Death brings sadness. It doesn’t matter how much we want to pretend that it’s natural. It doesn’t matter that we don’t want people to be sad when we are gone. They will be. We will be sad when our loved ones die. The reality is that death is not a natural part of the way things are. It is painful when our loved ones are taken from us. We need to mourn. We need to cry. That is especially true if our loved one dies apart from saving faith in Jesus who is the resurrection and the life. Even Jesus wept when His friend Lazarus died. But those who die in Christ and those who mourn who believe in Christ do not — and should not — be filled with unrelenting sorrow. We know that Christ has conquered death and that Christians who fall asleep in Christ truly are in a better place, a place where we too long to be – the perfect presence of Christ where there is only peace and rest. And what joy is ours that Jesus comes even now in the midst of this world of sorrow to give us a foretaste of that rest. In the Divine Service, the Lord of Life halts our processions of death and sorrow and raises us to new life through His Word and the blessed sacraments. I look forward to seeing you this coming Sunday.
Pastor Ulmer