We will say it with joy and sing it with gusto. After forty long days of intentionally considering our sin, its consequences, and Christ’s suffering for it—forty days begun with those mortal words, “You are dust, and to dust you will return”—we will sound forth again words which swallow up death: “Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!” Such words provide the glorious bookend for “You are dust,” for they remind us that our dusty bodies will one day be resurrected to life. “Christ is risen!” Of course, there is more packed into that proclamation than appears on the face of it.

1. Christ. This isn’t just any human, but the God-man, Jesus. Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary; the eternal Word who made our flesh his own (John 1:14), so that he could make our sin his own, take it to the grave with him, and defeat it by rising again in glory. His resurrection gives us a downpayment—a preview of our own resurrection to life.
2. Is. Not a past-tense memory, but a present-tense reality. What we say about this Christ, we say in the present tense. He is risen, never to die again. And even more, this present-tense Jesus makes a future promise: the promise to return one day, to undo sin and the grave, and to usher in his kingdom in a remastered, remodeled, brand new heaven and earth (Rev. 21:1).
3. Risen. Of course, for Christ to rise, he first had to die. And in order to die, he had to have sin (Rom. 6:23). And in order to have sin, he had to take yours and make it his own (2 Cor. 5:21). And so, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, his ungodly enemies (Rom. 5:6-9). And on the third day, he rose. And still remains risen. In Christ we see the death of death.

All of that, and more, is bound up in Easter’s “Christ is Risen”. No wonder our response is “Alleluia!” God be praised, indeed.

But “Christ is risen” isn’t only a nice liturgical call and response for a blessed Easter morning. It is what informs all of what the Church is and does. As St. Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17). “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead” (1 Cor. 15:20). Because Christ lives, he is able to make present-tense baptismal promises. Because Christ lives, he is able to put his true body and blood in his Supper for the forgiveness of our sins. Because Christ lives, he is able to daily send his Spirit through his proclaimed Word to create and sustain faith. And because Christ lives, he will return one day to bring his everlasting kingdom. We gather to receive Christ’s true and tangible gifts only because Christ is risen. We receive those gifts in the present, even as we long for the glorious future. We do not gather to hear mere memories or only historical facts, but to receive actual forgiveness through God’s Word and Sacraments. And our response? “Alleluia!”

That Christ’s resurrection informs our entire life isn’t terribly surprising or difficult to understand. But what has been largely lost in modern American Christianity is the fact that Christ’s resurrection equally informs our death. It would seem that when it comes to death, all bets are off with regard to how it is defined, what the Christian’s response to it is, and how the Church’s rites are to look when death claims one of Christ’s lambs. Strangely, “Christ is risen” often seems nowhere to be found in much of the discussion and rites surrounding death. Too many a funeral—or memorial, or celebration of life, or whatever they are called these days—are void of any mention even of Christ’s resurrection, much less the eventual resurrection of the deceased. Instead, they have largely devolved into sentimental gatherings where memories are shared about NASCAR, family vacations, and the fond personality quirks of the deceased. The proclamation that does happen is often nothing more than “she’s in a better place with Jesus now.” If “Christ is risen”—and all that that entails—is the beating heart of the Christian faith and the Church’s proclamation, why is that very proclamation often missing at the most critical and opportune time it needs to be spoken?
​
The answer to that question is no doubt multifaceted. But there are at least three overarching theological reasons that we could discuss.

If death isn’t that bad, then Easter can’t really be all that good. What use is it going around proclaiming, “Christ is risen!” if death is our friend? If the grave is my inevitable and ultimate companion, then why should I care that Christ overcomes it?

Contrary to popular belief, dying is not a part of life—at least not the life given by God in the beginning. God had created man and breathed into him the breath of life, and he became a living creature (Gen. 2:7). Humans were created to be alive in God’s very good creation. It was only after Adam & Eve violated God’s will in their attempt to become gods themselves that death enters the picture. And it’s a bad thing.

In fact, it’s a curse. After doling out the curses upon the serpent and the woman, God speaks to Adam: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:19). God fulfills the promise he made earlier that “in the day you eat of [the fruit] you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). It’s no wonder that Paul declares that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Death is not an unfortunate accident. It is God’s curse upon sin. We die because we are sinful.

​That death is bad actually fits perfectly within the overarching story of the Biblical narrative. Sin enters the world and therefore death. A promise is made to undo this terrible curse. Christ comes as the fulfillment of that promise, takes the sin of the world upon himself on the cross and that sin does what sin always does: it kills. But since this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, sin’s consequence cannot contain him. He rises from death, never to die again. Why? Because he has defeated the thing that pays out the wages of death. Not only that, he promises that those who are baptized into his death and resurrection are given the forgiveness of their sins. And with the removal of sin comes—wouldn’t you know it—the promise of death overturned. Resurrection. So while death will win the battle, it will not win the war. It is the last and greatest enemy to be defeated (1 Cor. 15:26). Jesus will return on the last day to empty graves (1 Thess. 4:16) and usher in his deathless kingdom once and for all. And so Jesus and Paul can both describe the dead Christian as “asleep”, because they will one day wake up from death. “Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia!” If death is bad, that is really good news. Indeed, it is the only news we have that is worth proclaiming.

But what if death is not seen as bad? What if death is the “doorway into glory”? What if death is a “beautiful release into eternity”? What if death is “going to our eternal home”? If death is not seen as bad, it’s no wonder that “Christ is risen” never shows up in a funeral service, for to say such a thing is only intelligible if death is our enemy. Instead, the focus is not on this person’s being in Christ and therefore their resurrection to life on the Last Day, but rather, inevitably on their temporal life in the present. We “celebrate their life”. They had a good go of it, and now they’re with Jesus. “The funeral is for the living, after all,” so we say. And so we gather, not to rehearse the remarkable drama of the Scriptures that take us from sinful death to resurrection life through the cross and tomb of Jesus. Rather we gather to enact a self-centered therapy session that will bring sentimental comfort to those left behind. The “action” of the funeral happens not in the Word of resurrection proclaimed in the face of real, nasty death, but rather in the psyche of those gathered as they remember their friend. This is how many say the person will “live on”: in our memories. And so the best we can come up with is to share stories about them, to sing their favorite songs, read their favorite poems, and eat their favorite foods. All of it is an attempt to make sense of death—and to do so by making it somehow alright. “Fred really loved to golf and drink Budweiser. There was this one time… Well, at least he’s with Jesus now, enjoying the best 18 holes of his life…” While such things may ease a certain (small!) amount of grief, is this really the best that the Church can say? Rev. Dr. Thomas Long, in his book Accompany Them with Singing: the Christian Funeral (2009), notes the danger of such a perspective:

Scholar N.T. Wright is known for quipping that “heaven is great. But it’s not the end of the world.” What he means is that when it comes to things eternal, Western Christianity has largely drawn comfort from the notion of “heaven”, which is “where we go when we die”. Unfortunately, when it comes to “what happens when we die”, Scripture is frustratingly silent. What we can say is that at the point of death the Christian is no longer contending with his sinful flesh (Rom. 5:7); he is with Christ (Phil. 1:23) and is therefore no longer suffering; and, most importantly, he is waiting. For what? That’s what the Scriptures are far more concerned with. Time and again they point us not to life after death, but “life after life after death,” as Wright says. That is to say, the Scriptures constantly point us, not to the day of our death, but to the day of Christ’s return—the day of our bodily resurrection and creation’s cosmic overhaul (cf. Mt. 24-25; Rom. 8:18-25; 1 Cor. 15; 1 Thess. 1:9-10; 4:13-18; 5:1-11; 1 Pet. 1:1-7; 5:4; 2 Pet. 3:1-13; Rev. 21-22). To put it another way, we have confused penultimate comfort (call it “heaven” if you like) with ultimate hope (Christ’s return in glory).

