Sermon manuscript:
Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice. Rejoicing
is celebrating, being happy. We know how to rejoice. We rejoice when good
things happen to us. We rejoice when we get some unexpected money, when we get
a good deal, when it’s time to have fun with friends. Nobody has to tell us to
rejoice. The circumstances prompt us to rejoice. We might not even be able to
help it.
There are two modifiers, though, to Paul’s command to
rejoice. We are to rejoice in the Lord. That’s the one modifier. The other modifier
is that we are to rejoice always. What does it mean to rejoice in the Lord? We
know how to rejoice in good circumstances. How do we rejoice in the Lord? This
can only be done through faith. There is no way for anyone to know the Lord God
except if he reveals himself to them. Only those who believe in what he has
revealed of himself can ever rejoice in him.
What has God revealed about himself? He is your God. You are
his people. In the whole Bible this is always what he has to say, no matter who
he is dealing with, so long as they are his chosen ones. He says the same thing
to all of them: I am your God. You are my people. Stay close to me. I am your
rock and your castle. For you I strive and wrestle. I am yours and you are mine
and where I am you may remain. The foe shall not divide us.
Whereas the circumstances are what make us rejoice otherwise,
what makes us rejoice in the Lord is what he has revealed of himself to us. He
is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. His mercy
endures forever. Just as you might rejoice that you can put some new-found
money into your pocket, so you can rejoice that God is yours and you are God’s.
This good relationship is something to rejoice about.
The other modifier is that we should rejoice always in the Lord. Nobody’s in the
habit of rejoicing always. Nobody celebrates always. The party has to come to
an end sometime. The circumstances that cause us to rejoice either get taken
for granted or go away. We do not rejoice always. And Paul is not calling upon
us to rejoice always in the normal way we use that word. We are to rejoice
always in the Lord.
This means that our rejoicing is probably going to look a
little different than the rejoicing and celebrating that we might see or
experience with Christmas presents, for example. Sometimes people get the idea
that the Christian life is supposed to be uninterrupted happiness,
never-failing victory, a charmed life. This is not what we see, though, when we
examine the people who have believed in God before us in the Bible.
We do not see this even with Jesus. He did not always skip
around with a smile on his face. He didn’t look this way when he was being
whipped or crucified. When he was looking ahead to the suffering that was
coming upon him, he prayed that the cup should pass from him.
And yet, we must say that Jesus rejoiced in the Lord always.
Rejoicing in the Lord does not have to match up with certain looks on one’s
face or even certain feelings or emotions. Rejoicing in the Lord is inextricably
tied up with faith in him. To believe in him is to trust in his salvation. No
matter what might come our way, no matter which cross God might lay upon us, we
can rejoice in our salvation. We can rejoice always, because salvation is his
business and not ours. Since it is his business, and not ours, we can rest
assured that it will never fail.
Consider Paul who penned these words. Earlier in the letter
he says that he is writing while he is shackled with chains. He is in prison
for preaching the Gospel. He is on his way to Rome where he will be tried and
falsely found guilty. Since he was a Roman citizen it is thought that he was
executed by having his head chopped off instead of being crucified. Being
crucified was considered to be too shameful of a punishment for Roman citizens.
Crucifixion was reserved for slaves and non-citizens.
In the midst of all of this perhaps Paul’s rejoicing may
have occasionally faltered, for he was flesh and blood like any one of us. But
in the main, there’s no reason to think otherwise than that he continued to
rejoice in the Lord always. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he was grinning
or skipping while he was being led to the executioner. People think rejoicing
has to mean a certain look or a certain visible emotion. But that’s a rather
superficial way of thinking. Paul believed in the Lord his God and rejoiced.
Would he have rather had his head on a pillow rather than on the chopping
block? Perhaps. But he took what the Lord gave him, trusting in his steadfast
mercy.
Apply this also to yourself. Unless Christ comes back first,
one day you are going to be dying. The circumstances will probably be such
where you definitely do not feel like rejoicing in the normal way that this
word is used and understood. But you are not a slave to your circumstances,
where the circumstances dictate everything that’s going on with you. You have a
relationship with the Lord.
