Jesu Juva

“O Sweet and Blessed Country”

Text: Jeremiah 31:15-17; 1 Corinthians 15:20-27; Mark 16:1-8

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Rachel is weeping for her children. And today, so do we. The wages of sin is death. And since we live in a sinful world, we live in a dying world. A world where death is sometimes our daily bread.

These words about Rachel weeping, though, provide us with hope. For although she weeps bitterly, the Lord declares a future. And what the Lord declares is so. Although her children are gone, they are not gone forever. They shall come back, the Lord says. Twice. Divine repetition. It is absolutely sure. They shall come back from the land of the enemy, and they shall come back to their own country.

These words of the prophet Jeremiah were first spoken when Rachel’s children, the children of Israel, would be taken into exile in Babylon. There would be bitter weeping as child is separated from mother and father. But there is hope, the Lord declares. They shall come back from the land of the enemy. They shall come back to their own country, God promises. And seventy years later, they did. But that was just the beginning, just the foreshadowing. There was something greater God had in mind. A greater restoration.

So we hear these words of the prophet Jeremiah again in the Gospel of Matthew, when there is again great and bitter weeping. When again child is separated from mother and father. When in a murderous rage against the child Jesus, King Herod orders that all the little boys in Bethlehem, two years of age and under, be slain. But in using these words of Jeremiah, Matthew wants you to know that in Jesus, God is fulfilling His promise of hope. That though we live in a world of death, the Lord is here with us, to accomplish His promised restoration to return our children to us. And He would do so not with the death of those little boys in Bethlehem, but through the death of His own Son - His bitter suffering and death on the cross.

And so we heard these words today. On this day when there is again weeping for our children. That even as we weep, we remember the words and promises of God and have hope. Hope of a future. That our children shall come back from the land of the enemy, and come back to their own country. This country that for our children today is not Israel or the United States, and the enemy is not the Babylonians, the Assyrians, or a wicked king. The enemy they will come back from is death, and the country they will come back to is heaven.

So while weeping for our children is meet, right, and salutary, we weep not as those who have no hope, but as those who know our Saviour, who led the way back from death in His resurrection, and back to our own country. Our own country of which we just sung . . .

The sweet and blessed country, The home of God’s elect!

The sweet and blessed country That faithful hearts expect!

In mercy, Jesus, bring us - and our children! - to that eternal rest

With You and God the Father And Spirit, ever blest (LSB #672 v. 4).

For as we also sang, and as we heard from Saint Paul, Christ conquered in the fight! Not just against satan and not just against our sin, but against the last and greatest enemy, death. A victory for all people. Those who die very old, and those who are taken from us very young . . . even, at times, while still in their mother’s protective womb.

But if Christ, the firstfruits of the resurrection, has been raised, that means there are many more to come! As children of Adam, we will all die. But as children of God, we will also all rise. What pains us now, what burdens us now, what lays us low now, will be destroyed. Every rule and authority and power. They look mighty now, and they act invincible now, but their destruction is coming, and coming soon - when Christ returns and death itself is destroyed, cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14). But just as with the three young men in their fiery furnace, the power of death and the flames of hell cannot harm those who are with and in the Son of God, who is with us through it all (Daniel 3).

Satan though, of course, wants us to know none of that, but wants us instead to be confused and afraid in the face of death. Not knowing what to think. Unsure of what has happened. And to run from Jesus when faced with a hole in the ground and an equally big hole in our hearts. Like the women who went to the tomb that first Easter morning. When things did not work out as they expected. When their minds were blown and their hopes were dashed.

But though that’s what satan wants, we will not! For we are not uncertain or unsure. We know what happened and are not confused. It is as the angel said: Jesus is risen! He is not here. He who once was dead is alive again and forevermore. See the place where they laid him. But then the angel said, in words reminiscent of Jeremiah, you will see him again, just as he told you. For Jesus came back from the land of the enemy, and He came back to His own country.

And because He did, our enemy death is defeated! And while we still live among the tombs of this world, they will soon be empty holes, too, when Jesus comes again in glory. And we will see Him. And we will see Philip and all who have died in the mercy of the Lord. We will see them alive, back from the land of the enemy, and in that sweet and blessed country of the Lord.

And then, the breaths Philip was not able to take here, he will there. The sight he was not able to have here, he will there, and see things so glorious we cannot describe or imagine them now. What his little ears could not hear, they will hear there. He will hear saint and angels joining together in praise of the Lamb on His throne. The Lamb whose blood forgave all their sin and raised them to life. And he will join his voice with ours in that praise that will have no end.

That first Easter morning, the women saw the place where Jesus lay. Today, we will see the place where Philip will be laid to rest. And we will weep, and we will speak difficult words, and we will rejoice. For we know the Day is coming. The Day of resurrection. The Day of life. The Day of Jesus. The Day when death will be no more. The Day when Philip James Hansen’s little grave will be emptied of its prey, death is rendered powerless, and we mock death. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:55, 57)!

So today we weep with Rachel, Rachel weeps with us, and we weep together. Such tears are good. And we know our Father keeps all our tears in His bottle (Psalm 56:8). He knows them all. When faced with death, our Lord wept, too (John 11:35). And then He spoke. And at His word, death is turned to life, our mourning turns to dancing (Psalm 30:11), our tears are dried, and all the words and promises of God fulfilled.

Today we wait for that Day, and it cannot come too soon. Come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly. Bring us back from the land of the enemy, and bring us - with little Philip - home to You.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.