In a time like this, when someone young and with so much promise unexpectedly dies, we just can’t believe it, can’t understand it. Why would a young man like Adam, so full of joy and generosity and love – so clearly hearing the Word of God and holding it fast in a honest and good heart and bearing fruit with patience – why would God call Adam, so full of love, to Himself now?

Adam loved

• his parents
• his brother
• his sister
• his grandparents
• his aunts, uncles, cousins
• his friends
• his church
• being Lutheran
• music
• Star Wars
• Legos
• videogames
• telling jokes
• all sorts of interesting theories
• telling me and anyone who would listen all about the interesting theories he’d been pondering
• inventing things
• telling me and anyone who would listen all about the things that he invented
• taking care of people
• Jesus, his Lord and Savior.

But more importantly – no most importantly – Jesus loves Adam. And this is where we’re going to find comfort and answers. Not in Adam’s love for anything, but in Jesus Christ’s love for Adam.

So let me tell you about Jesus, Adam’s Lord.

Yesterday we heard those wonderful words from John, chapter 3 – the same words on the inside of the casket lid: ”For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. The love of God for the world – and that includes Adam – is what’s going to sustain us today, and in the weeks and months and years to come. Because of Jesus, God’s Son, giving Himself into death for our sins, death has no sting, no power. There is nothing to fear from death, in Jesus. Because of Jesus, God’s Son, conquering death by His own death, we receive all good things from God the Father. Because of Jesus, God’s Son, being raised from death on the Third Day (on that first Easter), we live now in the promise and hope of everlasting life with God, with Jesus, and with Adam.

Adam fell asleep in Christ; he fell asleep in the promise that Christ’s death and resurrection have been given to him; that Christ death and resurrection are Adam’s own death and resurrection. We have confidence in this because God has attached this promise to Holy Baptism and Adam, on December 14, 2003, was baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Gary and Terry, you faithfully, expectantly believed God’s promise and command and brought Adam to the Font in order to be born again in this new birth of water and the Spirit.

Paul writes about this in Romans and we spoke aloud those promises just a little while ago when the pall was put on Adam’s casket. Christ’s death and resurrection – death to sin, alive to God – became Adam’s death to death and promise of everlasting life when he was baptized. ”Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

In Baptism, Jesus loves Adam. The Lord sprinkled clean water on Adam. He took Adam’s heart of stone – now it’s hard to imagine that he had a heart of stone, ever! But we trust in what God tells us about ourselves: we are sinful and unrighteous from the very beginning. ”Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”

Yet the Lord, by grace and in love, took that heart of stone and gave Adam a heart of flesh. He put His Spirit within Adam so that Adam would live, love, and do the good works prepared beforehand for him to do. A clean heart was created in Adam, and the right Spirit was put within him. All of this is the work of God, the gift of God.

Just over a year ago Adam stood up here at this altar, after being instructed in the teachings of the Christian Faith – although to be honest he knew most of what we covered in catechism class already – he stood up here and confessed his faith in Christ. He said “I believe in God the Father Almighty…I believe in Jesus Christ my Lord…I believe in the Holy Spirit!” ”If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Adam’s confession that Jesus is Lord is a gift of God, flowing from Adam’s Baptism into Christ.

And then faithfully, just about every week – probably every week – Adam came to this Altar and received the Lord’s Supper. He ate the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ given for the forgiveness of sin. Jesus loves Adam: He says, “For you!” Adam said back, “for me!” The Lord blessed Adam with forgiveness, life, and salvation in that meal. Just this past Sunday, about 24 hours before Adam fell asleep in Christ, he gladly ate and drank the eternal-life-giving food that Jesus fed to him.

Thanks be to God, we therefore have confidence and assurance that Adam now rests from his labors in the paradise of heaven, with Jesus, waiting for the last day when in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, Adam will be raised from the dead imperishable and will live in the glorious eternal presence and bliss of life with Christ. All of us who are in Christ have this promise, this hope; and we have this joyful expectation of this being a happy reunion with all of those who have gone before us in Christ, Adam included.

Last Advent, Adam came up to Mrs. Schuermann and me and told us his favorite Christmas hymn: Paul Gerhardt’s “O Jesus Christ, Thy Manger Is.” I’ll close with the last stanza of this hymn:

”The world may hold Her wealth and gold; But thou, my heart, keep Christ as thy true treasure. To Him hold fast Until at last A crown be thine and honor in full measure.”

As Adam sang this hymn, he prayed this prayer. Jesus loves Adam and said, “yes.” The Lord enlivened Adam’s heart in baptism, He fed Adam’s hungry heart with His Supper, and He sustained Adam’s believing heart with His Word. And now the Lord Jesus has given Adam the crown of life in full measure, according to His promise. On the Last Day He will raise Adam from the dead.

Jesus loves Adam. All of these promises, all of what Jesus has done: these are what we must cling to for assurance and comfort. ”The Lord is my portion; therefore I will hope in him.” In the darkest night, Christ’s mercy is our light.

”Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” ”His mercy endures forever.”

+INJ+

Note: A beloved 14-year-old member of the congregation, +Adam Mitchell Clack+, died suddenly in his sleep earlier in the week.