It is my great wish for you that you are blessed to have
someone with you at that time to help you die well. I hope that you have
someone who knows God’s revelation of himself to us. Knowing that revelation,
that person can tell you about the Lord God. Knowing God’s revelation, you can
rejoice in the Lord while you are dying.
There’s nothing magical that has to happen. There’s nothing
that has to be charged with the right emotions, or perfectly persuasive. All
that’s necessary is to hear what God says about himself and about you.
What God has said is that he is yours, and you are his. You
can stay with him. The foe can’t divide you. Just as God gave Abraham the sign
of circumcision, so God has given us the sign of baptism. God says so often in
the Old Testament that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the believing
descendants of Israel always rejoiced to hear that. The Lord was their God.
Their God was for them, no matter what circumstances they happened to be in.
You are a Christian. You have been given the name of Christ.
You are baptized into him. You have eaten his body and drank his blood. The
Lord God has revealed himself to you thoroughly. What he reveals about himself
is that he forgives you and graciously receives you. No matter what happens to
you, you cannot be separated from this God, because he has joined himself to
you.
Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say
rejoice.” He really means it. Rejoice in the Lord always. Death can be really hard. It can be really painful. But in
the midst of this sorrow and sadness you can look to your God’s salvation of
you like it’s a north star. It is a true guide. It will not lead you astray.
It’s the only true guide.
It’s not uncommon the hear people say that they hope that
they die in their sleep or that they will die very suddenly. There’s nothing
wrong, per se, about dying in your sleep or very suddenly, but I think it’s
overrated. This kind of talk makes people hope for something that doesn’t
happen all that often. Plus it makes people afraid to die in a slower way.
That’s not good. We’re already screwed up enough as it is when it comes to our
feeble attempts to cope with dying and death. We don’t need to have Christians
fear it on top of all that.
A good death is one where a person is given the opportunity
to rejoice in the Lord by hearing his promises, even while their body is
shutting down. A good death is one where the person who is dying is given the
opportunity to believe in Jesus’s victory over death, even while they are
experiencing the unpleasant side effects that go along with death. The person
who dies with trust in Christ the crucified dies well, no matter what the
circumstances of that death might be.
Helping your friends and your loved ones to die well does
not take a lot of smarts. You don’t have to be a gifted speaker. The main thing
that it requires is courage. To help that courage along it is also very helpful
to be well catechized, to know God’s revelation. If a person does not feel like
they know who God is and what he has revealed, they probably won’t have the confidence
to speak about him—especially in such a fraught and stressful situation.
Regardless, the main thing that is needed is courage. I have
become convinced that there are powers and principalities that shut us
Christians down from talking to one another about God and what God has
revealed. We are comfortable talking about the weather, about sports, about
what-have-you, but if someone starts to talk about God we get very nervous.
It’s as though this is something that is strictly set apart. Only the pastor
can speak that way. This is false, false, false.
By your baptism you have been given the keys to the kingdom
of God. You have been given all that Christ has. There is nothing that a pastor
has that you don’t already have by virtue of your baptism. The only difference
is that God has given me the job of doing this full time. The Law or the Gospel
that you might speak is no less effective or powerful than the Law or the
Gospel that I might speak. The Sacrament that you might administer, an
emergency baptism, for example, is no different from the Sacrament that I would
administer.
All of this is to say that you are fully equipped to tell
your loved ones about the God who has revealed himself to us in Christ the
crucified and risen. You may urge your loved ones to rejoice in the Lord
always, just as I’ve urged you in this sermon. The message that makes all the
difference is the one that says God has chosen you. This is what we are to
believe in. I can authoritatively declare that God has chosen you because he
has baptized you. You are hearing his word as it is being spoken right now.
This Word of God says that he is yours and you are his. Where he is, you may
remain. The foe shall not divide you.
How can we not rejoice (even if it be quietly and inwardly)
when we hear that we have such a great and powerful friend as God himself? If
there were any circumstances over which we
could rejoice, it certainly has to be this. The mercy of God is beyond
our comprehension. His power knows no bounds. He loves you and receives you,
even though you are a sinner. There is peace between God and you because of the
sacrifice of Jesus.
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