“Was Crucified, Died and Was Buried”

by Herbert C. Mueller Jr.

District President

Birth and death are the two experiences common to all. Everyone alive today was born. Everyone alive today will die (unless Jesus returns first). And before we die ourselves, we most likely will experience several times over the death of someone close to us.

Our Lord Jesus, in this respect, is no different from any of us. He was born a real human being. He lived on this earth, breathed our air, ate our food. After 33 years He died and was buried by some of those close to Him.

While living here He stood with us at the grave of someone He loved, even wept at the death of His friend, Lazarus. In these respects, Jesus also knows death as a human experience. He can and does understand our grief and our emotion at the thought of death.

Yet the death of Jesus Christ, something we confess in the language of the Apostles Creed, “was crucified, died and was buried,” includes much more than His ability to sympathize with us. He was crucified FOR US, as the Bible explains, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, ‘cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13).

Baptized for us by John in the sinners’ baptism, betrayed into the hands of sinful men, tortured, then crucified, Jesus was taking all our sin and death into Himself, receiving in His own body death, the sinners’ punishment. Though He had no sin of His own, He was given the burden of all our sin. There was no reason for Him to die, except that He was given our death. “For our sake God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Remember that Jesus Christ is at one and the same time fully human and fully God. That means He unites in His one person everything it takes to be God and all it takes to be human. This One, the God-Man, is the One who hung on the cross, who died and was buried. As the Scripture says, “In Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross” (Colossians 1:19-20).

Soon it will be Good Friday, the day on which the church prays, “Almighty God, graciously behold this Your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed and delivered into the hands of sinful men to suffer death upon the cross…” (LSB Altar Book, p. 512). In other words, the most important thing to remember about Christ’s death and resurrection is that it was FOR US!

I remember one particular confirmation class. I was asking the class, “For whom did Jesus die?” They had various answers. “He died for all people.” “He died for sinners.” “He died for the believers.” In each case, I responded, “Yes, that’s true, but it’s not the answer I’m looking for today.” All at once there was in the front row a wide-eyed young man waving his hand. “Pastor, pastor, I know,” he said, “Jesus died FOR ME!” “Yes! That’s the answer I’m looking for!” We take it right out of Scripture, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself FOR ME” (Galatians 2:20).

There’s the reason we confess that Jesus “was crucified, died and was buried.” He did it for you and for all, yes, but in faith we each mean, He did it FOR ME.

But it does not end with His death. In the Lutheran funeral service, we pray at the grave-side: “Almighty God, by the death of Your Son Jesus Christ You destroyed death, by His rest in the tomb You sanctified the graves of Your saints, and by His bodily resurrection You brought life and immortality to light so that all who die in Him abide in peace and hope…” (LSB Agenda, p. 130).

For us, though death is still a fearsome monster that takes away those we love and cuts short our time here on earth, death can no more separate us from God or hold us forever. Death is the last enemy, but it’s an enemy defeated, a monster defanged by Christ’s death and resurrection. That’s why the Scripture says, “Christ died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:15).

We’ll continue these thoughts on the Apostles Creed next month as we celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord. Until then, “Christ is our peace, who has made us both one... reconciling us to God in one body through the cross” (Ephesians 2:14,16). God bless your Lenten season!