Sermon Index
June 17, 2012
The Third Sunday after Pentecost
Let’s open our Bibles or worship programs to today’s Second Lesson, 2 Corinthians 5:1–10.
Read verse 1.
1We know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Everyone knows what a tent is. Perhaps you have gone camping or had to stay in one on an exercise. Tents are temporary dwelling places, maybe a night or a week, but we do not plan to live in a tent all our lives. After a week of tenting, we look forward to going home to a nice house or a permanent building: running water; electric lights; air conditioning; and a soft, warm bed. St. Paul was a tent-maker by trade. In this passage he is using picture language, like a parable. The tent is our earthy body. When the camp is over and it is time to go home, the tent is dismantled The tent is no longer used. When we go to our eternal home, we no longer need this earthly tent-body, because we have a building from God, this is our eternal heavenly mansion.
Read verse 2-3.
2For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.
Perhaps St. Paul is an old man now. His old body is like an old tent, tattered by wind and storm, there are a few mended rips and a few holes. Maybe it leaks. He might be sick and actually groaning. Perhaps he sees death as a way to put off the old tent like an old coat and put on the new coat of his heavenly dwelling. As we all get older, we can understand this better.
Read verse 4.
4For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
Some religions consider the body to be a burden. Some of the Philosophers at the time of St. Paul thought of the physical body as a great evil. The gnosis religion felt the body was not important at all. Buddhism tries to achieve the freedom of Nirvana which is some sort of nothingness. Or Hindu teaches reincarnation. These ideas are all foreign to the Bible. Paul would call those ideas nakedness. Paul cannot think of a soul without a body. The soul must have a body, either an earthly body or a heavenly body. The temporary tent-body is replaced by an eternal building of a body. Dead people are not bodiless ghosts or spirits. The Bible teaches the resurrection of the body, and we confess that in the Creed.
Read verses 5-7.
5He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. 6So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7for we walk by faith, not by sight.
Paul is groaning in his body. He has pains; he has been beaten and whipped because of his preaching the gospel. He has worries about the problems of the Church in Corinth. And yet he can say in verse 6, “We are always of good courage.” He has courage while groaning. He is happy living in his tattered tent. We have the same courage. This courage is because we know that there is a heavenly building, a glorious body waiting for us in heaven. Jesus spoke this way in John
14:1-3. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
We can be sure of that because God has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. In the Sacraments, we have a signed and sealed covenant promise, the contract. Christ has sent the Holy Spirit to us and so we have faith in the Gospel. When we have the Holy Spirit, it is almost like we already have the key to the front door of our heavenly mansion! Jesus has ascended into heaven and so is not physically with us, but we do have the Spirit. And so we have the courage to live. As verse 7 says, “we walk by faith, not by sight.”
Read verses 8-9.
8Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
Surely heaven is a better place than this earth because then we will be “at home with the Lord.” And yet, “whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.” This is the reason we are living on this earth. This is why God gave us a body. Because we have a body we can work and serve and please God. That is our purpose in life. That is our goal, our aim, our ambition (“aim-bition”). St. Paul was in no hurry to die and go to heaven. He had no thoughts of suicide. After writing this letter to the Church in Corinth, he had a few years left to serve the Lord. And that was his joy in life. And so like a good tent-maker, he patched his tent and kept it in good order.
Read verse 10.
10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
The Day of Judgment is coming. What we do on this earth is important. We will receive what is due. The good thing about this is that we “appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” It is important that Christ is our judge. Because Christ is a judge that has mercy.
Christ knows what it is like to live in a tent. The Gospel of St. John 1:14 is usually translated into English as “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” The literal New Testament Greek says, “He pitched his tent among us.” He came and joined us in our earthly camp ground. He knew what human life is like. Like a tent it is hot or cold, cramped and uncomfortable. Jesus knows our pain and grief and groaning. But camp life can be fun, too. And Jesus knows our temptations. He never sinned, but he understands and has mercy on us.
The cross was no tent pole. Christ appeared before the judgment seat of the Sanhedrin and of Pilate and of every person who has ever had to make a faith decision either for or against Christ. On the cross he received what was due for what we have done in our bodies, whether good or bad.
He died on the cross, but the grave was not his permanent dwelling place. On the third day he rose with a glorious body. It was a body that could be seen and touched; that could speak and breathe out on the disciples the authority in the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Gospel. Therefore Paul could say in verse 6, “6So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7for we walk by faith, not by sight.”
Amen.
Michael Nearhood, Pastor
Okinawa Lutheran Church