Do you ever wonder what heaven will be like? How it will look? What we will do there? I ask the question because over the past couple of weeks I’ve gotten a “taste” of heaven. It’s came during the time I’ve spent at our WELS worker training schools – Martin Luther College in New Ulm, MN and Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon, WI. Both campuses are beautiful. But it wasn’t the geography or the scenery that made me think of heaven. It was the people I encountered in these places. It was amazing. In one place at one time I visited with people I’ve known since my childhood, people I went to college with, professors I’ve had, people I served in my former calls, as well as brothers and sisters from here at Mount Olive. It was a grand reunion. Suddenly in one place at one time all the stages and “compartments” all melted into one. I was with all these dear souls that I have known so well and for so long and at the same time I was with more than a thousand other people I had never seen before. But I can tell you that all those nameless faces were not strangers to me. I could and I did converse with many of them. We spoke as friends do, talking as if we had known each other for years. There was a feeling of familiarity, a level of comfort that’s a little difficult to put into words.
But that’s exactly what St. Paul does for us today. He puts this familiarity, this comfort into words and pictures that we can understand and appreciate. We’ll consider what Paul tells us under the theme: Christ Gives Us His Gifts! He does this first of all to make us his people.
…to make us HIS people. It was Apostle Peter, who wrote: “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God” (1 Peter 2:10). Peter is being very blunt. We humans are either the people of God or we are nothing at all. There was a time when you and I were nothing. We weren’t a people united by nationality or culture or even some shared experience—not in God’s eyes. Instead we were lost sinners—all of us. This we had in common! But what good is that? Sin never unites. It always tears apart, always destroys. The condemned in hell don’t form a close-knit community. The damned are not united by their common misery. Their sin separates them, not only from God, but one from another. Every soul in hell is isolated by sin’s hatred, all alone in a state of never ending death and destruction. This is the fate that awaits all who are not the people of God. This was once our fate.
But Paul shows us how Jesus changed all that: “‘When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.’ 9 (What does ‘he ascended’ mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? 10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)” (Ephesians 4:8-10). In God’s Garden of Eden the enemy, Satan, used temptation and sin to take all humanity captive. Since then, every baby born in Adam’s line inherits Adam’s sin and so becomes a hostage to death. No sinner could free himself or anyone else from this awful curse. That would require a divine Champion to take our place and fight our battle – One from on high – God born of woman to be the Substitute of each and of every sinner. And so in love which we could never earn or deserve, God’s own Son descended to our world in the person of Jesus the Christ. He became the lowliest servant of all, dedicating his entire life of perfection to us, declaring it to be ours instead of his own—every deed of kindness, every holy thought, every encouraging word counting as yours and mine, the perfect replacement for all the sin that we say and do and think—sin that still had to be paid for. So this too Jesus did in perfect love.
The one who gave us his holiness was willing to claim our sin as his own. He suffered its torments in our stead. He paid our debt until it was all gone and his work all finished. In his death he defeated all our enemies and on the third day he rose to prove it. Jesus won the war for us. And then as the great Conqueror he is, he led a victory parade. He ascended into heaven, dragging our enemies behind him in chains. He took sin and Satan captive. He made death his slave so that none of these need hurt his people ever again. These are wonderful gifts that Jesus gives – safety, peace and joy in his Name!
Jesus’ name is the key to life everlasting. Wherever his name is proclaimed it comes with great power, the power to call sinners to faith in Jesus and, by this faith, join them together as members of his body the Church. This is the word picture Paul paints for us when he writes: “There is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to one hope when you were called — 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6). Our Triune God who is the Spirit, the Lord Jesus and the heavenly Father, is completely devoted to making us his people. To this end he gives us his gifts – one baptism through which the one Spirit works the one saving faith that that joins us to the one and only Savior sent by our one God and Father to be our one sure hope of heaven.
These gifts help to explain why I felt so at home these past couple of weeks even among so many people I had never met. For while I didn’t know their names, I knew from the time we spent in worship that we were all one in Christ. Like me, God had made them all members of his family, my family, the Church. This is the same bond I have with you. This is why I always look forward to returning to this place and seeing all of you. Every week is a reunion, a precious opportunity to encourage and be encouraged by those who share my faith and hope in Jesus. I don’t ever want that to change. I don’t want anything to break the bond God has formed between us. More importantly our Lord doesn’t want that to happen. He doesn’t want to lose any of us from his family. So that’s another reason why Christ Gives Us His Gifts – in order to keep us his people!