​Consider the effects of this confusion when it comes to how we grieve in the  face of death. If we ignore the very thing that the Scriptures point us to for hope, we will grab on to almost anything else. And because the Scriptures are silent about this state in between death and resurrection which we often call “heaven”, we are usually happy to fill in the blanks as we see fit: we become (guardian?) angels; we play harps; we float on clouds; we look down from heaven lovingly upon our family and friends and maybe even communicate with them in mysterious ways; we get to fish, play golf, crochet, read, or enjoy any other hobby for eternity; we get to see the impact we had on others while here on earth. Certainly the list could go on and on. None of these things are given to us in the Scriptures, but if you listen carefully at the next funeral you attend, odds are likely that these are the very things that will be dragged out as mourners grasp for comfort. The ultimate hope of Christ’s return to undo death is replaced with present-tense “comfort”, which is vague at best, and just plain false at worst. It is a primed pump for “celebrating life”, rather than proclaiming “Christ is risen” even as we mourn death.

Consider, also, the effect this vague, ethereal kind of thinking has upon how we view the body of the deceased. “That’s not dad/mom/Tom/Brenda/etc.” is a common sentiment. “It’s just his shell.” The “real” him is in “heaven” now. What we do with “the body” is really of no consequence. It has served its purpose as the vessel of the soul. Of course, this is not how we think and speak before dad died. When he was alive, dad was not some sort of animated “shell”. He was, well, dad. You couldn’t know him except through his body. His smile was unique and you knew it well. His hands were the ones that held you when you were an infant. His eyes were the ones that cried at your wedding. His voice was the one that spoke your name. And none of that changes when dad dies. He is still dad, only he is now dead, which is perhaps one of the most profound things we can say about a person, for it is a violation of their very humanity. Death is a state that God does not desire for his creatures, and so it is a state which he promises to reverse.

Yes, Christ is risen, and he is so for this dead lamb of his. It is this lamb that Christ has died for, this lamb that Christ has baptized, this lamb that Christ fed with his body and blood, and this lamb that Christ promises to raise to life on the Last Day. With this in mind, perhaps we ought not be so quick to hand over this lamb’s flesh to the flames of the crematorium and his bones to be pulverized by the “cremulator”. Perhaps we might treat this lamb in death, the same way we treated him in life: as someone for whom Christ died and for whom Christ is returning. Furthermore, perhaps it might aid our proclamation to have this lamb invited to his own funeral. To have him there to worship with the saints one last time before being laid to wait. We wouldn’t perform a baptism without the baptismal candidate present, or a wedding without the bride. Why a funeral without the deceased? Probably because we don’t believe the deceased is actually there. We have come to view the funeral in less-than-resurrection terms. We have come to think that this death is the final chapter of the story, and that the body is therefore no longer part of that story. Long puts it this way:

Or,

So the question for the church in the face of death is not so much about “right” and “wrong”, and not even about drawing comfort from foggy notions of “heaven”. Rather the question is about how we confess the faith. How can we confess, in all that we do, sing, and say, that this death is not the final chapter in this lamb’s life, but rather that Christ’s return on the Last Day is? How can we bear up our Christian brother or sister in death, even as we bore them up in life? How we treat our dead will always confess something. The question is whether it confesses that “Christ is risen, and so this lamb will rise too.”

“I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses…and the joy we share while we tarry there, none other has ever known.” Yes, it’s a favorite song of many, and anyone who might challenge it is probably a glutton for criticism. But how is it that such sentiment has become commonplace and acceptable in the Christian funeral? There is nothing Biblical in that song, except a vague allusion to Mary meeting Jesus in the garden on the day of his resurrection. But even more, the words are thoroughly against any notion of “the communion of saints, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting,” as we confess in the Creed. In short, “In the Garden” is a thoroughly individualistic song. It is a far cry from the glorious hymns like “Behold a host arrayed in white, like thousand snow-capped mountains bright! With palms they stand; who is this band before the throne of light? These are the saints of glorious fame, who from the great affliction came and in the flood of Jesus blood are cleansed from guilt and shame. They now serve God both day and night; they sing their songs in endless light. Their anthems ring as they all sing with angels shining bright.” (LSB 676)

Or consider “For all the saints”, whose penultimate stanza declares, “But, lo! There breaks a yet more glorious day: the saints triumphant rise in bright array; the King of Glory passes on His way. Alleluia! Alleluia!” (LSB 677)

Or how about “all the vault of heaven” resounding because “Christ has triumphed”? (LSB 465)

Or what about “God’s own child I gladly say it”, where we proclaim, “Death , you cannot end my gladness: I am baptized into Christ. When I die I leave all sadness to inherit paradise.” Or “Open-eyed my grave is staring, even there I’ll sleep secure. Though my flesh awaits its raising, still my soul continues praising. I am baptized into Christ. I’m a child of paradise.” (LSB 594)

Where “In the Garden” would have just me and Jesus tarrying among the dew-covered roses, the songs of the saints would have Christ and his whole bride, the Church, surrounding him in endless worship at the Lamb’s high feast. Where “In the Garden” would have Jesus speaking sweetly to my ear and within my heart so that even the little birdies hush their tweeting, the songs of the saints would have the crucified and risen, Almighty Lord of Creation, whose booming voice echoes with resurrection authority throughout the world calling the dead to come out of their graves once and for all. There’s no contest as to which one contains worthwhile content and should therefore be sung at a funeral. And yet many people would choose the empty words of “In the Garden”, because, “It was one of dad’s favorites.” Why is this?

Because “Christ is risen” has been traded for a thoroughly narcissistic faith. American Christianity has perpetuated the idea that everyone’s experience of Christ is unique and valid. No longer is Christ’s resurrection seen as the “hinge of history”, to use the words of philosopher Carl Michaelson. Instead it has been turned into a private and personal faith experience. What “Christ is risen” means to you, might mean something different to someone else, whose faith experience has led them on a different—and supposedly equally valid—journey. The church has lost sight of the fact that “Christ is risen” is actually the overarching, true story of the whole world—whether they know it or not. Instead, we have settled for a buddy Jesus, who helps us cope with low self-esteem and gives us principles for healthy finances and successful marriages, and tarries with us among the roses. It’s no wonder, in such a privatized Christianity, why the funeral services surrounding death would mirror such narcissism. After all, we want to have a service that would “honor” the dead by capturing his or her personality as accurately as possible. Such a thing, we think, will reflect their own personal faith experience. Such a thing is how we truly can “celebrate” their life.

“In the Garden” is but one example of such privatized funeral fare. Poems, favorite songs, and themed services are all ways that people will strive to create an experience that is as unique to the deceased individual as possible. A “good” funeral, it is thought, is one that “would’ve made mom happy”—not one that proclaims “Christ is risen.” Mourning has been replaced with fanfare. Long recounts the story of a journalist’s perspective on this shift:

What Ms. Cullen came head-to-head with was the reality that no one can get around: that death is perhaps the most obvious place where individual experience means absolutely nothing. The dead body does not lie, and he or she is not the first to undergo this experience. No one is unique in death; it is the great equalizer. It is not right, and we all know it in our gut. As Christians, we know what the ultimate experience is at the occasion of death, and it is the same for all: this person was a sinner. The experience of death proves it. And yet, remarkably, the one institution given the very words to proclaim into such a universal situation, often shirks its responsibility for the sake of custom funerals, often to avoid stepping on the toes of the grieving. The Church alone has the word which proclaims the universal solution to sin and death. “Christ is risen.” It is a word that transcends individuals and their personal experience. It is a word that is for all nations, tribes, languages, and cultures. “Risen indeed! Alleluia!”

