I Corinthians 15:20-28 “God’s Mission is Urgent!”

My wife Vivi’s father, Joseph Vona, was a sterling example of Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation.” Born on a ship crossing the Atlantic of Italian immigrant parents, he attended the University of Pittsburgh during the Great Depression on a football scholarship and graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. His time of service during World War II in the Army was overseas in London, where he worked for the OSS and achieved the rank of Lt. Colonel. After the war, he owned and operated a very successful dairy business, became an active community leader, and together with his wife, reared a family of four children. He worked hard, had a passion for life, and lived well until the day of his death at age 91.

Adam was the son of my good friend and classmate, Richard Lischer, who is a professor at the Duke Divinity School. Over the years, our two families often visited and sometimes vacationed together. Everybody loved Adam. Tourette’s Syndrome did not keep Adam out of college. In fact, he went on to law school and became a successful attorney. Shortly after Easter in 2005, Adam was diagnosed with a reoccurrence of melanoma cancer. Many prayed and hoped that he would live long enough to witness the birth of his first child, for whom he went out, despite his condition, and purchased a gift for each of the first 18 years of her life. But it didn’t happen. Within 12 weeks, Adam was dead, at age 33.

Our days here on earth are not without end. They sometimes come to “three-score and ten” years, to “four-score,” or to more. But not always! As Katrina and other natural disasters have also shown us, our end can come in a most untimely fashion. So what shall we say to this? The answer is in the opening verses of our text from I Corinthians 15. “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.”

I don’t know if it’s in the new Lutheran hymnbook or not. But I love to sing that stirring African-American “spiritual” entitled “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” Often forgotten is the last verse, the one that asks another question, “Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?” It’s the verse that tells me that Jesus’ resurrection was not only an event that occurred on Easter morning. It serves to guarantee a resurrection for us following our death. As for me, there’s probably someone who comes to mind this morning as you hear St. Paul saying, “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”

The rest of this same text declares that Jesus is not only risen and ascended, seated as Lord at the right hand of the Father. That day is coming, perhaps sooner than later, when Jesus will return in glory accompanied by all of his holy angels, to judge the living and dead. The apostle Paul in fact goes on to set forth his apocalypse, one that includes the subjection of everything and everybody, except God the Father, to him. “But each in his own turn,” he says. Christ first, then the dead, and then the living who “belong to him.”

The apostle goes on: “Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet.” These “enemies” are not only the supernatural ones like the devil and his hosts of wickedness. They are natural ones that this hurricane season has exposed in their rawness - hunger, poverty, homelessness, and crime. In the end, Christ the King will be render ALL these “enemies” powerless.

When any believer dies, the hope of resurrection comforts us. But there is still the pain of separation called “grief.” If you are like me, you have experienced the loss of the same person in your life more than once. Mark was my only brother, and we were very close. I buried him two times. The first time occurred in 1980, when he was tragically head injured in an automobile accident. He lived. But the Mark I knew for 33 years up to that point was no more. His second and final death occurred in 1998. If you don’t understand what I am talking about, ask somebody who has lived with a family member suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. They know why St. Paul also depicts death as the “last enemy.” In any event, when Jesus comes again in glory, it will be completely “destroyed” as well.

So what shall we do in the meantime? “Eschatology” is the theological term that provides an answer we need to consider this morning. “Eschatology” refers to not only study of the “end time.” It means looking at today in light of the “end time.” This involves working today to combat the same enemies that Jesus Christ will one day put “under his feet” for good, and for which we can expect him to hold us accountable when he returns in judgment. “For I was hungry,” so today’s Gospel reminds us, “and you gave me food… thirsty, and you gave me drink... a stranger, and you invited me in… naked, and you clothed me… sick, and in prison, and you visited me.”

Art Simon is a pastor in our District whom I admire. How Much is Enough? Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture is one of his books. The “engine” that free enterprise capitalism is for driving economic growth,” or so he points out that book, “is the not the same as a steering wheel.” We can let it veer off into the realm of greed. But we can also guide it in the direction of helping those in need. It’s why after serving as a pastor among some of the poorer residents of New York City, Art Simon came to Washington and until he retired, headed up “Bread for the World,” an organization that gathers funds and works the halls of Congress for legislation that saves millions on this planet from death by starvation.

Implied as well is living each day we are given as if it were the last one. Sally Hiller is a member of our Southeastern-District Staff who served on the “Mission 21^st Century Task Force,” a group appointed by the Synod President to investigate the decline in membership we have experienced over the last 30 years. One of the more remarkable things they discovered was that while we in the LCMS believe in the second-coming of Jesus Christ, we do not expect that this will occur any time soon.

ABLAZE, on the other hand, seeks to correct such complacent thinking. There are more than six billion people in the world, and only 2 billion of them are Christians. The challenge that unchurched society presents is far too big to wait for the next Synod convention. The eternal consequences of unbelief ought not to postpone for a single day our commitment to sharing our faith with those who do not have the hope of resurrection. For it may be the only day we get. It may be the only day there is to point that other person to Jesus as the Risen Lord.

Joseph Vona, my father-in-law, may have lived to be 91. But Adam Lischer died at age 33. I am at an age that is in between the two. And today the question I’m asking myself, “What I am going to do with the time I have left?” The mission God first promised and then initiated through his Son, Jesus Christ, like our time here on earth, is not without an end. For this reason, that mission today is as urgent as it ever was. So what you going to do with the time you have left? And what are we going to do in the time we have left in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod?

I must confess that while I know that today is not too late for me or for you, I am sometimes overwhelmed by the lifestyle change I may be required to make if I truly get on board with ABLAZE or anything else that this end-time text from I Corinthians 15 might suggest. Will the effort be worth it? Or will the world be the same tomorrow as it was today? If the feelings are at all familiar to you as well, you may appreciate as much as I do the closing verses of this same text.

Verse 28 of our text reads: “When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” The apostle is not suggesting that Jesus is in some way subordinate to the Father. Jesus is fully divine. He is “very God of very God.” His point of reference is the humanity of Jesus.

But more than this! What Paul means to hold up to us is the life Jesus modeled for us as true man. It’s the life that testifies of God’s grace toward the world through selfless words and compassionate actions on our part. For you and me, it’s the life that is Ablaze for God’s Mission. At many moments, that life may appear destined to fail. But at the end of the day, it’s on the victory platform with God himself that we will in fact be standing. Amen.

Dr. Jon Diefenthaler, President

Southeastern District, LCMS