Jesus has defeated our enemies. He has given us gifts to make us his people. But as one who lived and served among us, he knows how sinfully weak, forgetful and foolish we can be. We take God’s gifts for granted. We fail to turn to Word and sacrament for needed strength. We starve our faith even as we feed our lusts and toy with temptation. We let worry, doubt and anger drive wedges between us and the One who promises to make all things serve our good. Rather than repenting of our sin, we stubbornly defend it. Rather than letting God take our guilt away, we hang on to it until joy and peace in Jesus are nothing more than distant memories.
How easy it would be for God to let us self-destruct. What a fitting punishment that would be for careless Christians. But the Lord of love does not treat us as our sins deserve. Instead, “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-13). It is our Lord Jesus who gives us the public ministry, built on the foundation of his apostles and prophets. For this ministry Jesus works through his church to call our fellow Christians to serve us with his saving truth. These called workers watch over us as people who must give an account before God of all they say and do in their effort to keep us connected to Christ. When we wander like lost sheep, it is the Good Shepherd who sends his servants to find us and bring us back to the fold. He calls these people to use his law to show us our sin. And when that law strikes fear and terror in our sinful heart, he tells his servants to comfort us and build us up with the forgiveness he himself earned for us with his own life-blood. Jesus sends pastors and teachers to nourish our souls with all his good promises so that we keep growing in faith and love as individuals and keep growing closer to and serving each other as the Savior’s Church until at last we reach the whole measure of the fullness of Christ’s perfection when we see him face to face in the home he’s made for us in heaven.
How grateful we are to our Savior God for giving us such gifts! Today we especially thank him for the ministry of Teacher Barbara Green who has served in the public ministry for 44 years, 37 of which she has given in loving service to us here at Mount Olive. As she retires from this ministry she can find great joy in knowing that Lord has used her to bring his Word and his love to so many students—young Christians who recognize Mrs. Green as a gift from their Savior as they themselves will tell you.
During the past couple of weeks, the students of our school, grades 3-5, wrote some notes to Mrs. Green, telling her what they have appreciated most about her ministry to them. I want to share a few of their thoughts with you and as I do, notice how well the children’s words illustrate the truths we learned today from the Lord’s apostle. Noting that it is Jesus who gives some to be teachers, one girl wrote: “Dear Mrs. Green, I am very thankful that God sent you to be the Third Grade teacher. I am hoping that you stay connected to Jesus!” Another girl, thinking about her teacher’s love for God’s Word wrote: “Dear Mrs. Green, I remember the good old days when I was in Third Grade. Every time we went to chapel we would always smile at each other.” Another student, thinking about the way her teacher helped to prepare her for works of service, wrote: “Dear Mrs. Green, you were an amazing teacher! You made us realize God has blessed us with voices which we praise him with! Thank you, Mrs. Green.” Along these same lines another wrote: “Mrs. Green, thank you for choir. My favorite thing to do is sing and this gave me an opportunity to praise the Lord and have fun. Thank you. You are truly a blessing!” And then there’s the note from a young lady who had never heard of Jesus before she stepped into Mrs. Green’s classroom. She wrote, “Dear Mrs. Green, I want to thank you for your gift for my Baptism and Confirmation. You are my role model and when I am in choir, I will always think of your glorious voice. Thank you so much.” God’s Spirit used the witness of Mrs. Green and all our teachers and pastors and students to bring this young lady into the family of Christ. With us she now clings to one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Like the rest of us she is called to one hope, the same hope that another student expressed so beautifully when he wrote: “Dear Mrs. Green, God will be with you all the days of your life. May God bless you as you live your life as a happy woman, knowing that you believe God. Someday you will be taken to heaven where God, mom, dad and even Mr. Green will be there. And when I go to heaven, I can expect you standing there when I enter the gates…”
Do you ever wonder what heaven will be like? Mrs. Green’s student has a good sense of the hope that awaits us – an eternity spent in the presence of our God and the company of all his people – all those who share our faith in Christ who in unfailing love gives us his gifts to make and keep us his people. To him be the praise and the glory now and forever. Amen.