Ars Moriendi is our theme for today. That’s Latin for the Art of Dying Well.
Our Gospel Reading focuses on two men – a rich man and Lazarus. One had faith in God’s Word and one did not. Lazarus died well and the other man did not.
To die well is to die with faith in God’s promises and love for, even to die in confidence that Christ’s righteousness is enough for you. Our Old Testament Reading says:
6And Abraham believed the Lord, and the Lord counted it to him as righteousness.
And our Epistle says,
16 So we have to come to know and to believe the love that God has for us…
17By this (Abiding in God and in His love) is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment,
This confidence is not built in ourselves, in us being strong enough to live well apart from God’s grace and strength, and especially not in us being strong enough to die well, because of the our mortal nature, as our Collect of the Day said, we can do no good thing – but our confidence as the rest of the prayer make clear is in God’s grace and His strength.
“Pastor, this old body ain’t what it used to be.”
“Pastor, pray for the family of this young man. He died in an accident. So young.”
“Pastor, mom Alheimer’s seems to be getting worse. Pray for wisdom and strength for us all.”
“Pastor, I’m still so sad. I miss them so much.”
We’re always being prepared for death.
Sometimes, it’s pretty obvious. Like a punch in the gut, obvious.
Other times, a lot of times, it’s a little tap, and we could avoid thinking about it if we wanted to.
But every ache in our body or slip of the mind,
every tragedy we experience or hear about it,
every time sin shows its head and its devasting effects.
Our Lord desires to use as an opportunity to prepare us to die well.
This phrase, “Ars Moriendi,” the Art of Dying Well is a particularly Christian phrase. It became especially popular in Europe in the 1400’s when some Christian books came out about dying well after pretty deadly century, like a pandemic that killed 1 out of 3 Europeans.
And we Christians above all get it!
We always have.
We know, we have come to know and to believe, this life is not the end.
Live well, yes absolutely.
We practice that art, too, by the grace of God.
For me to live is Christ.
We know how to live well in accordance to God’s commands and clinging to His promises.
We live, we love because He first loved us.
Ain’t no better way to live well than to love well.
But, even our living and loving well as Christians is intimately tied to our God who loved and saved us by dying for us.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
And even if we confess that to live is Christ, Paul finishes that sentence with, to die is gain.
We Christians get it.
Only because we have come to know to believe what God says in Word and His Word is enough for us.
The rich man in our story didn’t think that God’s Word was enough for him.
It wasn’t enough for him to love his suffering neighbor Lazarus who was layed at his gates with the abundance that God had provided for him.
He didn’t believe that God’s Word was enough for him to live well or die well and it wouldn’t be enough for his brothers. They needed something more.
Maybe a dead man coming back would be enough.
But they have Moses and the Prophets, they have the Word of God, and so do you.
God and His Word is enough, it will be enough.
It was enough for Lazarus who suffered much in his life to comfort and sustain him until he got a full comfort.
It would have been enough for the rich to both enjoy and give thanks to God for the life God has given him and to love his neighbor and to be prepared to die well.
And it will be enough for you in your sufferings and joys.
God keeps preparing you through His Word.
He prepares you through constant repentance and faith
Constant dying to self and living to Christ.
Are you sometimes too scared of death?
Do you sometimes think you can avoid pain?
It is not a sin to seek pain relief – it is a sin to think you can avoid pain.
On the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. (Genesis 3)
The wages of sin is death. (Romans 5)
A body that ain’t what it used to be is just a mortal body playing itself out.
Do you sometimes grieve without hope?
While it not a sin to grieve, it is a sin to grieve without hope, without faith that God is still using you in His world and that the only one you can’t live without is the Christ, and He is always alive and with you.
Do you sometimes focus too much on this life?
While it is not a sin to enjoy the life that God has given you, it is a sin to forget that death is always near and that you are to live with constant recognition that everything you have, your stuff, your family, your own life is a gift from God – that He in His wisdom gives and takes away.
What misplaced fears do you have?
We can fear being a burden to others, fear getting dementia or Alzheimer’s and forgetting things that we think make us who we are.
We can fear losing our perception that we are independent and self sufficient.
We can fear leaving the loved ones in which God is using us to provide for and love right now.
But God is God and God is good.
His Word is enough.
His Word points us to the Son of God who died and rose and lives and whose perfect love for us now casts out our fear.
We know the One who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death.
We know the One who visited His people, became man and humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on the cross.
We know Jesus, the Son of God, who came to know death for us and all its ugliness.
He suffered,
He agonized in the hour of death,
His breathing became labored,
He took His final gasp,
His face fell white,
He froze in the stillness of death.
But He lives, I know my Redeemer lives.
You know Jesus the Resurrected Son of God, ever living never to die again, Jesus,
the One who Himself tasted death so that through death He might destroy the One who has the power of death and deliver all of us who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
You are free.
He has set you free.
You are free indeed.
Free to live in His mercy and die in His mercy.
Free to not think you could possibly die well based on your own preparation, but freed to receive everything He gives us as a gift to prepare us to live and prepare us to die.
He is here and He gives us His Word again,
So in Him, we die to sin daily,
We live well in Christ,
We suffer well in Christ,
And we die well in Christ.
You are always in Christ’s hands, and that even if you forget your own name, He won’t forget you.
Jesus, remember me when you come into Your kingdom.
He continues to give you His Word to strengthen you to trust Him, especially when you don’t understand that mystery of life or death for yourself or for those that you love.
If this old body ain’t what it used to be, then take and eat the eternal body of Christ for the good of your body and soul.
Whether you live or whether you die, you are in His hands and that nothing, Jesus’ Word is very clear, nothing can snatch you out of those hands.