Again, Long puts it quite well:

The notion of a “custom” funeral service should be as foreign to us as the idea of a “custom” Divine Service. The church gathers for a funeral in the same way and for the same reasons we gather for any other service: to proclaim that Christ is risen for sinful people. To be sure, there will be elements of the funeral rite that are specific to death, and even specific to the lamb who is now asleep in Christ. But all of the elements of Divine Service—Invocation, Kyrie, Lord’s Prayer, Apostles’ Creed, Christocentric hymnody, Law and Gospel Preaching—these elements keep the service moored to the dock of the Church’s central and ongoing proclamation drawn from the entire narrative of Scripture: “Christ is risen.”

And so the funeral is not the “last stop” for the Christian deceased, any more than his or her death is the last stop of their life. It is not our final chance to send so-and-so off with a party. No, the funeral is a sacred stop on the journey to the new creation, and it is a stop for the entire church. While at that stop, the Church does what she has always done: she bears Christ’s baptized on the way—in life, and in death. She bears Christ’s baptized by singing songs of joy and mourning, of Christ and his work. She bears Christ’s baptized, proclaiming endlessly that “Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!” even in the face of death itself—proclamation which propels us forward to the Last Day, when death is dead, and our faith will finally be sight. So may we bring the Christian funeral back to life, for it is nothing less than the resurrecting proclamation that “Christ is risen,” followed by the prayer of longing lifted to the risen Christ, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.”

I don't know how many times I've heard it. It's usually a variation on the same theme: "We don't baptize infants, because they are not old enough to have cognition, which is a prerequisite for baptism." I wish that the folks who say such things would just be honest enough to say it more plainly:

"We don't baptize stupid people."

That's really what it amounts to. "We don't baptize this certain portion of the populous, because they are cognitively unable to comprehend what's happening." This is a problem.

It's a problem because it doesn't take two things seriously:
1. The Bible's teaching about our fallen sinful nature
2. The Bible's teaching about the wonderful promises of Christ for fallen, sinful people.

The problem stems from a misguided understanding of baptism. But even deeper than that, it stems from a faulty understanding of human reason and human will. Those who advocate against infant baptism are trying to hold on to a shred of human effort to participate somehow in their salvation. So, rather than simply let the prescriptive texts of Scripture remain true on the page, many import some flavor of that human effort into the equation when it comes to baptism.

First of all, just consider a couple of texts which teach what we are at birth:

• Ephesians 2:1-3 — we are all, by nature, objects of God's wrath.
• Colossians 2:13 — we are all, at birth, dead in trespasses and sin.
• Romans 3:10-12 — no one is righteous, no one does good, no one seeks for God, etc.
• Romans 3:19 — God's Law has been given to stop up every mouth and to make the whole world accountable to God.

These texts alone should be enough to teach us that we are not some kind of neutral, blank slate individuals at birth. No, we are born enemies of God; haters of God; bent in on ourselves and wanting nothing to do with him. Yes, that cute little baby, only hours old, napping in your arms, might as well have a bazooka in his hand with his finger on the trigger and God in the crosshairs.

At birth, we are the epitome of stupid. We are foolishness incarnate (which highlights just how incredible Christ's teaching is on entering the kingdom of God as a little child, Matthew 18). And we spend a lifetime trying to convince ourselves that that reality is somehow not true; convincing ourselves that we're not as helpless and utterly dependent as we are. It's no wonder that our salvation is all God's work for us, because on our own, we're toast.

It's also no wonder that the texts concerning baptism are so universal in scope. Here are just a few:

• Matthew 28:19-20 — Jesus commands to baptize all nations. But of course he does. People of all nations have sin (including babies) and so people of all nations need forgiveness.
• Acts 2:38-39 — Peter says that the promise of repentance and forgiveness given in baptism is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off. But of course it is. You, your children, and all who are far off have sin, and so all need forgiveness.
• Titus 3:4-5 — God saved you. Not by righteous deeds you have done. But by the washing of renewal and regeneration in the Holy Spirit. But of course he does. How else would you be saved, except to have the atoning death and resurrection of Christ mad yours in baptism (cf. Rom. 6:1-11)? How could the deeds done by an enemy of God, no matter how righteous they look on the face of it, merit his favor? Answer: they can't. So, rather than looking to our righteous deeds or cognition, He saved us out of mercy and lovingkindness. How? By washing us in his gracious promises.

You see, one's doctrine of baptism is intimately tied to one's understanding of the human will. If you believe what the Scriptures teach about our born-in-sin-and-wrath-deserving nature, then it's not a huge leap to baptize infants. Because, frankly, the age of a person is irrelevant. Baptism is God's work to save sinners--all sinners. On the other hand, if you don't think babies are sinful, or at least not accountable for their sin, then not only will you not think baptizing infants is necessary, but even harmful, because you will not have given them the opportunity to comprehend what's happening and make their own decision. Baptizing infants might give them false hope! And so you will have to create some kind of criteria to determine when they become sinful or accountable for their sin, which means looking to their reason and cognition, and holding off baptism until they are smart enough to be able to choose Jesus for themselves. This leads into all manner of despair, because through and through it's asking people not to hope in Christ and his promises, but in themselves and their (supposedly) good will towards God.

But just stop and consider who is left out of the equation; consider who doesn't receive the benefits of these glorious promises. Not only all babies who haven't reached the magical and found-nowhere-in-Scipture 'age of accountability', but also what about the child with severe Down's Syndrome? Who gets to decide when that child is smart enough to receive this gift of baptism? Will the child ever be smart enough? What about the 90-year-old man with Alzheimer's who can't even remember his name? What about the person who has suffered severe brain damage from an accident? Do the promises of their baptism go away? Or what about the person who is simply asleep? They are not cognitive of Christ as they slumber. During the night do the promises of Christ cease to be theirs until they wake up in the morning?

Do you see the problem when we start pointing people to their own works or cognition to be certain of the promises of Christ? The reality is that the promises are stripped away, as the individual is stuck constantly navel gazing at himself and his mind to know the grace of God.

Instead, let's simply confess what Scripture confesses: you and I and all people are sinful from birth (Eph. 2:1-3; Col. 2:13). But God, who is rich in mercy, saved us (Titus 3:3-7). He did this, not because of righteous deeds we had done, but because of his mercy and lovingkindness. Not only that, but he also did this while we were his enemies (Romans 5:8). God be praised that he has provided a means by which he delivers the goods of his forgiveness to all people through the blessed waters of baptism.

Don't be ashamed to say it: God indeed baptizes stupid people. And that is good news.

Because that means he baptizes even you and me.

The Church—pastor and laity together—is the bride of Christ. Often, however, the drop-dead gorgeous bride of Christ, who is made beautiful by her Bridegroom, the Lord Christ, can look more like Bridezilla. How can such a monster be slain?

Below you'll find a paper I presented to some fellow pastors in my District. It is simply my thoughts that arose out of a study of the Divine Institution of the Pastoral Office and the implications such a Divine Institution has on our practice as the Church.

To be a Christian is to be born, to bear, and to be borne.

I'll never forget the first time I became aware of the weight of death. I was in the third grade. My father's mother died. He came home from church one Sunday while I was in my room playing, and he sat down on the edge of my bed with me to share the news. I didn't know my grandmother that well, and yet I started to cry. I knew in my gut that this thing called death, which had just claimed my grandmother, wasn't right. And then my dad started to cry with me. And for a few minutes he held me in his arms and we grieved together.

My grandparents lived in Arizona, and we made arrangements to drive there from North Dakota to attend the funeral. Not a memorial service. Not a celebration of life. A funeral, full casket and all. I don't remember the sermon. I don't remember the readings. I don't remember the memories that were shared by the family. In fact, the one thing that I do remember from that day is rather odd:

The pallbearers.

