Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

From the First Reading of the Day: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” [Revelation 6.10]

From the Epistle: 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. [Romans 6.5]

From the Holy Gospel: King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some said, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That is why these miraculous powers are at work in Him. [Mark 6.14]

     This is the 12th Sunday after Trinity, and today we observe the Martyrdom of St. John, the Baptist, transferred from yesterday, the 29th of August. St. John the Baptist is celebrated in the Church at this time each year, not because he was an apostle or other leader in the New Testament Church. That is not John’s role in God’s economy of things, for John suffers death for the sake of Christ long before those Apostles-in-Training had finished their training and begun their ministry. While Jesus is still heading on His journey to the cross, John the Baptist has his earthly life ended by the edict of King Herod that he be beheaded.

John’s role, which brought him to Herod’s prison was that of a herald. He does what the angel Gabriel had told John’s Father and mother that he would do. He would be the forerunner of God’s long-promised Messiah. And as that forerunner, it falls to John the Baptist not only to prepare the way for Christ, and not only to point people to His arrival; John the Baptist foretells the death of Jesus for the sins of the world by his own martyrdom and his own shedding of blood.

John dies, yet in Christ he lives. Meanwhile, people who think that are fully alive, such as King Herod, and millions and millions following him, are in fact dead in their trespasses and sins long before they breathe their final breath in this present world. And so the stark alternative is presented to us all: Either we remain among the living dead, or we are given by Christ the promise that despite our being dead in sins, we are by His work and blessing, alive now and alive forever.

I.

In the First Lesson of the Day, from the Revelation According to St. John, you hear the appeal to God from those who have been martyred for their public defense of the faith. This is a vision, a glimpse, at the saints in heaven, who appeal to God on behalf of those who are yet on earth. Now, a quick hearing of the verse from Revelation, chapter 6, might sound only like some sort of cry to get even by those underneath the altar in heaven because of their persecution and martyrs’ deaths.

But a careful hearing of our Lord’s response shows that this isn’t just “getting even for being martyred”; their cry is about those who are still on earth, still experiencing persecution and death for the sake of Christ and His Gospel. Jesus gently shows them that their deaths were the pathway to peace and perfection, the pathway to the joy and the blessing of the white robes of their perpetual, everlasting relationship with Christ in the new heavens and new earth. And those still joining them by virtue of persecution and death are likewise recipients, not of some raw deal through the shedding of their blood, but rather recipients of the fulfillment of salvation through the blood of Christ.

The cry to God of those under the altar in heaven calls attention to the true, but often ignored, nature of this fallen world. In fact, their cry from under the altar leads to one of two conclusions on the part of those who remain alive on earth in these days still leading up to Christ’s return.

The first conclusion is that suffering for the faith is that there is something fundamentally wrong with God’s management of the things of this world, leading to the fact that some poor souls have to suffering greatly, to the point of death, just because they got a raw deal from God’s management of this world. The suffering becomes the odd thing, the exceptional thing, the bizarre thing. But this first conclusion is wrong.

II.

The other conclusion is that suffering for the faith is evidence of what is wrong, not with God’s management, but with the inward character of all people on earth. It is not God’s mistakes that kill! He It is sin that kills – kills us all. In the Garden, at the time of the Fall into Sin for Adam and Eve and for all humans who follow them, our first parents were told, “In the day that you eat of the forbidden fruit, you shall surely die!”

And that is true – it was true of Adam and Even though Adam lived 800 years. They lost life and inherited death from the moment of their sinful disobedience. That was the point of death for them and for us all, even though the experience of the last breath on this present year was a long time coming for Adam. For the rest of those 800 years, Adam was dead in his trespasses and sins, even though he was breathing.

And so it is that every infant breath is a breath of death, no matter how that infant lives before that last breath. We are, in our birth, “The Living Dead.” There are no exceptions, except for your Lord Jesus Christ. He who is Life itself, comes into our realm of death in order, by His own death, to bring life and immortality to sinners by His sacrifice.

It is what Dr. Luther calls the “froehliche Wechseln,” the happy exchange. God the Son comes to us in purity and life, and He takes upon Himself the sin and death of all mankind, down to the very last person to draw a breath before His Second Coming. And in exchange for that sin and death, He gives, out of pure grace and mercy, life to those who dead in trespasses and sins, when His holy Word and Sacraments become vessels to bring them to new birth, new life, new purpose, and new destiny.

Now, those who are thus brought from death to life through the Word and Work of Christ are not chosen because of their virtue. It is by pure grace that those whom God chooses and elects are given the Holy Spirit and the certain promise of life without end in the New Heavens and New Earth. And whether their souls go to heaven by a martyr’s death or by a peaceful passing from this life to the next, they are the chosen of God, by pure grace, and for this the saints in heaven, shown to us as beneath the altar, rejoice over all whose shoulders are to be covered with the white robes of salvation.

III.

So, this brings you to the Epistle, and to the impact of yesterday’s commemoration on the Church calendar,” the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist. Regardless of how your life comes to an end, your destiny is secure in Christ. His choosing, as evidenced by your Baptism and your growth in grace and the knowledge of God, is God’s gift to you of life everlasting. As Dr. Luther also taught, the truth of Christianity is this: Not first you live and then you day, but the opposite: First you die, and then you live.

You die, as St. Paul puts in the Epistle, when you are united with Christ in a death like His – and that is the death of suffering for the sins of the world. When you are united to His sufferings and death through Word and Sacrament, then you have the certainty that you likewise will be united in a resurrection like His.

St. Paul puts it this way, speaking of your Baptism into eternal life: “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.” And by His Word and promise, you indeed have that newness of life – now and forever!