Sermon text: Psalm 16
He is risen. He is risen indeed.
This morning the sermon is based upon Psalm 16, which by the way is actually the gradual that we spoke this morning. King David is the author of Psalm 16. So, you know, it’s got to be a psalm about some kind of trouble. It’s a psalm about trust and confession of faith, both in good times and especially in bad times. In this song, we hear an expression of faith itself, declaring that in a world of trouble and uncertainty and death, the resurrection of Jesus Christ serves as our refuge in life, our hope in death, and our joy in eternity.
The psalm began: “Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.” The background behind the psalm is some kind of circumstance or danger. It’s not specifically stated. We don’t know exactly what threat David was facing when he wrote Psalm 16. But it’s obvious as we go through the text that in fact there was indeed a problem. And whatever the problem is, David is in trouble, and he’s crying out for help, a refuge, a safe place that cannot be shaken, a place where he can go and rest and be protected by the Lord his God.
And if anyone needed a safe place in the Old Testament, it was David. He spent half of his life on the run from people who wanted to kill him. First King Saul, then foreign kings and foreign leaders of enemy states sought to assassinate him. And then even his own son Absalom went on the hunt to kill his father. David knew his vulnerability. He also knew he had a safe house to which he could flee: namely the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim. God was David’s refuge, his safe place.
We need safe places, too. We need protection and security and assurance in times of troubles. When trouble comes to our own lives, safety and security are fundamentally important to human beings. And human beings go to great lengths to acquire security and safety. Some build fallout shelters, safe rooms in their home, stockpile supplies, and arm themselves. They install surveillance cameras in their home. And those who can afford it often hire private security. Safety is of utmost importance if a person is going to grow in peace and tranquility and lack of chaos in life. But even in the best home defense, there’s nothing in the world that can stop all danger from coming to our doorstep. There’s nothing in and of this world that will not be shaken and ultimately will not pass away.
David knew that no one besides the Lord could be a real shelter from the kind of storms he faced. David recognized that God was his safe place in this unpredictable world. Likewise, when we pray Psalm 16, as we did in the gradual, we pray for God’s protection. We are also guaranteed of His refuge. For today is resurrection day, the day that seals our guarantees. We know that even death cannot render Jesus powerless. Nor can death separate us from the love of God.
It is an odd phrase to say that the Lord’s our refuge, because a refuge is usually a safe place, a shelter, a place to go in time of need. But for the people of God, God is our refuge. Our refuge is not primarily a place but a person: the risen Lord Jesus Christ. He is the supreme good and all of life. Verse 2: “I say to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’” In the Gospel of Matthew, the Lord promises to be with us, His church. He says, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Only a refuge is helpful when one can actually find that shelter. And that was the question Jesus’s disciples were faced with when they woke up on Easter morning. After all, on Friday, Jesus was dead and buried in the tomb. And He had proven Himself for three and a half years to be their safe refuge against all enemies of the gospel, of Jesus, of the disciples themselves. But now what would they do without this safe refuge? Well, first of all, when Sunday morning came, Jesus wasn’t dead and still in the tomb. And they should have known that, for He had foretold it several times before.
So, we can join with King David and pray: “I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.” We usually speak of the Lord’s right hand and the hope that one day we will be standing at His right and left hands. But the psalm does an interesting thing. It changes that around: that the Lord God Himself — Jesus Christ, the resurrected one — stands at our right hand. He is, so to speak, our right-hand man. And therefore, He and we cannot be shaken. He is at my right hand, David says, and I shall not be shaken. David wrote, “And where can our right hand be found?” He is with us at all times and all places, but especially His presence is here in the true Christian church: in the church that preaches and teaches the right Christ, the right law, the right gospel, and the right kinds of means of grace.
During times of worship in the temple, David received instruction and great strength from God. He said, “I bless the LORD who gives me counsel. In the night also my heart instructs me. In the worship service, David found refuge from his troubles.” So today, above all days, we as God’s people gathered together to receive His grace and counsel through word and sacrament ministry, recognize that in this place, our sins are forgiven. We are protected against the accusations of the devil and his armies. Especially on this day, we have assurance of God’s presence in the person of Jesus Christ here with us in His word and in His sacraments through His resurrection and bodily appearance.
Jesus proved that the word and the promises of His heavenly Father and Himself are true. Like King David, we too can pray in confidence that the risen and living Lord Jesus is at our right hand, an ever-present help in time of trouble. At one of the post — excuse me — appearances, as Jesus was ascending to heaven, He said, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” His presence is all that is needed, because He lives to give us what we need. That’s why He’s resurrected. Faith finds contentment in this and nothing else: pure peace in the one who came to bring peace that the angelic host announced at His birth.
In Jesus, risen and living, we have all that’s necessary for life and our living, even in an uncertain world. “The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance” — meaning joy and life everlasting. David reminds us in our self-centered culture that life is not something we achieve or carve out, but rather something we receive as a gracious gift from our heavenly Father. God Himself is the blessing in this life. And thanks to Jesus’s resurrection, He lives to bless us.
And since the Lord is risen and lives, we know with certainty that He is in fact our refuge in good times and in bad. He is our life. Colossians 3:4: “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” The Lord is also our hope. He’s not only our help, He’s now our hope. David was given to write: “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol” — which is the Hebrew word. It means a place of the dead, or the grave — “or let your holy one see corruption.” And Jesus saw no decay. His body gloriously resurrected on the third day.
But there is a tremendous confidence in Psalm 16 that death cannot even match the person and the work in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Lord would not give them up to that place for the dead, Sheol. That doesn’t mean that you and I aren’t going to die a natural death. It means that even in death, God does not leave us dead. For the Christian, death is not the end. It is, as Luther rightly observed, a doorway, a means of grace through which we are translated from this sinful world to the life of the world to come, which is what Easter does. And it’s why we celebrate Easter as the most significant life-changing event in all of human history. The dead one is now alive. It’s the foundation of our Christian faith. To deny this is to deny Christ Himself and the Christian religion. 1 Corinthians 15:14 and 19: “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
It is one thing for the Lord to be our refuge in life, but we also die, and death is the common enemy. Even with all modern medicine, the mortality rate still stands at 100%. So, how can the psalmist David pray with confidence that the Lord will not abandon his soul to the grave forever? How can we pray with that kind of confidence when we face death? I suggest you simply memorize Psalm 16. For natural death is not the end to all those who believe. Not for those who live and die in true Christian faith. It’s a new beginning, a glorious one, fashioned unto the glorious body of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Psalm 16, by the way, is quoted twice in the New Testament. And twice the author — in one case, Peter, the other Paul — states that Jesus is the one of Psalm 16: the resurrected Christ is what the text talks about. Paul tells us in this psalm that ultimately it’s about Jesus and about His life, His death, and His resurrection. And He is the hope that we face in the midst of death. Listen to the words of Peter — on Paul, excuse me — on Pentecost Sunday, the first sermon: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know — this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” — that is, by death. “For David says concerning him, ‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken.’”
Speaking of Jesus, Peter went on to say: “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.”
Psalm 16 is about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and therein our hope. Jesus died, and as we read in the letter to the Hebrews, it was necessary for Him to die once for all for sins: for your sins and for mine and for the sins of the world. Paul says in Romans, “God showed his love for us” in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. But death could not hold Him. The Father did not abandon Him to death, but raised Him back to life to do what? To serve you and me at our right hand, to bring us to everlasting life.
The resurrection of Jesus, as Peter and Paul declared, is the ultimate fulfillment of Psalm 16. Because we are baptized into Christ, the text says we’ve been united to His death and His resurrection, and that we can live and die in confidence that God will not abandon us in our moment of death, but rather Christ’s resurrection is the firstfruits and we are the harvest that will follow Him in the resurrection of the dead. He is the head. We are His body. Where the head goes, the body follows. Thus, He is our hope in life and death.
Then there’s something else. Because Jesus lives, He is our joy in eternity. The psalm says, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” We get a glimpse of what heaven’s like and what our disposition toward heaven is: pure, unadulterated joy. This joy in this life is elusive. It’s hard to have it and hard to hold on to it. Just ask any sports fan who has a favorite team. Reminds me, a couple of months ago, I was walking through Kroger, and here comes a man down the aisle with a Chicago Bears cap, a Chicago Bears t-shirt, a Chicago Bears jacket. And I said, “When are they going to win?” And he said, “Always next year.” That’s what joy is like in this life. But in the life of the world to come, it is pleasures forevermore.
It’s not that you and I just have our refuge in life and our hope in death. All of it’s leading someplace, taking you to your final destination, to your home. There’s a goal. We are strangers and pilgrims in this world, traveling to our true and eternal home. And throughout this trek in this world, the Lord supplies all we need for bodies and life. He’s our refuge and strength in times we need Him most. And when death comes, He is there with us, ushering us through that deadly door into a new and eternal life.
Jesus’s resurrection guarantees, quote, “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” That’s where your resurrection’s at. The sufferings of this life cannot be compared to the glory that awaits us in heaven. But because of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, there is life beyond this life and life beyond death spent in eternal joy, where all the promises of our Lord and Savior are kept. He has risen. He has risen indeed. Your sins are forgiven. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.