The author, playwright, and Christian, Dorothy Sayers, wrote in 1939 an essay entitled “Strong Meat” (the title from some words in the King James translation of Hebrews 5) which contains a somewhat tongue-in-cheek catechism-like set of questions and answers. Sayers writes the question, “What is the doctrine of the Trinity?” And her answer? “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the whole thing incomprehensible.”

Though intended as hyperbole, Sayers nails down the reality of God: incomprehensible. I suppose she’s in some way paraphrasing what St. Paul writes about God in Holy Scripture: ”Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

And this week we are confronted with just how deep, just how inscrutable, just how much beyond us our Lord truly is. The Lord says, ”my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

When we face death – the death of whomever, but especially a death of someone young like Adam that is so sudden and unexpected – then the inscrutableness, the not-our-thoughts-and-not-our-ways-ness of the Lord is right here in front of us, unavoidable, demanding us to pay attention to it. We can’t escape it. God is God, we are His creatures and subject to Him and His will; and that can be a terrifying and mournful – even infuriating! – place to be.

But God does not leave us without comfort. He does not leave us stuck insofar as His thoughts and ways are higher than ours. He reveals Himself to us in the Scriptures and tells us what we need to know; He gives to us what we need to receive.

He comforts us with these things which will truly comfort us, because they deliver to us His Holy Spirit, the Comforter; because they give to us peace and joy, even amidst our mourning and weeping; because they fill our ears, eyes, hearts, and bodies with Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus, who has conquered death; Jesus, who has won the victory; Jesus, who has taken our sins upon Himself and paid for every last one of them with His holy precious blood and by His innocent suffering and death.

We need this comfort. We cannot live without this comfort. And so there are two places we’re going to go for Christ’s comfort this morning. We’re going to go to two of the places where Christ gives to us His forgiveness which He won for us on the cross. These are tangible, real, physical places with tangible, real, physical things that God uses to give us forgiveness and life. God gives to us the comfort of knowing that He loves us and He has accomplished all the work of saving us from death and from our sins.

First we’re going to look to the Baptismal Font for comfort. Jesus tells Nicodemus that ”unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Of course, this means that one enters the kingdom of God through the new birth of water and the Spirit. Jesus is talking about Holy Baptism.

What else does God promise us about Holy Baptism? Christ teaches us that ”Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved…” As we heard last week in Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, in Holy Baptism you receive ”the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Elsewhere our Lord promises you through Peter that ”Baptism now saves you”; that Baptism is ”an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Paul assures us about the comforting gift of Holy Baptism in Romans chapter 6. We’ll hear this again and talk about it again tomorrow, but we need to hear it today, too: ”Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

The giving into death of Jesus and the belief in Jesus and the life in Jesus is all given to you in your baptism. Behold how God loves you and reveals His mysteries to you there. ”For God loved the world in this way” – and have no doubt, that you are included when Jesus says “the world.” ”For God loved the world in this way, that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that all who believe in him would not perish but have eternal life.”

The second place at which we will seek God’s comfort today is here at His altar and at the rail where we receive from Him the Sacrament of the Altar; or another name for it is the Holy Communion.

Here at the Altar, Christ gives us His Body and Blood. His true Body and Blood, the real thing, the same which hung on the cross of Calvary, laid in the tomb, and was raised on the Third Day.

Jesus wants us to eat and drink – he wants us to receive His flesh and blood – because with this meal comes His gift of the forgiveness of your sins. Again, just like in Holy Baptism, Christ gives to you the forgiveness of your sins. He promises this: ”Take, eat; this is my Body which is given for you. This do in remembrance of me. Drink of it, all of you. This cup is the new testament in my blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.”

In the Divine Service the Pastor, after speaking Christ’s words, then adds the promise and blessing, ”The peace of the Lord be with you always.” That’s because these holy things of God – the Body and Blood of Christ – are taken from the altar and touched to your lips in order to make you clean. You are able to confidently stand in God’s presence, able to assuredly know that when the Lord calls you to Himself you will go with no debt, no transgressions, no corruption, but instead you are ransomed, righteous, and holy. You are no longer God’s enemy, no longer opposed to Him. Instead, God is reconciled to you through Jesus, and that reconciliation is given to you in the Body and Blood of Christ.

Now the forgiveness is comforting enough, but there’s more than just forgiveness in the Sacrament of the Altar. Especially now, when we mourn and grieve the loss of one member from our presence; this is when we need the other comforting part of this Sacrament: it’s what we’re describing when we talk about it as Holy Communion.

When we eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ, we are made one with Jesus. And just as while you and I eat we are made one with Jesus, we also are made one with one another and with the whole Christian Church on earth…and with all the believers in heaven. This is why the Pastor prays in the Proper Preface ”with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven…”

We are joined into the entire timeless majesty of the eternal worship of Christ when we come to the Altar and feast on the Lord’s Supper. And we do it alongside one another who are here and alongside everyone who has died in Christ and now rests from their labors, waiting for the resurrection of the body on the Last Day.

So come to this altar today and be united with one another, and also with Adam, Wilma, Kenne, Irma, Jimmy, John, Charles, Woody, Tom, Peg, Eugene, George, Isaac, Elijah, Bobby, Pastor Martin, James, Elizabeth… When you come to eat and drink today you come and share in the everlasting feast of victory with all believers in Christ.

What comfort our Lord has for us today:

”He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.”

“Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

Thanks be to God in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord. He loves the world. He loves you.

+INJ+