Sermon for the Third Last Sunday of the Church Year, AD 2026

Grace and peace be to you from God, our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There's a lot of things in this recent time that remind us about winning and losing, and that really nothing in this life gives a permanent comfort. We have an election that we just had, and some people are elated, some people might be despairing.
But the thing is with elections is that there's always another one, and no matter how happy you are, the next one you're going to be sad again, or how sad you are, the next one you're going to be happy again. It's just like following your sports team. Maybe they win the championship and you're happy and feel comfort from that.
Maybe you're on the sports team and you win. But then the next time, well, you have to try to win again. It doesn't stay, it's not permanent.
All winning, all losing, all glory in this life is transitory. Glory fades away. Really, glory and whatever we can grab in this world does not ever comfort us on a continual and eternal basis.
You try to get money, and you think, If only I had this money, I would be happy. And then once you get it, you just need more. No, nothing in this world really brings us comfort, comfort that can even go with us to the grave.
But St. Paul tells us these amazing words in 1 Thessalonians 4. As he speaks of the return of Christ for the Christians who are alive and those who have fallen asleep, he says, Comfort one another with these words. Here we get a very specific instruction by Paul, saying, Take what I have written here and use it therefore to comfort or also encourage and exhort one another. The word can mean several things.
Comfort, encourage, exhort one another with these words as the Holy Spirit comforts you. We can comfort one another concerning those who have fallen asleep in Christ, the Christians who have cast on and died. We can comfort each other concerning our own resurrection from the dead and comfort each other concerning the inevitable return of Jesus Christ.
The first comfort that St. Paul wants to give is the comfort for those who mourn. Knowledge of Christ's coming should give us comfort, encouragement. It should give us a certain hope for those who have fallen asleep.
When Paul says fallen asleep, he means those who have suffered a natural death. Christians fall asleep in their death. Jesus talks about this when he raises the daughter of Jairus.
He says she has just fallen asleep. When Jesus raises Lazarus, he says he has fallen asleep. Falling asleep is how we describe the death of Christians because on one day they will awake.
Now in Thessalonica, where Paul is writing this letter, there was ignorance concerning believers who had fallen asleep. They thought that those who had died before Christ returned, missed Christ's return. They thought Christ's return was coming so soon that if you die, then you're going to be left out.
No one really believes this today. Paul gives a clear example that those who have died in Christ will rise first. But there is still ignorance among us today about death.
Ignorance and misinformation that is often spread by the world and by those who listen to the world. If we live in ignorance about death, we will not have true comfort. Now, my object here is not to rip away some comfort that you have and leave you with nothing.
But I want to speak about some of the ignorance that people talk about, about death, so that we can cling instead to the true comfort, not comfort that fades away. Well-meaning words about death, which are not informed by the Scriptures, might give some comfort, but they're a weak comfort. And often they're based on wishful thinking, they're based on folk religion or old wives' tales.
They're not based on the confident and certain hope in Jesus Christ. Now, you can look at the world, the world with no eternal hope, the world which sees death as just the end, and really no thought of what happens after. The world just says, let's celebrate their life.
This is where celebration of life comes from. If there's no life after death, if it doesn't matter, then all we can do is celebrate and remember who they were. They say, cling to their memories.
Now, certainly that's good. Celebrate the person's life. Cling to their memories.
Speak of what this person has done. But that's still a cold comfort. That's not the full comfort that we get from Jesus Christ.
Because we know that celebrating their life, remembering them, that memories do not replace the person that is lost. If we're going to be honest. Sometimes they'll even get more spiritual comforts that are not based in Scripture.
Saying that, well, the person is somehow going to come back and show you that they're okay. Because you don't have confidence of their life after death. You need some kind of sign.
So people will talk about a cardinal appearing to you. That means that's your loved one. Or some kind of strange thing will happen.
That's your loved one speaking to you. But none of these are Scriptural. These are not based on any certain hope.
It's just things that people say who have not been yet to the life after death. And I'm not telling you to abandon your needed comfort in mourning. But trade that way of thinking, based on what the world may say or people may come up with, with the real comfort that we have in Jesus Christ.
For those who have died in the faith. See, Paul says, if we're not ignorant, and that's what we're working on today, we're not becoming ignorant anymore. When we're not ignorant, we do not sorrow as those who have no hope.
For Christians, we mourn those who have passed because it is going to be a time of separation. We are separated for that person for the rest of our life. But our difference is, for believers, we know this is only a temporary separation.
We know that we will see them again. As Paul says, if we believe Jesus died and rose again, even so, God will bring to Him those who sleep in Jesus. St. Paul centers our comfort and our certain hope in this.
Jesus died and rose again. If Jesus died and rose again, and those believers are joined to Him, they're going to go where He goes. We start with that certainty.
What is the very center of our faith? Jesus died and rose again. And if we believe that as Christians, then that is our certain hope for those who are in Him. We accept the major premise, Jesus died and rose again, so then we look at the minor premise, those who are asleep in Him will go to be with Him.
I think this is said really well in the hymn, On Christ's Ascension I Now Build. The first stanza goes like this, On Christ's Ascension I Now Build, the hope of my ascension. This hope alone has always stilled all doubt and apprehension.
For where the head is, there as well, I know His members are to dwell, when Christ will come and call at Him. It's as simple as that. You know wherever your head is going, that's where the rest of your body is going.
Maybe you've done some kind of sport, like golf or something, where like keep your head down and look at the ball, because that's where your body is going. Wherever the head of the body of Christ goes, where Jesus goes, that is where His body goes too. Where Jesus goes, Christians go.