My grandmother was a pretty thin and frail woman by the time she died. Yet I'll never forget how it took six grown men to lift her casket into the hearse. Although they were not about to drop the casket, it was visibly obvious that they were struggling; putting their free arms out like wings to keep their balance. Four men certainly could not have done it; probably not even five. And while I wasn't there, I can only assume it was the same at the grave. It took the strength of these men, obviously struggling, to bear my dead grandmother to her place of rest.

I know there are a lot of opinions floating around about death, how to talk about it, how to grieve it, and what kind of rites and services should occur when it happens. I suppose there is some flexibility in these things, but in the Church, there is something we must always bear in mind; something which is becoming forgotten:

Death is a heavy, enormous enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26).

For the Christian, there is no saying "Amen" to Forrest Gump's mother, whose wisdom would tell us that dying is just an innocuous part of life. For the Christian, there is none of this foolish talk about how the deceased person's body is just a "vessel". The Christian does not make claims like, "That's not mom, it's just her shell." The Christian puts to rest all of the language that would try to lighten death's weight and ease it's razor-sharp edges, and instead calls a thing what it is.

Death is a heavy, enormous enemy.

But there's something else that the Christian remembers in the face of death: the Church is the community who bears God's children with nothing less than the Word of Christ—both in life and in death.

It begins in baptism, where we are born from above (John 3) into the body of Christ, given the gift of the Holy Spirit and the promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation (Acts 2:38). Infant baptism is especially beautiful in this regard, because the candidate for baptism in no way can bring herself to the font. She must be borne; carried by someone else. She doesn't even get to participate by presenting herself at the font; someone else must bring her. And yet God takes this tiny enemy of his, who can do nothing for herself, much less bring herself to be saved, and He washes her in His salvific promises.

From that moment on, she is part of a community who will bear her and bear with her. They will catechize her in the faith. They will train her up in the knowledge and fear of God. They will weep with her when she weeps. They will rejoice with her when she rejoices. They will absolve her when she repents. They will hear her make the good confession of faith at her confirmation. They will witness her matrimony. They will praise God at the birth, and baptismal rebirth of her children. They will walk with her though unpredictable sorrow. They will sit with her when her questions have no answers. Week in and week out, they will pray with her, confess the faith with her, eat Christ's body and blood with her, be forgiven with her by Christ's powerful Word.

And she will do all of that for and with them.

To be part of the Church is to be born in baptism, to bear one another's joys and burdens, and to be borne by your brothers and sisters in Christ—in life and in death. For the day will come; finally, the body of Christ will even bear their sister through the valley of the shadow of death. And when death delivers its life-sucking blow they will carry their sister even to the grave. And make no mistake about it: that death is a weighty, enormous, horrendous enemy. Even the strongest men in the community will struggle to bear their sister in Christ one last time.

Cradle to grave, baptism to burial, in life and in death, the Church is a community who bears the children of God.

So what? Why does the way we understand death even matter? Well, it matters because how we understand death will affect the way we bear one another up in its midst. If you get sin and death wrong, you also get God's solution to them wrong, and that will become quite evident in the way a community carries one another through that valley.

And so perhaps our rites, services, and the language that we use surrounding death should not attempt to lighten death's weight. Rather, perhaps in all that we do surrounding death, we ought to proclaim just how weighty death is. How it's not simply something that innocently happens to us; how it's not a beautiful release; how it is the result of human sin and enmity with God; and therefore how Christ has dealt with death in his own body on the cross and empty tomb.

Also, because our Lord cared enough to redeem this person, body and soul, with the price of his shed blood, perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to usher our dead hastily away into the annals of memory as if their bodies no longer matter, while we all gather without them for their "memorial" or to "celebrate" their life. (Ironic, isn't it, that the reason to celebrate someone's life has become the occasion of their death?)

Perhaps—even though Scripture is silent on the issue and there's no "right" or "wrong" answer—perhaps we ought not be so quick to get rid of our dead by cremating them with the rationale that we don't want the last memory we have of them to be one where they are dead in a casket; no, we want to "remember them as they really were", so we say (as if anything we do can change the reality that death has actually happened). Perhaps, instead, we could physically bear our sister in Christ one last time; carry her into the presence of Christ, just like we did on the day she was baptized, to proclaim and to hear yet again the life-giving, death-defeating Word of Christ.

Perhaps we could gather for a full-blown funeral, and participate in a liturgy which does not speak about fishing trips and hobbies like sewing or woodworking; a liturgy which doesn't drag out the false superlatives that everyone knows aren't true like, "She always [virtue]" or "She never [vice]"; a liturgy that doesn't point us to this person's supposed good works that made God smile upon them. Rather, perhaps we ought to gather for a liturgy that calls death what it is; which proclaims into the face of real, weighty, sin-wrought death, an even weightier and victorious death-and-resurrection-wrought promise: "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." And when He does come again, our Christian sister, who today is dead because of her sin, will on that day rise to life, never to die again. Perhaps there's something worthwhile and powerful about having an occupied casket present, to remind us that this person is not just a shell or a vessel that we hurriedly get rid of, but rather this person is our baptized sister in Christ, in a state she was never created to be in. And yet it is this person in this casket who will rise again. This death is not the end of her story, nor the end of ours. And so we proclaim Christ, crucified and risen for sinners—proclamation which packs quite a Gospel punch when we bear our dead Christian sister into our midst one last time.

Yes, death is heavy. But it's not too heavy for our Lord. Because He has defeated this great and terrible enemy—because He has borne your sin all the way into the heart of the earth and out again—you are free to call death what it is, and His bride is free to proclaim the One who will put it one day under His feet. You need not shy away from death. And you need not embrace it as good.

Rather, look to Christ, who bears you up, even in death's dark valley, for He has overcome it for you.

"Don't tell me about your faith; tell me about your Christ," said the wise, old seminary professor (Dr. Norman Nagel, as legend has it). Stated another way: your faith didn't die on the cross for your sins; Jesus did.

The reason this reminder needs to be constantly spoken is because humans are terribly narcissistic creatures. That's more than a diagnosis of a psychological disorder from a big, heavy book. No, it is sadly the way of the sinful creature; it is the way of us all. We gladly stoop down to join Narcissus at the edge of his pool, but quickly forget he is there, because all that consumes our narrow vision is the unholy trinity staring back at us with loving admiration: me, myself, and I. Yes, before smartphones, Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and Instagram, the Narcissian puddle has long contained the selfie. We will forever be captivated by our self.

The fruit of this condition is that we love to make ourselves the subjects and objects of all of our conversation in almost any way we can. And of course, the Christian is not immune to this. Too often the zealous, well-intentioned Christian can unwittingly talk about himself so much that he talks Jesus right out of the conversation. Like the seminary professor warned, the Christian easily wanders off into talking about his own faith, rather than his Christ.

Of course, it's not usually obvious. There aren't Christians running around blatantly saying we should stop talking about Jesus so that we can talk more about ourselves (although, there are probably some out there somewhere). No, usually it's far, far more subtle than that. It's couched in language that sounds Christ-centered and probably even mentions him quite a bit, but which, upon further examination, is all about us; language about how to reach the lost, for example. It's hidden in the 5 steps to becoming an effective church or more committed Christ follower. Our narcissism is glossed over and glammed up with new and exciting "movements"; never-before-tried initiatives; strategic plans involving new, more meaningful worship "experiences" that will relevantly appeal to the masses. Our self-obsession is given voice in songs that talk all about how much we love to tell the story, or about how much we just want to praise God, but which never actually get around to doing either.

Before we know it, we have snapped more theological selfies than we know what to do with, none of which contain Jesus. Or if He is there, He has faded into the blurry background. There's only room for one in the Narcissian puddle, after all, and if Jesus will make an appearance, it will be no more than a ripple in the water; nothing more than the circle-shaped border that frames the center-most, affection-worthy object in the pond: me.

Yes, our narcissistic sin is to love the Christ follower more than the Christ followed.

