Sermon for Trinity 21, October 16, 2022
Hosea
13:14
I will ransom them from the power of the grave! I will redeem them from death! Death, where are your plagues? Grave, where is your destruction? Compassion will be hidden from my eyes. (EHV)
Conquering
the grave, the Lord redeemed His beloved.
Dear beloved of the Lord,
From the
end of Solomon’s reign over the unified nation of Israel, the ten northern
tribes of Israel had been in open rebellion against God. Instead of accepting Solomon’s successor to
the throne, the people chose Jeroboam to be their king. In doing so, they allowed sin and Satan to
take charge. The people got what they
wanted—a ruler who would allow their perverse nature to reign.
Therefore, instead of worshipping the true God
who loved them and had been like a husband to them, the ten tribes chose,
instead, a king who set up worship apart from the temple in Jerusalem, a
worship that was soon mixed with the idolatry of their pagan neighbors, with
all its multiple idols, blasphemous fertility cult prostitution, child sacrifice,
and focus on earthly gain and riches.
For over two hundred years, God had demonstrated His patience with His
wayward beloved, yet the time was drawing ever closer when His patience with
Israel would end, and judgment would end Israel.
The prophet Hosea lived at about the same time
as Isaiah and Amos, and like them, he called for repentance while warning of a
coming judgment against the northern tribes of Israel. Hosea’s prophecy is largely one of impending
doom, but even though God’s righteous and holy wrath would soon fall upon the
people of Israel, God’s love for them still caused Him to offer hope of victory
over death in the end. Judgment was
imminent, but God maintained His plan of salvation whereby Conquering the
grave, the Lord would redeem His beloved.
There are many people in our times who don’t
see much value in reading the Old Testament.
However, the Gospel is not merely a New Testament novelty. God had long planned our salvation, and therefore,
Jesus told the Jews, “You search the Scriptures because you think you have
eternal life in them. They testify about
me!” (John 5:39) Thus, we see Jesus
in this prophecy, along with the Good News of Jesus’ victory over Satan, death,
and the grave.
Like in the time of Hosea, there are vast
numbers of people in our day who are willfully being unfaithful to the one true
God. St. Paul warned us about the times
in which we live when he wrote, “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers
of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemous, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful,
unholy, unloving, not able to reconcile with others, slanderous, without
self-control, savage, haters of what is good, treacherous, reckless, puffed up
with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” (2 Timothy
3:2-4) You might say that our times
parallel the nation of Israel in Hosea’s day.
They too had abandoned God for love of self. Therefore, the people of Israel were headed
to destruction even though God sent prophets like Hosea to turn them back to
the God who loved them.
Dear friends, you and I need to take heed to
the example of Old Testament Israel lest we too stray from the One who loves us. God chose us also, like Israel, though we did
not deserve it. God rescued us out of
slavery to sin and the bondage of the devil’s control. Just as Israel was delivered through water as
God opened the Red Sea to lead them out of Egypt and brought them into the
promised land as the Lord divided the Jordan River, so we have been rescued by
the cleansing water and Word of Baptism.
Through faith in His Son, Jesus, God made us His people, a Bride to His
Son, “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, the people who are
God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of him who called
you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)
Still, even in Hosea’s dark message of
impending doom, we see that the Lord remained the same loving Husband He had
always been. Though Israel lived like a
prostitute cheating her husband of honor and faithfulness, the Lord could never
stoop to her level. Therefore, what
great joy is ours that God has loved us with an everlasting love. For you and me and all people, this bit of
Hosea’s prophecy was made true in Jesus’ life and death.
Through Hosea, the Lord declared, “I will ransom them from the power of
the grave! I will redeem them from
death!” Death and the grave are the
consequences of sin. St. Paul wrote, “The
wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23)
Death is what we deserved for our disobedience and unfaithfulness to our
Creator. We inherited perversity from
our parents but then piled up our own record of rebellion and transgressions,
and anyone who would claim differently lies to his own soul. We earned God’s wrath and judgement. It is what we deserve by nature since Adam
and Eve fell, but thousands of years after God promised Eve that a man would
set her free from the devil’s deception, God sent His Son, Jesus, to pay the
price.
Through it all, God remains faithful in His
love, but the debt of sin had to be paid, and you and I couldn’t cover the bill
except by eternal damnation in the devil’s prison. Therefore, “God sent his Son to be born of
a woman, so that he would be born under the law, in order to redeem those under
the law, so that we would be adopted as sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5) Because He
is always faithful in His love for His beloved ones, “God made him, who did
not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness
of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Because He was not willing for us to be
separated from Him forever, God took the curse for our sin upon Himself. The Son of God suffered the cruel agony of
death at the hands of sinful men. He
bore the shame for the sins of the world, yours and mine included. The purchase Hosea prophesied was completed
when “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for
us. As it is written, ‘Cursed is
everyone who hangs on a tree.’” (Galatians 3:13)
But what about death? What about the grave? Friends and foe alike soon pass from this
world. Even believers still die. Death surrounds us night and day, and
tragedy, murder, plague, and war still trouble the world. Yes, but that is where the similarity
ends. You see for those who have
rejected the love of God, death remains their everlasting torment. When Jesus returns in glory on Judgment Day,
those who have rejected Him as Savior will hear the tragic verdict, “Depart
from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the
Devil and his angels.” (Matthew 25:41)
On the other hand, Jesus brings eternal life to
His Bride, the Church. Through His
prophet, the Lord declares, “Death, where are your plagues? Grave, where is your destruction? Compassion will be hidden from my eyes.” In his rebellion, Satan aspired to defeat God
and rule in His place. However, Jesus’
victory over the devil was never in doubt.
Though the devil’s hoard of wicked followers may have delighted in the
death of God’s Son, Jesus had declared beforehand, "Greater love has no
one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.” (John 15:13
NKJ) And He said, “I lay down my life
so that I may take it up again. No one
takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own.
I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it
up again. This is the commission I received
from my Father.” (John 10:17-18)
God would show no mercy on the rebellious deceiver
who led mankind into sin. The Accuser
was thrown out of heaven, and though he tries desperately to deceive people to
trust him rather than Jesus, the Holy Spirit keeps working faith through the
proclamation of the Gospel and the rebirth of Baptism, and the gates of heaven
are opened to all who believe.
Jesus’ resurrection on Easter morning is the
stake through the heart of Satan’s schemes.
The Holy Spirit testifies that
“since Christ has been
raised from the dead, he will never die again.
Death no longer has control over him.” (Romans 6:9) Because
we are united with Jesus by faith, our physical death results likewise in
everlasting life, because by fulfilling Hosea’s prophecy in Conquering the grave, the Lord redeemed His beloved. Thus, just as Jesus rose from the grave to
live and never die again, so we too will be raised to life everlasting.
As I mentioned earlier, our world is filled
with rebellious people who have no love for the living God. Yet, that should not be our practice nor end. We have been purchased and redeemed by the
blood of God’s Son. Christ Jesus gave
His life on a cross so that we may now live and love as God intended in the
beginning. St. Paul wrote,
“Don’t you know that
all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death? We were therefore buried with him
by this baptism into his death, so that just as he was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father, we too would also walk in a new life. For if we have been united with him in the
likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united with him in the
likeness of his resurrection.” (Romans 6:3-5)
Dear friends, walk in this life with your
Savior, for He has given you a gift of immeasurable worth—forgiveness of all
sin, peace with God in heaven, victory over death, devil, and grave, and the
sure promise of life everlasting in the glory of heaven. Because Jesus has loved you even to the point
of death on the cross, with His resurrection Conquering the grave, the Lord
redeemed you, His beloved. Amen.
The peace of God,
which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in
Christ Jesus. Amen.
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