Job 19:21-27 Revelation
2:10 Matthew 27:45-54; 28:1-6
Grace, mercy and
peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text today is Alvin’s confirmation verses from the book of
Revelation to St. John, especially these words, “Be faithful unto death,
and I will give you the crown of life.”
Thus far our text.
Dear friends in
Christ, Norma, Adam, Mark, and Frances, Today is a difficult day. There is no way around that. In the course of just a few months, you have
lost a mother, a grandmother, and now today, a father. There is nothing that can describe the hurt
and pain of loss that you now face today.
I’m sure you are faced with all sorts of questions, “What kind of a God
could take so many people from you so quickly?
Why must we face this pain and loss?
What’s the point? Where do I go
from here?”
Dear friends and
family, we have these questions today, and in the face of these difficult
questions, we have the words of Alvin’s confirmation verse: “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you
the crown of life.” With the questions
on our hearts today, these words seem so empty and broken. We’ve lost so many loved ones. To our eyes, Alvin is not alive. To our hearts, there is a hole where he once
was. In our thoughts, we convince ourselves
that he is gone for good.
Be faithful unto
death. When I met with Alvin the first
time after his diagnosis of terminal cancer, of death only weeks away, he was
the first to admit he hadn’t always been as faithful as he should have been. He was the first to admit that he was the
chief of sinners. He told me, “I haven’t
been to church like I should pastor. I
haven’t kept prayed as I should, and now I’m out of time.” As he told me these things, I simply said I
know – and this was the truth. Alvin
faithfully confessed his sins, and as we hear them today, we know that they are
our sins as well. For none of us have
prayed as we ought, none of us have been in church like we ought, none of us
have been as good as we ought. We have
all sinned, we have all fallen short of God’s glory – this is most certainly
true.
And it is this sin
deep within each one of us that leads us to days like today. We suffer in this difficult world because of
our sin. We hurt, we struggle, we
stumble about all trying to find a way forward.
Our world is place of death. Our
world is a place of pain. Alvin knew
that he had a slow road ahead, a road of pain during cancer, a road of
increasing weakness. A road that eventually would come to its end with a
dreadful demise.
And yet these
words, “be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” Alvin confessed his sins to me,
faithfully. And as he confessed his sin,
he looked not to himself, not to his own works, but to the God who came to save
him, to forgive him, to give him the crown of life, the crown that cannot
tarnish or spoil, the crown that this world cannot take away. As Alvin’s body slowly was ravaged by cancer,
he slowly became weaker day by day, but his God faithfully kept him, and I tell
you the truth, today has brought him out of the valley of the shadow of death
into life forevermore.
For you see, dear
friends, our God is himself no stranger to death. In fact, as you see in our Gospel lesson, the
sole purpose for Christ’s coming was to die for our sin, to suffer for our
weakness, to give up his life as a ransom for all. Jesus came and was nailed onto the cross, on
your behalf dear friends. He suffered
the full wrath of God for you. He cried
out “My God why have you forsaken me” as he suffered took away your sin. Jesus was faithful unto death. Faithful for you. Faithful for me. Faithful for Alvin. Faithful for all sinners who are just like
us. And now he gives the crown of life
to all who trust in him.
This was Alvin’s
hope. This is what he trusted in his
last moments. He had the faith that Job
confesses in our Old Testament lesson, “I know my redeemer lives, and after my
skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God. That’s what happens in our Gospel
lesson. Jesus dies, and the earth
shook, and the rocks were split. The
tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen
asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they
went into the holy city and appeared to many.
And so too with
Alvin. In Jesus, Alvin has hope, and so
do you. In Jesus, Alvin has forgiveness,
and so do you. In Jesus Alvin shall not
be dead forever, but shall live forever in God’s holy kingdom. For Jesus was faithful for him, faithful even
to death. And so today, and even
forevermore, Alvin Roy Schubert – “Ears” has the crown of life. Amen.