So what is to be done? How is the situation to be remedied? Of course, it would be foolish to point to you or me as the solution. It would be utterly counterproductive to give you a list of ways to prevent your narcissism, although this seems to be the way of much popular American Christianity (e.g., "Your Best Life Now" by Joel Osteen, "Purpose-Driven Life" by Rick Warren, "Becoming a Contagious Christian" by Bill Hybels, the latest from Beth Moore, this from Joyce Meyer, and even this from within my own LCMS, just to name a few). But how does directing you to focus upon yourself help you fix the problem of focusing upon yourself? Answer: it doesn't. That would be like telling Narcissus that if he wanted to stop gazing at himself in the pond (which he doesn't), he should just move his head over a bit. Of course, his reflection will come right along with him, and he will probably be even more enamored with the new perspective he's gained just by slightly tilting his head. No, only one solution for this problem will do:

Narcissus must die.

And what better thing to facilitate his death than the pool of water into which he gazes? Yes, he must drown. Someone must cast him headlong into his own reflection and hold him beneath the surface until all he can do is fill his lungs with the water that once held his affection. Narcissus must die.

Indeed, so must you. Your sinful, wicked, self-infatuated self must be drowned and killed.

And that's exactly what Christ does in the blessed waters of your baptism. Christ comes and plunges you under the surface of the water in order to kill the wretched sinner at whom you so fondly and proudly gaze. But He doesn't leave you there. No, God kills so that He can make alive once more. And when Christ speaks His Word of promise, even the water of the Narcissian puddle becomes a life-giving water, full of grace. The water that brings death, is also that which raises the dead. The water that buries you in the tomb with Jesus, is also the water that raises you with Him on Easter morning, all because he proclaims it to be so (Romans 6:3-11). And once the self-aggrandizing, monolithically selfish, utterly self-worshiping sinner is sufficiently lifeless, Christ graciously lifts you out again. He raises your lifeless body out of the water, and with His Word of promise gives you life again. After all, even the dead can't ignore the, "Get up!" of Christ's creative Word (John 11). And so you rise forgiven, free from sin, a new creation, with your eyes fixed no longer upon yourself, but only upon your life-giving Lord. He becomes the object of your attention. He silences all of your pathetic cries, "Look at me! Look at me!" He puts an end to all of your self-help initiatives and Christ-follower betterment programs. He robs you of all of your boasting and leaves you with but one message to speak: "Behold Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. For while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God made Him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, in order that we would become the righteousness of God. Repent and believe the Gospel."

Would you know the perfect and saving love of God? Then look not to His followers nor to their faith.

Look only to His crucified and risen Christ.

Have you ever been talking with someone from a certain Christian denomination who tells you what "their church" teaches about a given issue? And then have you ever spoken with someone else from the exact same denomination, only to find out that "their church" teaches something different about the same issue?

This became somewhat frustrating to me a couple of years ago, specifically when talking with Roman Catholics (of course, the phenomenon happens with members of all denominations). I would hear one thing about one article of their teaching from one person, and another thing about the same article of teaching from another person. But the two, on this issue, could not both be right. So what did I do? I went down to our local used theology/philosophy bookstore (yes, it rocks that we have one of those; www.windowsbooks.com). There I picked up a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for a whopping five bucks. I asked how many years I got off purgatory for reading it. The clerk didn't seem impressed.

And then I read it.

And wouldn't you know it, I had my questions and confusion cleared up. It did not mean that I agreed with this particular teaching from the Roman Catholic church. But at least I knew, objectively, what the teaching was, thereby allowing me to take it to the Scriptures to evaluate it.

I know. It seems simple, right? If you want to know what a church or denomination believes, teaches, and confesses, don't just take their members' words for it. Go to their confessional documents and read them. To be sure, this becomes quite difficult when a church or denomination has no such documents. But many do. And yes, it takes time and will probably stretch you a bit. But we always talk about being informed voters, right? Why not informed churchgoers?

The Lutheran confession of faith is contained in a collection of 16th-century documents known as the Book of Concord. There's a copy of the whole thing online here. Or you can buy a hard copy here.

Surprisingly, there are many Lutherans who have never even heard of the Book of Concord, although most are at least familiar with Luther's Small Catechism, one of the documents in the Book of Concord. Even if they have heard of it, most haven't read it.

Now, I'm certainly not going to say that this is wrong or sinful or some such thing. But I will say this:

You're missing out.

If you put in the time to read the Book of Concord, you'll find that it's an extremely edifying and comforting thing. Like anything (including Scripture), there are some parts that are easier to read than others. Some parts are more exciting and insightful than others. But the treasure contained there makes the whole thing worth it.

So, I encourage you to read the Book of Concord, even if you're not a Lutheran—but especially if you are. And here's why:

1. It's Scriptural.
Perhaps one of the biggest criticisms I hear against Lutherans is that we place our confessional documents on par with Scripture. And I get it. It can certainly look like that, especially at first glance. We treasure our confessions, after all. We uphold them to be true, which means that any teachings that contradict them are false. We require our pastors to unconditionally subscribe to them without reservation. But this does not mean that we place them on par with Scripture. Rather, we treasure the Lutheran Confessions as we do precisely because they teach what the Scriptures teach. And so Lutherans do have two normative books: the Scriptures and the Book of Concord. But the Book of Concord is only normative for Lutherans because the confessions contained therein are normed by the Scriptures and do not contradict them. Don't take my word for it. Read it.

It has become somewhat of a battle cry these days to say, "Well my church just teaches the Bible." Ironically, this is often spoken by those who refuse to teach the plain words of Scripture when it comes to things like Baptism and the Lord's Supper. No, when it comes to those things, then they don't "just teach the Bible", but they teach the Bible after it has been subjected to their human understanding. So even though 1 Peter 3:21 says "baptism...saves you", it can't mean that baptism actually saves you, so they say. Even though Jesus says, "This is my body", what it actually means is "this is not my body", so they say. You see, everyone has a lens or perspective that they bring to the Scriptures, and it's ignorant to think otherwise. So, Lutherans are unabashedly upfront and honest with their lens. We read the Bible in a certain way and with certain presuppositions—just like everyone else. We don't need to pretend otherwise. The incredible thing, though, is how seriously the Book of Concord takes the text and teaching of Scripture. You can say a lot of things about Lutherans, but what you can't say is that we don't formulate our doctrine from the plain words of Scripture. We are faithful to the Scriptures even to the point of looking quite foolish to many. I think someone wrote something about that once (1 Cor. 1:18). Spend some time with the Book of Concord, and it becomes glaringly evident that it submits itself to the Word of God. But don't take my word for it. Read it.

2. It's comforting.
So what is the lens through which Lutherans read all of Scripture? In a word: Jesus. This is why the Book of Concord is an extremely comforting book. It teaches the student of the Scriptures how to see Jesus on every page of Scripture. And not Jesus as a therapist; not Jesus as a life coach; not Jesus as a grand purpose-giver; not Jesus as moralistic guru; not Jesus as happy-marriage-maker or bank-account-increaser; not Jesus as vending machine of blessings.

But Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord for your forgiveness, without any pathetic contribution on your part.

And therein lies the comfort. The Lutheran confessions remind us over and again what the Scriptures teach: that we are born dead in our trespasses and sin (Gen. 3; Eph. 2:1-3; Rom. 3:9-19); that we are enemies of God (Rom. 5:10); that there's nothing we can do to free ourselves from our sinful condition (we're dead, after all); and that Christ didn't wait around for us to get our act together, but died for us while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8). There's nothing we can do to choose him for ourselves but he, in love, chooses us (John 15:16). There's no work of ours that's good enough to please God (Rom. 3:20, 28; Gal. 3:10-14), and there's also no sin that't too great for our Lord's shed blood (John 3:16-17; Rom. 3:25; 5:9; Eph. 1:7; 2:13; Col. 1:20; Heb. 9:11-14, 22).

