1 John 5

1 John 5

This morning I preached a funeral for someone that I had never met. I had never met her family either, or any of her friends. It was hard.

As I walked through the cemetery I found myself looking at the headstones and at the years that folks had been born and when they died.

A lot of people don't have long lives. Stuff happens and people we love die.

I heard it said that the only difference between humans and chickens is that we see the axe above our head... we know that we are going to die. We can run and hide, but death finds us all.

Which is why John found it so important to write these words "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know you have eternal life."

When we are stripped of all our earthly things. When our money goes, when our home goes, when our mind goes, when our body goes... when we have nothing left... we have eternal life.

I have a hard time remembering that though. I get caught up in the struggles and worries of this life. Eternal life is something I put in the back of my mind, because I don't know what it is going to look like. It's hard to believe in what we can't see.

But we can see the promise... the promise of eternal life in the Sacraments. Blood and water. Communion and Baptism.

For now, that's all we have... but in the end, it's all we need.