriate for their hospital
and hospice room ministry as well as the funeral and committal services.
Rather than offering pat answers and pious platitudes to deal with death’s aftermath, pastoral care involves entering
into the pain of the bereaved and helping them respond to it in a faithful Christian manner, including the use of lament.183
This document has emphasized the importance of learning to accept our helplessness — and to embrace our Father’s
merciful care and trustworthiness — in the face of death. Yet it is also true that the prayers of the faithful in the Scriptures,
especially in the Psalms, teach us to cry out honestly, boldly and even impatiently to our faithful God. Our Lord Jesus
Himself displayed such moments of raw lament when weeping over Jerusalem, when appealing to His Father in the Garden
of Gethsemane and when crying out from the cross (in the words of a “lament” psalm), “My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?” (MATT. 27:46; CF. PSALM 22:1). After all, as Bayer reminds us, “It is part of God’s own nature to let himself be petitioned … . God reveals himself not as inexorable fate, but as biddable.”184

176

LW 42:101.

177

LW 42:99.

178

LW 42:104–06.

179

LW 42:106.

180

LW 42:114.

181

Joseph Herl, Peter C. Reske and Jon D. Vieker, eds. Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Hymns, Vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2019), 594.

Lutheran Service Book Pastoral Care Companion, “Comforting the Bereaved,” 95–106; “Entrance of the Body into the Church,” 107–109; “Funeral Service,” 110–124; “Committal,” 125–135; and
“Burial for a Stillborn Child or Unbaptized Child,” 136–147.
182

183
Two helpful resources for Lutherans in this respect are Dennis Ngien, Fruit for the Soul: Luther on the Lament Psalms (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015) and Ronald K. Rittgers, A Widower’s
Lament: The Pious Meditations of Johann Christoph Oelhafen, Translated with an Introduction, Notes, and Epilogue (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2021).

Oswald Bayer, “Toward a Theology of Lament,” in Caritas et Reformatio. Essays on Church and Society in Honor of Carter Lindberg, ed. David Whitford (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,
2002), 214.
184

It is instructive to consider even our Lord’s own prayer with its seven petitions as a fitting prayer for the grieving
and lamenting believer.187 Each petition relates to the experience of a person in grief. In a world seemingly out of control
with death stalking and then stealing from us those we love, we center our thinking by affirming from the depths of pain
that God’s name is holy, and we ask that it be kept holy, even in this hurt. Second, while our minds may race to questions
that all seem to begin with “why,” we petition our heavenly Father for the Spirit’s grace that enables us to “believe His holy
Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity” as members of His kingdom. Third, we pray that in the midst
of loss that leaves us reeling, God will superintend in such a way that He “breaks and hinders every evil plan” and enables
us to hallow His name even when we hurt too much to care, and that He “strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word and
faith until we [also] die.” Fourth, we ask for God to give us all that we need, even in our days of grieving, and to receive it
all with thanksgiving. Fifth, those who are grieving often fall prey to anger and to thoughts of recriminations. Not uncommonly, the families of those who have died sometimes lash out at the physicians and institutions that provided support for
their loved one at the end of life. We pray that God will assist us as we “sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who
sin against us.” Sixth, recognizing the emotional fragility of a person in grief, we petition the God of all comfort to “guard
and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair,
and other great shame and vice.” Finally, the Lord’s Prayer captures the aspiration of the disciple for God to “rescue us from
every evil of body and soul” and “when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley
of sorrow to Himself in heaven.”
Lutheran theologian Oswald Bayer rightly draws attention to the faith that undergirds a Christian’s lament. Rather
than finding its voice in “a nihilistic vacuum of unbelief,” lament only occurs because our God speaks to us and hears us
185

Robert Kolb, Foreword, in Ngien, Fruit for the Soul, xiii-ix.

186

LW 35:255–256.

Notice how applicable the words of Luther’s catechism are to the experience of the grieving Christian. His words sprinkle this section with the aspirations of one in grief and expressing
lament. See “The Lord’s Prayer,” Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, 19–22.
187

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PA S T O R A L A N D S P I R I T UA L D I M E N S I O N S

CONCLUDING REMARKS

when we cry to Him. “Lament does not become silent in light of the promise of an answer; rather, it becomes louder and
sharper. The distress articulated in the lament gains painful depth.”188
One of the most remarkable features of prayers of lament is the way in which they hold tightly together the seemingly
opposite poles of grief and joy, despair and hope. Psalm 13, for example, opens with the aching cries: “How long, O LORD?
Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and
have sorrow in my heart all the day?” (PSALM 13:1–2). Yet just a few verses later, the psalmist declares, “But I have trusted in
your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation” (PSALM 13:5). On the one hand, this emotional ambiguity may be
understood “not as … separate moments in the speaker’s life, but as states that exist simultaneously in his heart.”189 On the
other hand, there is a movement consistently exhibited by the biblical lament psalms, a movement from pain and lament
to confidence, hope and praise. As Luther says regarding this psalm, “Hope itself despairs and despair nevertheless begins
to hope.”190
Psalm 22 is no different. As David concludes his convulsive paroxysm of pain, he breaks forth in praise of God:
22 I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him,
and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted,
and he has not hidden his face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to him.
25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will perform before those who fear him.
26 The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the LORD!
May your hearts live forever!
Lament offers a biblical template, then, for dealing with the bereaved, and it unites us together in the suffering,
the prayer and the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Himself. Glenn Packiam notes five additional aspects of such
prayer. It expresses the anguish of the human heart in prayer, represents an act of praise of God, bears testimony
to the dependence on Him even in sorrow, shows the way forward in our relationship with God, petitions Him
as our dear Father to engage with us in our suffering, and takes us into the very midst of the broken hearts of
God’s people. Packiam concludes by noting the movement toward praise that undergirds the lament of believers.

V. Concluding Remarks
In concluding this report, we want to remind the reader once more of the CTCR’s earlier reports, Christian Care at Life’s
End and Euthanasia. Those studies and their principles remain foundational for this report. As was the case with the
Commission’s previous reports on how Christians are called to care and never to kill, we have sought herein to be faithful
to a distinctively Christian understanding of death. We do not seek to avoid death as if it were a natural or medical obstacle
to be overcome. Instead, we acknowledge it as the right and meet punishment we must all face as the wages of sin. Yet we
do so with the hope of eternal life through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (PSALM 116:15).
“When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that
is written:
‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’
‘O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?’
“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ” (1 COR. 15:54–57).

Lament is not our final prayer. It is a prayer in the meantime. Most of the lament psalms end with a “vow to
praise” — a promise to return thanksgiving to God for His deliverance. Because Jesus Christ is risen from the
dead, we know that sorrow is not how the story ends. The song may be in a minor motif now, but one day it will
resolve in a major chord. When every tear is wiped away, when death is swallowed up in victory, when heaven
and earth are made new and joined as one, when the saints rise in glorious bodies … then we will sing at last a
great, “Hallelujah!”191
188

Bayer, “Toward a Theology of Lament,” in Caritas et Reformatio, 212.

189
Timothy E. Saleska, Psalms 1–50 (Concordia Commentary; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2020), 285, citing J. Clinton McCann Jr., The Book of Psalms in The New Interpreter’s Bible,
ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 727.
190

Quoted by Saleska, Psalms 1–50, 288.

191

Glenn Packiam, “Five Things to Know About Lament,” N.T. Wright Online, April 2020, ntwrightonline.org/five-things-to-know-about-lament/.

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2026 Convention Workbook

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