Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Joe; others of Olene’s family; her friends, colleagues, and fellow Pilgrim members,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
I first met our dear departed sister in Christ, Olene, some ten years ago, when I began serving this Pilgrim congregation. Olene seemed to have a professional, business-like reserve or privacy about her that at first slowed my getting to know her, although after the incident involving a wasp and her car left Olene in the Willows for a time, I was able to get to know her better through regular visits there. You may have had a similar experience getting to know Olene, and no doubt you have your own memories about how you got to know her. As you may have known, Olene cared about the way that she looked, including her usual hair style, and so we might have some difficulty imagining Olene wearing a crown of any sort, but, considering the Epistle Reading this morning, I direct our thoughts to the theme, “Olene has her crown of life”.
The Lord Jesus certainly knew Olene, and He also knew the city of Smyrna, the modern city of Izmir in Turkey. The crown of the city of the ancient city of Smyrna was said to be a temple to the mythological Greek god Zeus, which temple was surrounded by a street reportedly paved with gold and by other buildings that “crowned” the top of the hill. In the Epistle Reading, the Lord Jesus’s letter that He revealed to the apostle John and addressed to the pastor of the church of Smyrna, the Lord Jesus promises a different crown—the crown of life—to those who remained faithful unto death in the face of their future tribulation. That command to be faithful unto death and the promise of the crown of life make that particular verse a popular verse for Confirmations, as it was for Olene’s Confirmation, when the she expressed her intention to continue in her confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it.
The pastor of the church in Smyrna apparently was already fearing what he was about to suffer, namely, the throwing of some of the members of the church into prison so that they might be tested, and so Jesus commanded the pastor and his people to stop fearing that suffering. In her final, sometimes confused days, Olene was known to fear cancer treatment—chemotherapy and radiation—that she was not even going to experience, and we might have easily understood if she had been afraid of her looming death. We ourselves may have real or imagined health issues that cause us fear, or we may be afraid of our own looming deaths. For Christians, wrongly fearing death is a sin, even as death itself is a consequence of sin—death sometimes is a consequence of a specific sin, but death always is a consequence of sin in general and of our sinful natures themselves.
Christian or not, on account of our sinful natures and of all of our actual sins of thoughts, words, and deeds, we deserve the eternal condemnation mentioned in the Gospel Reading (John 3:16-18). But, God takes no pleasure in the death of anyone; rather, He takes pleasure in people’s turning from their wicked ways and living, so He calls us—and thereby enables us—to turn from our wicked ways and to live (Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11). That God does not send His Son into the world to condemn the world does not mean that there is no condemnation, however; the difference between our being condemned as we deserve and our being saved is our turning from our wicked ways and living, our being sorry for our sins and trusting God to forgive us, in short, our repenting and believing. When we so repent and believe, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives us for the sake of His only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, Who took our sins to the cross and there died for us, in our place, the death that we deserved.
As we heard in the Epistle Reading, Jesus is the First and the Last, He Who not only died but who also came back to life, as the city of Smyrna was said to have done. Jesus is said to be the First and the Last because He died and came back to life, and, because of His death and coming back to life, Jesus is the cause and goal of our faith and life (Brighton, ad loc Revelation 2:8, p.72). God loved Olene by giving His only Son to die and come back to life for her sins, so that as she believed in Him she should never die eternally in hell but live eternally in heaven. And, God loved you, me, and the rest of the whole world by giving His only Son to die and come back to life for our sins so that as we believe in Him we will never die eternally in hell but live eternally in heaven. Jesus is the firstborn of the dead, and those who repent and believe in Him will follow Him, saved not on account of their works but by grace through faith in Him.
Olene was fond of telling people that she became Lutheran because she wanted to be able to dance, in particular, I think she mentioned, the jitterbug. More seriously, she was friends with the Lutheran pastor in Kermit and there heard what the Spirit was saying to the churches. She already had been baptized, and so in the Lutheran church there she was confirmed. Here in Kilgore, she was a faithful member of Pilgrim for more than 37 years, and, for nearly ten of those years, I had the privilege and pleasure of individually absolving her and communing her and the rest of our members, on the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar that are the Body of Christ given for her and for us and the Blood of Christ shed for her and for us, which therefore give forgiveness of sins, and so also life and salvation. I communed her last right before I left on my recent vacation, and, when I returned, hours before she passed, I shared with her verses from the Psalm this morning (Psalm 31:7-24; antiphon v.5), encouraging her, like her Lord before her (Luke 23:46), to commit her spirit into the Lord’s hands, for He, her faithful God, had redeemed her. Such faith not only leads to salvation but also is the remedy for our fears!
Years ago, in directions that Olene left with Rader Funeral Home, Olene expressed a prayer that God would bless the lives of those she leaves and loves with the riches of His grace. This week Olene’s brother Lynn said that, in his last conversation with her, she expressed to him faith and peace with her coming death that uplifted his faith and will be an enduring memory of her, and he hoped others had received the same uplifting gift from her during these past months in which she knew she was closer to death. Truly we can be so uplifted! As in the Epistle Reading, at times of loss and grief, no matter what we suffer—even being thrown into prison—God knows our tribulation and is gracious to us in our distress, preserving the faithful, setting a limit to our suffering, ultimately comforting those who mourn. Our temporal deaths are, as we sang, “But the gate to life immortal” (Lutheran Service Book 490:5 line 2). From the “first” death of our trespasses and sins, He has given us the “first” resurrection, the resurrection of the soul through faith in Him, and so, instead of the “second” death of eternal torment in hell, He gives us the “second” resurrection, the resurrection of the body. We can say with Job in the Old Testament Reading (Job 19:21-27), I know that my Redeemer lives, and, that after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh shall I see God. The resurrected bodies of those who repent and believe will be glorified in God’s presence, freed from all sin, sickness, and other suffering, and we will spend eternity together with all those who have gone before us and come after us in the faith.
“Olene has her crown of life”, and, through your being faithful unto death, by God’s mercy and grace, you can have a crown of life, too. To paraphrase the Psalm, all you who wait for the Lord with repentance and faith, be strong and let your heart take courage!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +