April 2022 - LPNI

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April 2022

LPNI Devotion

Going Home!

God willing, I will be “going home” to see my dad right after Easter. Whenever I “go home” to Milwaukee, I stop at the cemetery to visit my mother’s grave. It is hard to believe that my mother died in 2003. In some ways it seems like yesterday when I held her hand for the last time and prayed with her before her death. Many of you have similar memories of your loved ones who have gone home to heaven in Christ. My mother is buried in what I call right field. We grew up literally one block from where my mom is buried, and my brother and I with our friends used to play baseball all summer long in that cemetery. As we got older right field continued to shrink as more and more people died and were buried in this beautiful cemetery.

Every time I visit the cemetery I am reminded of my own sin and mortality. The Bible declares: The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23a, NKJV), as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners (Romans 5:19a, NKJV), for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23, NKJV).

At the same time, I know and believe as well as you do that the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23b, NKJV) As by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous (Romans 5:19b, NKJV) … being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth to be a propitiation by his blood (Romans 3:24-25a, NKJV).

When I go to visit my mother’s grave after Easter, I do so with the assurance that because Christ was raised from the grave so shall we be raised from the grave. Christ is risen from the dead and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:20-22, NKJV)

Martin Luther wrote in his commentary on First Corinthians: “You must … cling with a firm faith to the fact that Christ has risen from the dead. He, too, suffered such anguish and fear of hell [that is, the type suffered by Christians now] but through his resurrection he has overcome all. Therefore, even though I am a sinner and deserving of death and hell, this shall nonetheless be my consolation and my victory that my Lord Jesus lives and has risen so that he in the end, might rescue me from sin, death and hell.”

Easter and the resurrection of Christ is the glorious assurance that my mom, your loved ones, and all of us who have lived and died in Christ will be bodily raised from the grave when Christ returns to this earth. What a glorious life we have now in Christ! What great joy awaits us in heaven when we die in Christ! What certain hope is ours that when Christ returns and our bodies are raised from the grave, both in body and soul, we will join all of God’s people in eternally singing praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Pastor John Laux

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church – Jacksonville, IL

revjal87@yahoo.com