Sermon for Easter 6--Because He Lives
This is the message I'm preaching tomorrow at Grace Lutheran Church. John 14:15-21 is the text. I received the church newsletter this week from my home church in Rochester, NY where I’m still an associate member. In this newsletter I learned of the death of my friend Ellen’s husband Harry. As Ellen and I talked together on the phone, she told me she’d lost her best friend. She feels like there’s a big hole in her heart that will never go away. Ellen thinks she’ll learn to navigate around that hole, that she will rebuild her life and go on, but that the hole will remain. We cried together. Ellen is a woman of faith who loves the Lord Jesus with all her heart. Because Jesus lives, she can continue to get up every morning and try to create a new life for herself without the human love of her life, Harry. Harry left her through death, but Jesus, will never leave her. Because Jesus lives, Ellen can face tomorrow and all its uncertainty. In today’s gospel, as in las