Watch the Devotion

Based on Romans 8:11-18

It’s not an easy thing to watch the carry team salute the six flagged-draped transfer cases at Dover Air Force Base. It’s even harder to read the stories about those fallen service members. These are men and a woman with families and friends and children who expected to receive them home as they walked off an aircraft, not carried in a coffin.

When a fallen warfighter is escorted home, the ceremony and honor given to the remains of the body reminds everyone that death is real and painful—but it also reflects the promise that their story is not forgotten. The military honors their name, their body, and their future legacy.

God promises even more. “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you” (Romans 8:11). The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will raise our mortal bodies. That same Spirit lives in you. For you who are baptized into Christ’s name are baptized into Christ and all he has done. If Christ died and his body was raised never to die again, so also you and I will have bodies that will be raised, no longer subject to aging, disease, or the effects of war, but free from the reign of decomposition, bodies which will live indefinitely.

Death does not have the final word.

Paul then reminds us why we do not grieve like the rest of the world, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). What is it like? How do we compare it? If you had scales in front of you and placed the weight of suffering and grief on one side of the scale, what would you put in the other that would far outweigh suffering and grief? Paul is saying that the weight of glory is so great that you cannot weigh it. Can you imagine it? Caskets and urns will be opened, and life will be found there where death once reigned. Bodies laid to rest at sea, down in the very depths of the waters, will be raised to live and die no more and God will share his glory with us in heaven for all eternity.

Grieve and be sad. But grieve with hope – the sure certainty that since Christ is certainly raised and lives, those who die in Christ will rise to die no more. Yes, there is life eternal beyond the flag-draped case.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, you know the grief that fills our hearts when death comes close. Comfort all who mourn, especially the families and brothers and sisters in arms who receive loved ones home not as they hoped. Remind us by your Spirit that death does not have the final word. As you were raised from the dead, so you promise that all who are baptized into you will also be raised to life. Strengthen us to grieve with hope, trusting that the glory you have prepared for your people far outweighs every suffering of this present time. Keep us steadfast in this promise until the day you raise the dead and make all things new. Amen.

Written and recorded by Rev. Paul Horn, WELS National Civilian Chaplain to the Military, San Diego, California.

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