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Hear the Word of the LORD: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”

Alleluia! Jesus Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

᛭ INI ᛭

It’s a bitter sweet day. You’re sad that your mom and grandma, great grandma has departed, but she has departed to be with Christ, but you’re also relieved that her dementia is now over. But your chief comfort today isn’t that Darlene’s toils are ended, but that Your Lord and Savior IHS Christ speaks true and faithfully. It doesn’t matter what you’ve seen with your eyes the past few years. It’s doesn’t matter what you’ve experienced in how your relationship with your mom and grandma had to change over the years. It’s been a long goodbye that’s often like an extended funeral.

But none of that eternally matters, because the Lord speaks true and faithfully. When He makes a promise, you can bet the farm on it. He backs His promises not only with His own trustworthiness, that it’s impossible for God to lie. Behind every promise stands His cross and empty tomb.

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”

The most important thing about “knowing” is being known, and really, being known by the Lord. “I know them,” Christ says of His sheep. It’s not so much that they know Him, but are rather known by Him. “I have called you by name, you are mine,” (Is 43) the LORD promises in Isaiah. “The LORD knows those who are His.” (2Tim 2) He doesn’t forget, never forgets them. He does not forget those He died for, “I have engraved you on the palms of my hands,”(Is 49) says the LORD. The only thing He forgets about those who are His is their sins. “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” (Heb 10) “Oh give thanks unto the Lord for He is good, and His mercy endureth forever.” (Ps 107) He is “a stronghold in the day of trouble; And He knows those who trust in Him.” (Nahum 1)

So, you can have confidence today. It’s been hard to live through Darlene’s forgetting, to live through knowing her but she maybe knowing, maybe not knowing you. The curse of sin wreaks havoc even on our minds and bodies. But you can still cherish how the Lord blessed each of you through your mom, grandma, great grandma! Those are good gifts. You know far many more than just the highlight real in her obituary. The Lord used you to bless her, too. That’s how the Lord does things, using each of us to bless one another. The importance of them sometimes fades with time, or maybe we take them for granted, or as you’ve experienced the mind fails to keep hold of them. So, you can even feel some relief for yourselves, today, that that struggle is over for Darlene. That now Paul’s words are fulfilled for her now that she has “departed to be with Christ” (Phil 1): “ Fornow we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1Cor 13) On day she shall rise with body and even mind restored, gloried to be a God created her to be.

So, cherish those memories, but cherish more still the truth that the Lord not only knows Darlene, but that He also knows you. For your hope and confidence for yourself and for Darlene isn’t in your knowing the LORD IHS, but that He knows you. And trust in the LORD, confidence in the LORD, hope in the LORD is something that runs far deeper than just what you can know or remember. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding.” (Prov 3) Trust in the LORD runs through your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. Hope and confidence in the LORD permeates your whole spirit, soul, and body. It includes what you know, what you feel, what you think, and what you do, but faith and trust in the LORD is greater than the sum of its parts. “Flesh and heart” and maybe mind “fail; But God is the strength of [your] heart and [your] portion forever.” (Ps 73)

Trust in the LORD runs deep, deep into the wounds of IHS, deep down into His empty tomb. Your hope is anchored deep in the LORD’s baptismal promise, that “I am with you always.” That nothing now can separate you from Christ’s love because Christ cannot be separate from the baptized who trust in Him. Faith is planted deep into His body, it’s ever given life by His life-blood. For there you are continually united with Christ the Vine—He the vine you are the branches. There He gives you eternal life, and you will never perish, and no one can snatch you out of His hand. There He makes His undying promise, in the forgiveness of all your sins, that “whoever believes in Me will never hunger or thirst,” for they eat and drink His body and blood true and faithfully and “I will resurrect him on the Last Day,” Christ says.

The Lord speaks true and faithfully. “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”

The Lord backs this promise not only by His own faithfulness and trustworthiness, that it’s impossible for Him to lie. Behind each and every promise stands the Lord’s own cross and empty tomb. He laid down His life and shed His life-blood for the sheep. He claims them as His own at Baptism, shepherding them to those streams of living, life-giving waters. He gives them to pasture from the fruits of His cross, here His chalice “runneth over” forgiveness life and salvation.

There’s nothing that can undo the Lord’s promises. You’d have to undo His death. You’d have to empty the Word of Baptism of its power. You’d nullify and void His last will and Testament, so that His Word is false—that it’s not His body and blood given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.

It’s not a matter of you knowing those things, though you do. It’s more a matter of the LORD knowing you in these things, even as He knew and ever knows Darlene. “I know them…I give them eternal life…neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” “Now [they] know in part; then [they] shall know fully, even as [they] have been fully known.” (1Cor 13)

The Spirit’s inspired words in Romans 8 give you the full depth of the Lord’s faithful and true promise:

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Alleluia! Jesus Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

᛭ INI ᛭