It's comforting because it robs you of your good works and knocks you off of the rat wheel of trying to keep God happy with you. But don't take my word for it. Read it.

3. It gives you ears to hear.
In an American church culture that increasingly seems to be becoming apostate, this one is a biggy. There's this fact that many Christians seem to have forgotten, but which is just good, common sense: don't believe everything a person tells you. Just because a pastor gets up into a pulpit or takes a stage; just because he has a captive audience; just because he's got charisma and can speak with utmost eloquence; just because he said, "God told me..." or even, "The Bible says...", does not mean you should believe a lick of what he says. It's not like he has some extra revelation of the Scriptures that no one else has (although he may want you to believe that). No, he has the same Scriptures that the entire Church has, clergy and laity alike. And so you know exactly what pastors should be teaching. Which means you also know when they're teaching wrongly. The Book of Concord helps to give you these ears. Not only is it a lens that focuses your reading of the Scriptures, but it's also a hearing aid that helps you listen to the Scriptures when they are proclaimed, so that you will not have the wool pulled over your eyes (which always results in removing the comfort of #2 above).

As I said earlier, every Lutheran pastor, at least in my own church body, the LCMS (I'm somewhat ignorant of the confessional subscription of other Lutheran bodies), has publicly promised that the entire Book of Concord is his own confession. Next time you see your pastor, ask him when the last time was that he studied the Book of Concord. On the day of his ordination, he was asked if he confesses what the Book of Concord teaches. He stood before God and the Church and made this promise with his own lips: "Yes, I make these Confessions my own because they are in accord with the Word of God."

This act is for the sake of the whole body of Christ. This protects the laity from the hobby horses, soap boxes, and false teaching of unfaithful pastors. It's no secret what this man confesses. He has told you with his own lips what his confession is, and you are able to pick it up off of the shelf and read it. Then when you hear him preach and teach, you can evaluate whether or not he is preaching and teaching rightly. If he's not, you have something objective to point to: the Scriptures and the Book of Concord, which he himself said was his own confession. It seems so simple, but sadly this helpful fact has been lost in our life together. If you're Lutheran, you have every resource available to you to find out what your own pastor believes, teaches and confesses. But don't take my word for it. Read it.

4. You can tell your friends what Lutherans (really) believe.
When you become familiar with the confessions of the Lutheran church, you are actually given tools to talk about it with others, and you aren't simply relying on hearsay or your own opinions, thoughts, feelings, or whims. This becomes helpful for clearing up confusion among your friends, especially when two different church bodies who bear the name 'Lutheran' may come out with two very different confessions about something (for example, the LCMS and the ELCA). There's actually an objective way of determining which position is the historic, orthodox, Lutheran, Scriptural position. No matter what a church may put on their sign, if they aren't believing, teaching, and confessing the teaching of the Book of Concord week in and week out, they aren't Lutheran, no matter how much they print it in their bulletin or plaster it on their website. And that's not mean or pejorative. It's just true. No one would call me Presbyterian, for example, because I don't believe, teach, or confess what the Presbyterian church confesses. That's not mean. It's just true.

5. It points you to Jesus. Alone. For you. Period.
For people whose natural, sinful condition is to justify ourselves before God, thinking that we have made him proud with our feeble effort, the most comforting part about the Book of Concord is its incessant focus upon Christ alone, crucified and risen for you. And no matter who you are, you can't get enough of that.

For that reason, the Book of Concord is a treasure trove of comfort. It is a road map to the Scriptures. It is discussion fodder for the dinner table. It is guidance for your pastor's proclamation and instructive for your hearing. It is truly a remarkable confession. And it is all of those things because Christ is at the very center.

But don't take my word for it. Read it.

I caught wind today of a news story about a 29-year-old woman who has moved to Oregon in order to "die with dignity" as they say. Her name is Brittany Maynard and her story can be found all over the internet. Certainly there is much controversy surrounding this issue and the five states that allow for such laws. But it has got me thinking. Thinking about death. Thinking about the suffering that often accompanies it. And thinking about those who would "opt out", as it were. This post may offend. I certainly don't intend that. And I certainly don't mean for anything I say to be interpreted as insensitive.

It's no surprise, I'm sure, that I think about these things theologically. It is my primary lens. And theologically speaking, there is no dignity in death. If you've ever been around someone who is dying, then you know this. No matter how comfortable you make them, no matter how painless and peaceful the process appears, no matter how many loved ones surround them, no matter how many prayers and positive thoughts are spoken, there is no dignity in death. We know it in our gut. Quite the opposite, death is actually the sapping of dignity from our life. If given the choice, we would really prefer that we and our loved ones not die at all. But of course we know that everyone dies. The mortality rate of the human race has always been 100%. And we know that somehow this just isn't right. So to cope with the reality, we coin terms like "death with dignity". But this is really mere wordplay to soothe our troubled souls. Because there is no dignity in death. To say that there is a way to die with dignity is to completely ignore the terrible reality that is death and the wretched condition that causes it: sin. Death is the polar opposite of what it means to be a fully dignified human. How can the very thing that steals away our dignity be called "dignified"? No, to die is to be less than what God created us to be.

All the way back in Genesis, God created mankind. Fashioned from the dust of the earth and breathed into by God with the very breath of life, man and woman were created to be fully alive creatures, never to suffer and never to die. Not only that, they were created to live in a "groove". Dietrich Bonhoeffer speaks of such a "groove" in his work Creation and Fall. The idea is that God carved out a groove—a path and vocation for them to fit into and fulfill. For Adam, it was caring for the creation. For Eve, it was helping Adam. And when they were living in their groove, all was as it should be. There in Genesis we are given a glimpse of true humanity: to be fully human is to be fully sinless and fully alive.

Of course, you certainly know the story: A Deceiver; forbidden fruit that meets human lips; a good Word of God, ignored; fig leaves unconvincingly sewn over human shame; curses upon the entire creation. And death.

Yes, Death.

With that first sin, the creation was hurled headlong out of its groove, and ever since then we've been living (and dying) with the consequences in ways that God never intended. God's perfect world has been broken to pieces, and we can't put it back together again. But that doesn't mean we don't try.

There are two things we can do with suffering and death when we encounter them. The first option is to redefine them in order to diminish them. This might be done by looking through or behind suffering and death to see what larger meaning we can find there. What is the bright side of all of this? Maybe this death is actually a sweet and beautiful release into something better. Maybe it means my family won't have to be burdened any longer. A quick death means less suffering, after all. Perhaps death is really a blessing in disguise. Grandpa's not really gone. He's just in the "other room." While all of these sentiments sound nice, they don't really provide any lasting comfort. We try to concoct all kinds of ways to redefine suffering and death so that they don't seem so sharp, so painful, so horrendous.

I've seen some of this in the language that's being used to describe Brittany Maynard's story. There certainly is an affirmation of how terrible this situation is. She herself says that she doesn't want to die, and so doesn't see her decision as suicide. Somehow there's a recognition that this situation is "bad". But I'm afraid the solution is not actually a better answer. The decision to die before suffering can take its toll seems to miss the point. It attempts to take the truly bad news of death and turn it into the good news of a way to avoid suffering. But to opt for an early death in order to skirt suffering does not therefore change the terrible nature of death. Just because we redefine a situation to try and make it more palatable, doesn't mean that it actually is. The decision to die takes the horror of suffering and death into our own hands so that we can redefine it as good. But the fact still remains:

We will all suffer and die because we are all sinful. Taking death into our own hands doesn't change that fact.

