Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

July 26, 2008 -- 7th Sunday after Trinity -- Service Guide

"The Tumult of Her War"
Feast of St. James the Elder

From the First Lesson of the Day: About that time, Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James, the brother of John, with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. [Acts 12.1-3a]

From the Epistle of the Day: As it is written, “for your sake we are being killed al the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” (Romans 8.36-37)

From the Holy Gospel: And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to Him and said to Him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” (Mark 10.35)

On this 7th Sunday after Trinity, we mark minor Feast of St. James the Elder, transferred from the 25th of July. St. James the Elder is so named not for what we know about him, but for his relationship to his more famous little brother, the Apostle John. In the record of the four gospels, prior to the death of Jesus, St. James is named first when the two brothers are named. But, after Jesus’ resurrection, it is St. John who is named first, and the only thing we hear of his older brother is the event of James’ arrest and his eventual murder by King Herod.

Too bad for St. James, or so it appears. His brother becomes known as the “disciple Jesus loved,” and St. James becomes known as the disciple Herod kills. Hardly seems fair, but then, “fair” is not a concept within the kingdom of God. There is only victory through apparent defeat. Thus, for St. James, as for his little brother,  and as for the entire church of Christ, God promises eternal victory, but only in this life, as the famous hymn, The Church’s One Foundation puts it, through “The Tumult of Her War.”

                         I.

In the Holy Gospel, you heard the request presented to Jesus by the two sons of Zebedee, James and John – still in that order of reference. They pulled the trick done often by children and by lovers: “Promise us that you’ll do whatever we ask.” Now, Jesus avoids that verbal trap by ignoring it, and he simply responds, “And what might that be?” To this the Zebedee brothers respond, “Make us the Big Two in your kingdom.” And Jesus responds, “That’s not my concern, being first in the kingdom, and it shouldn’t be yours either. My Father and yours plans these things.” Instead, He offers this place in His kingdom to the two brothers: “You’ll get the same baptism I get.” And by that, He indicates that this baptism the He gets, and that the disciples will get, and that the Church through history will get, is this: “The baptism of fire,” the baptism of persecution and even death for the sake of the Gospel of Christ, for the sake of the delivering the forgiveness to condemned sinners, even at the cost of death. And thus the hymn speaks of our life in Christ’s Church as “the tumult of her war.”

And down through the ages, the Church has experienced this promise of Christ: the tumult of her war. Oh, there are periods of time when life in the Church seems peaceful. So little tumult is felt from outside the Church that Christians seem driven to create tumult within the Church. So whether to the Church “toil and tribulation and tumult of her war,” or whether in the Church, “by schism rent asunder, by heresies distress,” the Church of Christ, if she is faithful to her calling, is experiencing, not the happy-clappy religion that the world would regard as joy and victory, but rather the faithful Church will experience what the world would define as defeat.

II.

And so it is that the Church celebrates the death of her saints with blood-red paraments and by looking heavenward to those who have gone before us, marking the special days of these saints, not with the day of their birthdays, but with day of their death. Death for the Church is not defeat, but victory. It is through death that your Lord Jesus Christ has won eternal life for you and all His Church. What the Herods of this world mark as a defeat for the Church and a victory for themselves is, in fact, just the opposite. The death of St. James the Elder, and the death of all the faithful down through history, is the moment of Christian victory. And it doesn’t matter whether it is the death of the sword, experienced by St. James, or whether it is the death of old age, experience by St. John, the little brother of James. It is through the gate of death that all the faithful pass on to everlasting life.

The only exception to this passage from death to life will be for those who are still alive when Christ returns. For them, the change from fallen life to everlasting life comes not through death but in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, as our Lord declares. Many think, that’s the way to go – just skip the death thing. But those who are alive when Jesus returns will be experiencing such persecution that death will seem the sweeter option. As your Lord puts it, “for there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.” Thus, we speak of the experience of the Church in this present day as “the tumult of her war.”

Yet, as the hymn aptly puts it, “yet saints their watch are keeping; their cry goes up, “how long?” And soon, as God measures soon, the night of weeping will be the morn of song. That is the holy encouragement that keeps the Church faithful “Through the Tumult of Her War.”

III.

And in the midst of this tumult, the Church “waits the consummation of peace forevermore.” This waiting is a holy thing, and it is a unique thing. We look to the life of the world to come in one of two ways. We look from the experience of those who have passed from death to life. They experience that passing as the twinkling of the eye or the snapping of the finger. For them, for your loved ones who have gone to the grave, being away from the body they are away from the human faculties that measure space and time. Their mind, will, and emotions – called their “soul” is with Christ, but the next thing they experience in life is that which comes with the new faculties of a renewed body. In other words, from the perspective of elect in heaven, they are now at the day of resurrection, and so, to them, are you.

Yet from the perspective of the Church on earth, the dead in Christ are praying for us, and appealing to God, “How long?” This why we keep the dearly departed in our minds and even in our Christian language, for our unity with them is in prayer, the mystic sweet communion, and the blessed heavenly chorus, whereas, upon our death, our unity with them is in the resurrection and the life everlasting. And both for the saints and earth and the saints in heaven, and also the saints at the resurrection, our unity in Christ remains.

So, today, we sing, as the Church on earth: “Lord, save us by Your grace, that we, like saints before us, may see You face to face.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost!