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[Jesus said,] “I will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.”
Alleluia! Jesus Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
᛭ INI ᛭
The Lord Jesus gives the best prize to those who believe in Him. The very best prize Jesus can give is being with Him! This is a resurrection promise: “Because I live, you will live also,” (Jn 14) Jesus says elsewhere. You will live because “I am the resurrection and the life,” says the Lord, “He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” (Jn 11) And when the final resurrection happens, then “we shall always be with the LORD.” (1 Th 4)
The promise for this life is the opposite. Christ is with you. That’s a baptismal promise! His “I am with always” flows out from His baptizing and teaching. You are in Christ, baptized into Him, His righteousness, and His name, and now “who shall separate you from the love of Christ?” (Rom 8) It doesn’t matter what sort trials or tribulations we face. Nothing “will be able separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8)
Yet, even that Baptismal promise paves the way to Jesus’ resurrection promise. “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.” (Rom 6) Or to put it another way: Baptism makes the promise Jesus says today personally yours! No matter what happens in this life, then, this promise is certain:
WHERE JESUS IS YOU WILL BE ALSO!
(I. This promise is true for Armin.)
It’s been a difficult two years or so, for all of you, since Armin had his stroke. We all thought that the Lord was going to take Armin to Himself then. But the Lord preserved Armin’s life, but it’s hard to see your husband, your dad, your grandpa that way. Harder still to go through the past few weeks.
It’s hard to trust the Lord’s promises. In the midst of trials like that, we wonder, “What’s the Lord doing?” The extra years were a gift from the LORD. The LORD gave you more time with Armin, to show him love, and to receive the same from him. But it was also an opportunity for faith. Armin’s life was a witness that the LORD directs each and every one of our days. David confesses, “In your book were written all the days fashioned for Me, when as yet there were none of them.” (Ps 139:16) The LORD alone, “returns man to dust and says, ‘Return, O children of man!’,” as Moses says. (Psalm 90)
Armin’s life was also a witness that “man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth the LORD.” (Deut 8:3) For by the working of the Holy Spirit, who made Armin His temple in Baptism, Armin’s faith didn’t waver. There was always tearful joy and immense gratitude whenever Armin received the Medicine of Immortality, Christ’s body and blood at Communion. “Where I am, there My servant will be also.”
Armin “didn’t delight in corruptible food nor the pleasures of the body, but wanted God’s bread, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ. [He] wanted His blood, which is Christ’s imperishable love.” (Ignatius), for He poured it out for the sins of the world that they’d live free from their sin and would escape death. As Jesus says, “My body given for you, my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins;” “whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life and I will resurrect him on the Last Day.” (Jn 6)
(Transition.)
You see, the Lord’s promises never wavered, and by the Spirit, neither did Armin’s faith. So, the Lord has kept His promise to His servant, Armin, “I will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.” In fact, that’s how it is for all of us who truly believe in Jesus!
WHERE JESUS IS YOU WILL BE ALSO!
(II. This promise is true for you also!)
The Lord never wavers in any of His promises to those who believe in Him. He’s with you always. That’s His Baptismal promise to you. That promise is founded upon His death and resurrection. As much as you can undo Calvary and Christ’s empty tomb, you can undo the promises of your Baptism. Sure, we can forsake our Baptism, live as if we aren’t Baptized, live as if Christ isn’t raised from the dead, but that doesn’t mean He isn’t alive. It doesn’t mean your Baptism doesn’t remain for you. Repentance is just a return to Christ and His Baptism.
“Christ is raised from the dead—the first-fruits of many brothers!” (1 Cor 15) Because Christ is raised, you, too, shall be raised. “Because I live, you shall live also,” Jesus says. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” He says. What kind of life will you live? Resurrected, brought back from the dead, life! “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” Jesus promises.
Jesus doesn’t deliver His “where I am you will be also” promise in just one way! This is also His promise at Communion for you as well! Yes, there the same promises of forgiveness, eternal life, and an everlasting salvation—“whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life and I will resurrect him on the Last Day.” That’s the day Jesus will fully keep His promise: “I will come and take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.”
But when it comes to that promise, there’s also this: He’s here with us when we gather for Communion. It’s heaven on earth, which means those who’ve departed to be with Him, like Armin, are there, too! Our voices really do blend “with angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven.” “There’s something in the sound of the saints,” when we sing the Sanctus. So, whenever, wherever you take Communion you’re on this side of Jesus’ table, altar, throne, and Armin’s on the other—Christ in the center; we feasting on the medicine of eternal life here; there Armin enjoying, not just a good breakfast, but the feast that never ends. When it comes to time, as Hebrews 12 indicates, sometimes it’s “like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.” “The Sacrament God gives us Binds us in unit, Joins earth with heav’n beyond us, Time with eternity!” (LSB 639:3) For,
WHERE JESUS IS YOU WILL BE ALSO!
(Conclusion.)
It’s been a hard two years, and yet it still stings. You can prepare but you’re never ready. I’m sure that you, Mary, or you, Brenda, Brian, Wayne, and Darrin, don’t really like to think about your husband or your dad dying. Your comfort isn’t that Armin continues to live with you, even though he wouldn’t be “living for himself but for him who for his sake died and was raised.” (2 Cor 5:15) “The sting of death is sin.” (1 Cor 15) His husband, fathering, brothering was imperfect. Today’s proof that “the wages of sin is death.” (Rom 6)
Your comfort is that “Christ died for all,” for Armin, for you. “He died and was raised for his sake,” for your sake! Christ’s Promises hold true! His baptismal Promise: “Baptism now saves you.” His resurrection Promise: “I AM the resurrection and life.” His Communion Promise: “This IS My body and blood for you.” As much as Christ IS Resurrection, IS the Way, Truth, and Life, the bread IS His body, the Wine IS His blood, for you, for the forgiveness of sins. So also, “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will resurrect him on the Last Day.” “Where I am,” Jesus says, “there My servant will be also.” You, Armin, along with angels, archangels, and the rest of heaven!
So, there’s no reason to ”grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, we believe that, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep… The LORD himself will descend from heaven…And the dead in Christ will rise first. [Whoever’s alive then] will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” (1 Thess 4:13–14, 16–17) Of course, we will be! Jesus will keep His promise as always!
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