Today's Reading: 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 or 1 Corinthians 15:51-57

Daily Lectionary: Exodus 18:5-27; Hebrews 12:1-24

“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:56-57)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Behold! Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Paul tells of a mystery. A mystery that will unfold at the fullness of time, at the sound of the trumpet. The perishable will put on the imperishable. Your mortal body must put on immortality. On the Last Day, Christ will return and raise you and me, and all the dead, and the words of the prophet Hosea that Paul writes to them will be fulfilled.

A timeless truth, the promise Hosea proclaimed was as good as fulfilled when God spoke it to His prophet. In Jesus, that promise is fulfilled. In Jesus, death is swallowed up by His death; in Christ’s victory over the grave, death is overcome. Death’s sting is no more.

In Jesus, God’s promises are fulfilled. In Jesus, the Law of God is satisfied. Death is swallowed up forever, sin has no power over you, and the Law is silent towards you. In Jesus, the victory is won; God’s timeless truths foretold by His prophets of old, by His apostles, and to you by His preachers are true and effective for you still today.

In Holy Baptism are united to this truth, and the reality of the perishable putting on the unperishable, your mortal body puts on the immortality of Christ Jesus your Savior who you are united as baptized children of God through the water that washed you and claimed you from the sting of death, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 

Nothing for you to do according to the Law, truly a mystery that is proclaimed to us by God’s mouthpieces from this time forth and forevermore. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

“Laugh to scorn the gloomy grave And at death no longer tremble; He, the Lord, who came to save Will at last His own assemble. They will go their Lord to meet, Treading death beneath their feet.” (LSB 741:7)