But there is something God can do to change that. In fact, there is something God has done. This is the second option. The first option was to redefine suffering and death in order to diminish them. But when you redefine and diminish suffering, you end up redefining and diminishing the sin which is its source. That's why the second option is far more honest and hopeful, I think. It is this: to call suffering and death exactly what God calls them. To call a spade a spade. Not to sugar coat it. Not to make up excuses for death. Not to make it strangely beautiful or to hasten its arrival so as to make it somehow better. But rather to call it out for the crappy, sucky, dignity-stealing, sin-wrought monster that it is. We can even face suffering head-on without a single ounce of bravery in us. It's ok to look at suffering and be scared out of our wits, to have trepidation, uncertainty, tears, fear, and trembling. Because suffering sucks. And to redefine it as anything else is to fail to take it and our sin seriously.

This is the unique thing about the Christian faith, because the center of our entire life—and death—is nothing less than the cross of Jesus Christ. There we see this strange and humanly foolish work of God. There a king reigns not in power, but in weakness. There God shows the world love by pouring out wrath upon his only Son. There the glory of God is revealed in suffering and pain. There God takes death—your death—into his own hands. There eternal life is wrought in temporal death. There sin is atoned for and forgiven. And when sin is removed, so is the suffering and death that it brings. And in the resurrection of that same Christ, we are given a glimpse of the "life of the age to come". We are shown that, in Christ, suffering and death will not last forever. They will not have the last word. Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.

Armed with that knowledge, we need not avoid suffering and death or redefine them. And we also need not conjure up some kind of human bravery to face them. Rather, the promise of death overturned and life restored back to Eden's glory gives us the ability to call suffering and death exactly what they are: horrible. But that same promise also gives us the ability to endure them, no matter how horrible and uncertain they may be. Christ does not promise to remove suffering from our earthly lives. But he does promise to remain present with us, even in the midst of the most terrible suffering.

You see, for the Christian, the strange thing about suffering and death is that they have this way of bringing you always back to the cross of Jesus.

I don't pretend to know a fraction of all that Brittany Maynard is enduring. I do pray that she knows Christ. Not because he makes her death beautiful. But because he has forgiven her of her sin and promises to one day raise her to life again. I wish she didn't have to endure this terrible situation. I wish none of us would have to endure the suffering that inevitably comes our way. But to wish for such things will not bring them about. No, for that we must wait on Christ. He may tarry now. Our tears may last for the night. But rest assured. His joy will come with the morning. He will return in glory to finally wipe every tear from every eye, for suffering, sin, and death will once and for all be no more. We will be in our "groove" again, fully sinless, full of dignity, and fully alive.

May that be our one and only hope in the ugly face of death.

"From" or "in"?

It's an important distinction especially when it comes to the heart of forgiveness. We are all familiar with the scenario: someone sins against you, it hurts for awhile, but after some time passes you think or say, "It's ok. I've forgiven them in my heart."

Done. Easy. Water under the bridge. They hurt you. Sin happened. But eventually you are able to muster up enough humility and selflessness to be able to come to the point of forgiving them in your heart. How noble your heartfelt actions are.

And how convenient.

No confrontation needed. No difficult conversation. No having to look someone you love in the eye and tell them that they hurt you—indeed sinned against you. No recognition needed on their part that sin has happened. No, it's all taken care of because you are willing to forgive them in your heart. It's so easy, in fact, that not a word needed to be uttered between the sinner and the sinned-against. Forgiveness has been successfully and seamlessly wrought.

Wrong.

In Matthew 18, Jesus teaches about true forgiveness. Too often this chapter is referred to using shorthand that means something like, "Take the steps of 'church discipline' outlined by Jesus to work reconciliation in Matthew 18:15-20." Is gossip happening at work? "Matthew 18." Is your friend complaining to you about an issue they have with someone else? "Matthew 18." Did so-and-so at church go behind your back and smear your reputation? "Matthew 18." This "Matthew 18" language isn't all bad. It's a good reminder that Jesus says, "If your brother sins against you, you go to him and tell him his fault, between you and him alone" (Matt. 18:15). Sin between people must be reconciled between those same people—and no one else.

What's often not asked, however, is why Jesus even gives these steps to take with our brother or sister who has wronged us. It's rather profound that he locates the "steps" in the larger context of who is the greatest in his reign/kingdom. All the way back in verse one, the disciples ask Jesus, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" And to answer their question, he takes a child, places him in the midst of them, and basically says, "This one and people like him are the greatest." That is to say, the neediest, lowliest, most dependent, most straying, utterly foolish, and terribly ignorant ones among you—they are the greatest. Jesus is not teaching about having an innocent, child-like faith. Rather, he's exhorting his disciples to turn—repent and become like children. This means to recognize their true position, which is lowly, humble, needy, unworthy, and completely dependent—regardless of how "great" they think they might be.

Jesus then warns them that these weak, lowly, dependent ones among them are so great that the person who would lead them into folly and sin is actually better off dead at the bottom of the ocean. He goes on to say hyperbolically that if your hand or foot or eye might tempt you to sin (and by correlation, might tempt these weak/great ones to sin), cut it off. Such is the sobering seriousness of sin. Then he uses the example of the single straying sheep. That straying, foolish sheep is so great that the shepherd leaves the 99 to go after it and rejoices when he finds it.

Then we get to the ever-popular "steps". Only after this whole teaching on greatness, then Jesus says, "If your brother sins against you, you go to him and show him his fault." Why does he say this? Because that one is the greatest.

...let me say that again.

That one is the greatest.

That's right. Contrary to every carnal, crusty, Old-Adam proclivity that dwells in the dark recesses of our hearts and minds; contrary to every self-justifying, self-defending argument that we can marshall to show ourselves to be in the right; contrary to every selfish attitude that pridefully waits around for them to come to you; the reality that Jesus proclaims is terrifyingly true: the one who sins against you is actually the greatest; the neediest; the straying one. They are the greatest, and need to be sought after and brought back into the fold. And how does that happen? By simply forgiving them in your heart? Not quite. Rather:

You go...

...yep, you...

...with words...

...to speak...

...audibly...

...from your heart...

...for your brother or sister in Christ to hear.

Jesus doesn't tell you to wait until you feel like forgiving your brother before you go to confront him. He doesn't ask you to psychoanalyze the situation to see if your neighbor is deserving of your forgiveness or if they will "really mean it" if and when they say, "I'm sorry." No, your sinning brother is the greatest. Period. And so you go to care for him.

And not only do you go because he is the greatest, but also because you have been so greatly forgiven by your Lord, as the parable of the unmerciful servant illustrates (Matt. 18:23-35). You go because your own great, unpayable debt of sin was forgiven by Jesus. Your Master didn't see your huge debt of sin and sit down with you to figure out a payment plan so that you could work it off (which, in the parable would amount to something in the ballpark of 200,000 years of labor). No, instead he graciously cancelled the whole thing altogether by his shed blood on the cross. And so you go to your brother bearing forgiveness, the source of which is not you, but Christ. You go to show your brother his fault so that you can forgive him, even as you have been greatly forgiven. And yes, the sobering warning is that if you refuse forgiveness to your repentant brother or sister, then you can expect the full debt of your sin to be reinstated by God. After all, to withhold forgiveness from your repentant neighbor—no matter how justified you may think you are to do so—is tantamount to despising the forgiveness given to you by Christ.

This is why we don't just forgive others in our hearts, but from our hearts—using words:
Person A: "You sinned against me."
Person B: "I'm sorry, please forgive me."
Person A: "I forgive you."

And when the words are spoken, the deed is done. It's simply how forgiveness is delivered. You don't have the luxury of forgiving your brother or sister wordlessly in your heart. And even if you do forgive them in your heart, how will your brother or sister know it? What good does it do to forgive them in your heart if you never tell them that? No, Jesus exhorts you to forgive your bother or sister from your heart, using words spoken to them.

