Sermon for Pentecost 5
June 19, 2005

Romans 5:12-15
Pastor Curt Dwyer
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Lafe AR

  Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Dear Friends,
  In Las Vegas, at the funeral of a notorious gambler, a friend was delivering a eulogy. Over and over again the speaker used clever phrases to avoid talking about death. He talked about rest, and sleep, and the great beyond. Finally, one of the gambling buddies of the dead man couldn’t listen to it any longer, and spoke up, “I’ll give you 10 to 1 that he’s dead.” He didn’t have any takers.

  It would seem that, today anyway, we would need no reminder about the reality of death. Many of us visited with the Gerdes family last night at the funeral home, and many of you are probably thinking about coming back here in a couple hours for Rosemary’s funeral. As if we needed any more reminder about death, we have today’s epistle lesson from Paul’s letter to the Romans.

  Paul reminds us that ‘Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men because all sinned.’ It seems horribly unfair that someone else’s mistake would be charged against us, but that’s how it works. When God set Adam and Eve in the Garden, they were responsible for all of creation, including all of their descendants. Everything was under their supervision, their jurisdiction. And they failed to follow the simplest of directions, so all creation fell.

  They probably didn’t realize the full effect of their act, until later. They didn’t drop dead immediately upon eating the fruit, but death had become part of their existence. That fact came home to them personally and painfully when their own son Cain killed his brother Abel. There was the fruit of their transgression; death. Not only were they no longer imperfect communion with God, but now they were no longer in perfect relationships with each other. Perfect peace was replaced with a never-ending struggle with death.

  There is a story about a little girl, whose mother was very sick. She overheard the doctor tell her father that she would probably die before the last leaves fell from the trees that fall. Later that afternoon, her father found her out in the yard with a ball of string, vainly trying to tie the leaves back up on the trees.

  Still today, we struggle with death. We fight against it, we postpone it if we can. We do everything in our power to keep death from coming, but it finds us anyway. What can we do?

  The answer, of course, is nothing. We can do nothing about the death that is ours because of sin. But just because we can do nothing doesn’t mean there is nothing to be done. Paul tells us that even though death came to all through the one man Adam, life came through the one man Jesus Christ.

  The effect of Christ in our world is greater than the effect of sin. Sin brought death, but Christ brought life. We don’t have to hurry around to find the fountain of youth to prolong our live indefinitely; Christ has done that for us already. Christ took the sin that causes our death and carried it to the cross when he died. On Easter day he rose, and now he helps us to see beyond the grave to the gift of heaven and eternal life that God offers. He helps us realize that we have nothing to fear, because he is victorious over death.

  And he didn’t just do this for one or two people. Christ’s victory over death is for all people. Just as the one man brought sin to all, so Christ brought life for all. God knows that we struggle with sin and death, and God knows better than anyone how we can never defeat them. So He sent his son to the Cross. Instead of watching us struggle for the answers to life, he sent life. Instead of sitting back and watching us struggle in bondage to death, God sent freedom from death. In love God sent Jesus, who laid down his life in our place; one man for all people.

  A Lutheran professor told a story about his father, who worked in a coal mine in Pennsylvania. Every morning, before the miners would go down into the mines, it was this man’s job to go down to check for methane gas. Every morning he would descend first into the mines, taking his safety light with him, and look through every darkened tunnel and down every shaft to make sure there wasn’t any deadly gas present. IF the light on his safety lamp would flicker, he would have to run for his life because it would detect the presence of methane. After he checked very part of the mine, he would go back to the surface where all the rest of the miners were waiting for him to announce that it was safe to go down into the mine. The professor explains, “That’s what Christ has done for us. Coming up out of the depths of death, He has announced to all who are gathered here in this life on earth that it’s OK, it’s safe. You can enter death, into the darkness and the unknown. It’s safe because I have been there and checked it out; it has been victorious over me, but I have overcome it, and I will be with you in death even as I have been with you in life.” (Concordia Pulpit 1987, p. 151-152)

  Death had a firm grasp on life, but Christ shattered that grip at Easter. When his cold tomb was empty, it signaled that Christ has given us a chance to stand again before the Father in life. Christ’s victory over sin and death has given us a gift of abundant life.

  That doesn’t mean that we won’t have disappointments, sorrows, heartaches, losses, pains or frustrations. But it does assure us that we don’t need to keep searching for answers that don’t exist. When we come to faith in Christ and all of his atoning work is given to us, we know that we are on the right path and that whatever we face he faces with us. As we struggle, we know that we aren’t alone, but that he is with us. When we finally face the ancient enemy of death, we can know that Christ has already been there and cleared the way for us to pass through death to receive his abundant life.

  In Jesus’ Name. Amen.