On that funeral day, we can and will mourn that Christian's parting. But the Christians remember, This believer is truly in a better place in every way than he was here on earth. This believer, this Christian, is happier and better and more joyful, closer to God than she has ever been.
This believer is in eternal joy, peace, and free from all sin, shame, and sadness as truly as Christ is risen from the dead. The Christian can think and hold to this confidently. Because my Lord Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead, He does not abandon His own.
And as I trust that, I will see them again as well. That is my great confidence. So now apply this to your own death.
All of us will someday come to our life's end in this world. It might be by death. It might be by the return of Christ before we die.
But listen to how Paul talks about death of Christians as we spoke before, as going to sleep. He says, If we believe Jesus died and rose again, even so, God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. See, for Christians, He gives us this very gentle word that we sleep to remind us that we will awake at the resurrection.
But for Jesus, He uses the word He died. He took the whole power of death upon Himself on the cross. The wolf swallowed Him up and then lost all His teeth and burst open.
Death no longer has the power He did anymore now that Christ has experienced death and risen from the dead victorious. Death is like the bee that has lost its sting, right? The bee stings you and then the stinger falls off and the bee dies. Because Christ has died, we as Christians only sleep.
And so whether we are alive or asleep on the last day, all will hear the return of Christ. You're not going to miss it. He will descend with heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel.
The trumpet of God will blow. Whether we're buried, whether we're ashes, whether we're at the bottom of the sea, whether we have long ago crumbled into dust, we will hear it. Christ will find us.
And we will rise from the dead to be with Him. When He returns, we shall always be with the Lord. Faith will turn to sight.
Hope will be fulfilled. This will be a glorious day. Right now, we know we are temporarily separated from our loved ones who have died in the faith.
We are also temporarily separated from our eternal home. But when Christ comes, we will return home. We will truly be home.
There will be no more sorrow or pain. No more hunger or want. And every tear shall be wiped away.
How much greater will that day be than any day we have experienced before? To have all the worries of this life taken away and not matter anymore. To lose all of the sorrows we now face. Think when summer vacation comes and all the homework and projects just goes away.
You're in a new grade now. Time will run out on sorrow and sin. But holding to Christ, clinging to Him and faith, time will not run out on us.
We shall be joined with the Christians of all time. And we shall know them as Christ knows them. We shall be known as He is known.
Our sin will be like a dream of the past. We will embrace and know God's heavenly wisdom and correction. We will see where we have been wrong.
We will rejoice where Christ led us on the right path. Christian and Christian together will experience and give love to one another in a way that we cannot fully even know on this earth. The greatest love that you know for your family, for your spouse, will be even greater and stronger in that life to come.
So let this knowledge encourage you. St. Paul says, encourage one another with these words. Use it for encouragement for yourself and others.
If we are internally going to be before the face of God and knowing Him, how shall we live this life? The next life will be knowing God closer than ever. So this life should be knowing God. We should become before Him and worship with other Christians where He comes to serve us with His means of grace.
If heaven is where we want to be, then we show it by trusting where God says heaven on earth is. Trusting and being where He says He is for us. If we are heading towards a time when Christian will know Christian intimately with great love, then how ought we treat others today? If that is what we are going to be doing in the next life, we should show the love and forgiveness that Christ has given us, even to great sinners like you and I who have betrayed Him.
You wouldn't want to start a fight with someone on a long airplane flight. You have to be with the person. Make the best of it.
How much more those who will be with you eternally in the resurrection of the dead. Many talk about heaven and going there, but few act in a way that shows us. God does not want us to live as hypocrites.
Human wisdom tells you, dress for the job you want. You know it is to get a certain goal. You have to act in a way that assumes you will achieve it.
If you sit on the couch all day, and then you do a marathon, that marathon will not be enjoyable for you. If you ignore prayer and God's Word and hate your brother, heaven will not be enjoyable for you. Rather, if you train, beat your body into submission, you will find that you are suited for your goal.
But first you have to know what your goal is and what it is like. Comfort yourself concerning the return of Christ. Then live as you plan to be there.
Now this will not be possible for you to complete on your own. When I say to train yourself, I don't mean that you are working your way there. Only Christ can make you able to go to heaven.
And He gives that to you freely by grace, and you receive it through faith. Then you live in the way that He has created you. As a new being.
With a new heart. This will not lead you to see yourself as more and more heavenly. In fact, you can strive for heaven your whole life, and never see yourself as heavenly.
Never see yourself as good. Just see yourself more and more sinful. See sins that you never saw before.
But trusting in Christ, know that He has made you new. He has remade you in your baptism for the resurrection of the dead. God does allow dirty sinners into heaven.
Your feet aren't going to get the carpet dirty. Because Christ has cleansed you. Christ has made you clean.
You come in on His righteousness. And right now, we are stuck with that old flesh that clings to us, and so we fight against it, and we discipline ourselves. But when He returns, we will be complete and without sin.
The Scriptures speak simply about this. There's one return of Christ. He's not coming multiple times.
He is coming, and He will judge the quick and the dead. That's what we confess in the Creed. There are no other charts or graphs to figure out.
There's not even a timeline. Nobody knows when He will return. But we hold out to this hope and remain ready.
Because we don't know when the end of our life will be either. But we know that the return of Christ is the most definite thing in the world. The comfort that we have and the confidence that where He is, they will go, is the most definite thing in the world.
So let us anticipate it with joy. Let us use this to comfort one another. Encourage and exhort.
Push ourselves and one another towards this hope. Amen.