Does that mean having some hard conversations? Indeed. Does it mean the potential for even more hurt feelings? To be sure. Does it mean that you might even have your own sin exposed to you by your bother or sister? Quite possibly. Does it mean that you have to forsake your self-justifying pride? Absolutely. But consider the even more difficult alternative: the greatest one among you might be left in his sin, maybe even unknowingly, maybe even to his eternal harm. Therefore, as the greatest, he requires your utmost care and attention. 

You see, these are more than mere steps to follow in order to get something off of your chest to make yourself feel better, or to weed out the wicked from your midst. They are actually the way that we care for the greatest among us.

So go with words to speak to those brothers and sisters in Christ who have sinned against you. Go, not in haughty pride as if you have got it all together. But go as a fellow foolish one; a simultaneously sinful one. Go in humble concern in order to care for the greatest among you.

Oh, and pray for humility for the time when your brother or sister in Christ does the same to you, and give thanks to God that they loved you enough to do it.

It's a novel idea, I suppose. Enjoy a piece of chocolate, and as a bonus you are encouraged by the positive words printed inside of the shiny foil wrapper. (It's more fun for me, though, to read "Bravely Done" on the underside of a Deschutes bottle cap whose home was formerly perched atop a Black Butte Porter—a brew I pray will be on tap in the New Heavens and New Earth.) Anyway, I was eating one of these delicious Dove chocolates (the dark variety), and I got to thinking about the words printed inside the foil.

I suppose they are rather harmless by themselves; pithy and trite sayings intended to give you a positive perspective on an otherwise ordinary day:
• "Believe in yourself."
• "Live your dreams."
• "Be good to yourself today."
• "Keep moving forward; don't look back."

But what struck me this time, as I placed the last bite of chocolate on my tongue, was how similar these Dove sayings are to many things spoken from pulpits and podiums in the mainline American church.

Listen to many popular "preachers" today and you likely won't be able to go 2 minutes without one of these sayings invading your eardrums. "You have the seeds of greatness on the inside." "There's a champion in you waiting to be discovered." "God's got a big purpose for you, so aim high." "Don't let hard times get you down. Pick yourself up, and tell yourself, 'I'm important. I'm significant. I'm going somewhere.' " "Take hold of all that God has in store for you." Doesn't it seem strange—no, frightening—that there is no qualitative difference between what many "pastors" are preaching from their stages and what a candy company is printing on their wrappers? It struck me as odd that such teachers are unwittingly using Dove candy wrappers as if they are part of Holy Writ. Why is it that so many "pastors" and teachers are taking the liberty of basing entire "sermons" on words that are qualitatively no different than Dove candy wrappers? Maybe I missed the memo, but could someone tell me when these shiny foil candy casings were included in the canon of Scripture?

Oh. They weren't?

Well, that's a relief. Because not only is there the glaring problem that the vast majority of these words contradict Scripture itself; there is also the reality that such words are, at the end of the day, worthless garbage, worthy of the same grave as candy wrappers: the landfill. They don't proclaim any true or lasting hope; just positive, narcissistic thoughts and nice, ego-stroking words that fade almost as quickly as they are heard.

I know. It sounds mean, right? "What's the harm?" some may ask. "Certainly you're not opposed to a little bit of positive thinking. Certainly inspiring words can't hurt. They can brighten a day and bring a smile to our face."

But there's a dirty little secret...

(They aren't true. And they can hurt. Eternally.)

As a pastor, I sit with people in some difficult situations. Terminal cancer. Broken relationships. Sexual confusion. Questions about God's love. Consciences burdened with decades of guilt and recurring sin. With all of these situations, there is conversation that can be had and questions that can be asked so that the law can be properly administered and the healing balm of the Gospel can be applied with care.

And then there's death.

Death's unrelenting presence has this way of shutting us up. It's so powerfully big that it leaves us speechlessly small. Death is not a conversationalist. Death is not swayed by cute, empty, feel-good phrases. Death can see through a pastor's shiny teeth and manicured hair. Death takes the self-esteem, life-lesson bullet points from the sermon, regardless of the eloquence with which they are spoken, and exposes them for the vacuous nonsense that they truly are. Death has this way of shutting us up, and the few words we do speak tremble under his weight.

So, when it comes to the words that we speak in the face of suffering to try and bring true joy and lasting hope, consider the "deathbed test". It works like this: imagine you are sitting at the bedside of a dying person. There's no question that this person will be dead before the week's end, if they even last that long. They are suffering. They are in pain. They have questions about their future. They are worried about their family. Their life is leaving them before your very eyes. And you are there to speak some kind of word that is supposed to bring them comfort. Throw into the mix that they are probably thinking much about their life of sin, and wondering if the cross of Christ is truly as gracious and saving as it sounds. If they are left in that sin, they will spend eternity in hell.

Next, take a saying. Any saying will do. Maybe it's one you heard on the radio. Maybe it's a piece of wisdom you learned from your grandfather. Maybe you read it on a candy wrapper. It could even be a Scripture verse. Take those words and imagine yourself uttering them in that room where death is holding court. If the words that you release into a dying human's ears are actually able to give true and lasting hope in the face of death itself by pointing them outside of themselves to Christ alone, you've probably got a pretty good nugget of truth. It ought to sound something like this:

• "But God showed his own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8)
• "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 6:23)
• "But Christ has indeed been raised from death, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." (1 Cor. 15:20)
• "The last enemy to be destroyed is death." (1 Cor. 15:26)
• "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live." (John 11:25)
• "God made him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, in order that we may become the righteousness of God." (2 Cor. 5:21)
• "We were buried with him, therefore, through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised by the glory of the Father, we, too, may live a new life." (Rom. 6:4)
• "All we, like sheep, have gone astray, each to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Is. 53:6)
• "But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." (Titus 3:4-7)

(Notice the lack of narcissistic positivism and the focus on Jesus?)

However, if the words you have chosen to speak cause Death to throw back his head and laugh in diabolical delight at the sheer stupidity they contain (e.g. "Never give up." "Believe in yourself." "Keep moving forward; don't look back." "Tomorrow will be a brighter day." "Think positive thoughts."), well, it's probably a good idea never to utter those words again. Anywhere. Ever. Not the deathbed, not the bus stop, not the dinner table. Really. Leave them for the candy companies.

You see, the thing about Dove chocolate wrappers is that, while they may tell us the self-inflating sentiments that we like to hear, they have a less-than desirable destination: the garbage heap. They eventually land amidst slimy banana peels, last week's moldy leftovers, and baby diapers, the contents of which shall remain undisclosed. The words may last for a moment, maybe a day, and then they are crumpled up into a tiny ball, thrown into a wastebasket, and forgotten even before their chocolatey contents traverse your digestive tract. Even worse than their fleetingness, such greeting card sentiments instruct suffering people to find hope in themselves, or in some vague ideas floating in the sky about happiness, positive thinking, flowers, brighter tomorrows, or some such nonsense about God closing doors and opening windows. Such words are completely impotent in the face of daily suffering, in the valley of the death-shadow, and in the guilt-racked corners of the conscience. Is that the kind of garbage theology we ought to be feeding the lambs of Christ, whether in the pew or on the deathbed? The answer is quite simple: no, it isn't.

What should we be feeding them?

We should be feeding them a word that will first point them to their true natural selves: sinners in need of a Savior. We should be feeding them a word which takes seriously their suffering as a result of that sin. We should be feeding them a word that tells them who their Savior is and what he has done to forgive them by his shed blood on the cross and the empty Easter grave. We should be feeding them a word that is so powerful that it slays the wicked father of lies. We should be feeding them a word—the only word—that can stand up to the great enemy of death; a word that defeats death not with positive thinking and and fluffy phrases, but by bursting its bonds with a vacant tomb. I only know of one place to find words like that: Jesus.

Died.
Risen.
Returning.

Jesus.

Let's leave the garbage theology in the trash where it belongs, and instead proclaim Christ.