“Do Not Speak of It”
2 Kings 2:1-12

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Transfiguration of Our Lord—February 11, 2018

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

On the Saturday evening before Pentecost Sunday in 1988 I was up late going over my sermon for the next day, a sermon I would never preach.  For, just after midnight the telephone rang; it was my brother Ralph.  Even before he told me, I knew what had happened.  After many years battling cancer, my father had died in his sleep.  I was completely overwhelmed with grief and sorrow, grief and sorrow like I had never felt before.

In today’s Old Testament Reading, Elisha loses his spiritual father, Elijah.  We see that Elisha also is overwhelmed with grief and sorrow, for the Bible reports that after Elijah was taken to heaven, Elisha “took his clothes and tore them apart.”  People show their grief in different ways.  In Old Testament times, the customary way to show extreme grief and sorrow was to tear apart your clothes, or as the King James Version puts it, to rend your garments.  By rending his garments, Elisha shows that he is completely overwhelmed with grief and sorrow at the loss of Elijah.

My father’s death was not at all unexpected.  Just that morning I had bathed and fed him.  We all knew his struggle would soon be over.  And yet, even though it was not unexpected, when my father did die, it was still a complete and total SHOCK.

In the same way in today’s Old Testament Reading, two times the companies of the prophets say to Elisha, “Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?” It seems the Lord revealed this fact to Elijah, to the companies of the prophets, and to Elisha.  “Yes, I know,” Elisha replied, “but do not speak of it.”  Even though it was not unexpected, when Elijah was taken from Elisha it was still a complete and total shock.

Elijah was one of two people in the Old Testament taken by the Lord directly to heaven without experiencing death, the other being Enoch in the book of Genesis.  Hebrews says, “Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death.”  Unlike Enoch and Elijah, unless the Second Coming of Christ occurs in our lifetimes, all of us will experience physical death.

But, through faith in Jesus Christ, death is no longer a punishment to be feared, for it has become for us the very gate of heaven. Death seems to us like the sunset of our lives, but it is really the sunrise; not the end, but the beginning, the beginning of eternal life.  Jesus promises, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he live.” 

All your sins are forgiven on his account, because of his life, his death, his resurrection.  “For my Father’s will,” Jesus says, “is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”  Trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior; you shall have eternal life, and he will raise you up at the last day.

At the moment of death, your soul will depart your body and go immediately to be with Jesus in paradise.  As St. Paul says in Philippians, “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.”  And Jesus promises the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

At the Second Coming of Christ, on the last day, your body will be raised up, as the Lord declares in Ezekiel, “O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them.”  “Do not be amazed at this,” Jesus says, “for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out.”

The same bodies we have now will be raised up and restored to life, as St. Paul says in Romans, “He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies.” 

Our resurrected bodies will glorified and transformed into perfect, heavenly bodies, as St. Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “We will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet,” and in Philippians, “He will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” 

Despite our very great advances in medicine, so often in this life we and our loved ones still suffer and struggle, like my father, with illness and infirmity that is beyond the help of medical science.  But, in that glorious moment when we are all changed, “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet,” when Christ transforms “our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body,” you and your loved ones will finally be completely healed, of every illness and infirmity; all your suffering and struggles will be over, forever.

In the very last verses of the Old Testament, in the book of Malachi, the Lord gives us a beautiful picture of the end of all illness and infirmity.  “‘Surely the day is coming . . .’ says the Lord Almighty. . . ‘And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.’”  In this life you may be brought low by suffering and struggles, illness and infirmity, for which this life has no cure.  But, just as Christ himself was glorified in his Transfiguration, in the resurrection he will transform and renew your weak, and battered, and lowly body to be like his glorious body, “And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.”

Psalm 30 says, “Weeping may remain for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”  When the weeping and mourning of this life is over, you will have eternal joy, in paradise.  Describing heaven, Isaiah says, “They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”  Psalm 126 says, “Then will our mouths be filled with laughter, and our tongues with songs of joy.”  Revelation says, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain.”

On my father’s tombstone are the words “Forever with the Lord,” taken from 1st Thessalonians: “We would not have you be ignorant about those who fall asleep . . . We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. . .  And so we shall be forever with the Lord.” 

Your loved ones who trusted in Jesus are asleep in Jesus, forever with the Lord, and you will be reunited with them in paradise.