2. Corinthians 1,3-7. Laetare

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever 

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

2. Corinthians 1,3-7   1716

Lätare (Rejoice)  027  

Fridolin, Abbot at St. Hilaire, France. ✠ 538 

6. März 2016 

1. O Lord God, Heavenly Father, who by Your Son did feed five thousand men in the desert with five loaves and two fishes: We beseech You to abide graciously also with us in the fullness of Your blessing. Preserve us from avarice and the cares of this life, so that we may seek first Your reign and Your righteousness, and in all things perceive Your Fatherly goodness, through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One True God, world without end.  Amen. (Veit Dietrich for the Laetare Sunday) 

2. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

  3. St. John tells us in his Gospel that some Greeks wanted to see Jesus. The Jesus that Jesus presented to them was the one on His way to redeem the fallen world: »The hour has arrived for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, then it bears much fruit« (John 12,23-24). The theme for Laetare is rejoice; and what we rejoice in is the very suffering of Jesus on behalf of all the Jews and Gentiles. 

4. St. Paul furthermore reminds us in his Epistle that we share in Jesus’ suffering: »For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, then it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, then it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.« Take note of what the holy apostle proclaims: we share in Jesus’ suffering and we also share in His comfort. 

5. Jesus told the Greeks who had sought an audience with Him that He is a suffering servant; He us a Christ who would die, yet rise again. Such a concept struck the ancient Greeks as an oddity. Popular Greek philosophy saw death as a release: the pure soul was finally unshackled from its imprisonment in the corrupted body. A resurrection was antithetical because why would the freed soul desire to be confined to a body again? Such a philosophy still influences our Western culture today. 

6. Christian theology has a completely different understanding of death. God created us with two natures: one spiritual and the other terrestrial. Each person has two natures: one nature is the soul and the other is the body. Death is the result of sin, and the curse of sin is that the soul gets separated from the body. Both the soul and body are corrupted by sin and Jesus was crucified to make redemption for both our soul and body. God, therefore,  seeks to remedy this separated condition by reuniting the soul with its resurrected body on the last day. Such a resurrection is not a re-entrapment of the soul into a body but rather it is a restoration of the very good creation as God intended. On the last day the purified soul will be reunited with the justified body and neither soul nor body will have any taint of sin. 

7. The Apostle Paul beautifully described all this to the Greeks in Corinth: »I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a Man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at His parousia those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when He delivers the reign to God the Father after destroying every rule, every authority and every power. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Furthermore, not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds and another for fish. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written: The first man Adam became a living person [Genesis 2,7]; the Last Adam became a life-giving spirit. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the Second Man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the Man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the Man of heaven. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory [Isaiah 25,8]. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? [Hosea 13,14] But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ« (1.Corinthians 15,3-4.12-14.17.20-24.26.39.42-45.47-49.51-55.57). 

8. We rejoice, for Christ has suffered for us. Our Baptism unites us to this Suffering Christ. We rejoice, for Christ has risen from the grave. Our Baptism unites us to this Risen Christ. In this great union, God in Christ comforts us.  Amen. 

9. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, like a grain of wheat that falls into the earth, dies and bears much fruit, may we join You in this so that we may be a blessing to others.  Amen. 

To God alone be the Glory 

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

✠

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.  

ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © 2013 Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. 

VELKD. Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. www.velkd.de. Copyright © 2013 Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands.