Sermon 84
SERMO 84
ON THE WORDS OF THE GOSPEL MT 19, 17:
"If you wish to come to life, keep the commandments."
How greatly eternal life is to be loved is understood from the love of this life.
The Lord said to a certain young man: If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments. He did not say: If you wish to enter into eternal life; but: If you wish to enter into life; defining that life which would be eternal life. Therefore, let us first commend the love of this life. Indeed, even any kind of life is loved; and people fear and dread to end even this kind of life, troublesome, miserable as it is. Hence, it is to be seen and considered how much eternal life is to be loved; when even this miserable and eventually ending life is loved so much. Consider, brothers, how greatly life is to be loved, where you will never end life. You, therefore, love this life, where you labor so much, run, bustle, gasp; and it is hardly counted what is necessary in this miserable life; to sow, to plow, to plant, to sail, to grind, to cook, to weave: and after all these you have to end life. Behold what you suffer in this miserable life you love: and you think you will always live, and never die? Temples, stones, marbles, strengthened with iron and lead, still fall: and does man never think he will die? Learn therefore, brothers, to seek eternal life, where you will not endure these things, but will reign forever with God. For he who desires life, as the prophet says, loves to see good days. For in evil days death is actually preferred over life. Do we not hear and see people in some tribulations and distresses, conflicts and illnesses, while they are situated, and see themselves laboring, saying nothing else but, God send me death, hasten my days? And sometimes an illness comes; there is hurrying, doctors are summoned, payments and gifts are promised. Death itself says to you: Behold, I am here, whom you asked for from the Lord a little while ago; why do you now wish to flee from me? I found you to be a deceiver, and a lover of miserable life.
True and blessed life: eternal life.
In these days which we live, the Apostle says: "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." Are not, therefore, the days we live in the corruption of this flesh, under such a burden of a corruptible body, among so many temptations, amid so many difficulties, where false pleasure exists, no security of joy, fear torturing, greed craving, and dry sadness? Behold how evil the days are: and no one wants to end these evil days, and people greatly ask God to live long. But what is it to live long, if not to be tormented long? What else is it to live long, but to add evil days to evil days? And when children grow, it seems days are added to them; but they do not know that they decrease: and this is a false reckoning. For with their growth, the days rather decrease than increase. Set for some man, for example, eighty years: whatever he lives, he diminishes from the total. And foolish men celebrate many birthdays, both their own and their children's. O wise man! If wine decreases for you in a bottle, you are saddened: you lose days, and rejoice? Therefore, the days are evil: and worse because they are loved. Thus, this world so flatters, that no one wants to end this troubled life. For true and blessed life is this when we rise and reign with Christ. For even the impious will rise, but to go into fire. Therefore, life is not unless it is blessed. And blessed life cannot be, unless it is eternal, where there are good days; not many, but one. From the custom of this life, days are so called. That day knows no sunrise, no sunset. That day has no tomorrow following it; because it is not preceded by a yesterday. We have this day, or these days, and this life, and true life in promises. It is therefore the reward of some work. For if we love the reward, let us not fail in work: and we will reign forever with Christ.