Ad Finem Illum
Vol. 3. Issue 3
March 2016
In
the book The Hammer of God, Bo Giertz
tells the story of a fictional Swedish Lutheran pastor named Henrik Savonius.
During the yearly clergy Christmas party, a peasant intrudes upon the
celebrating pastors. The peasant has come from a nearby village where one of
the villagers, a man named Johannes, lies on his deathbed. The young Dr.
Savonius is called upon to take Holy Communion to the dying man. Savonius
reluctantly leaves the festivities and departs with the peasant to the nearby
town. There he meets the dying Johannes, who is plagued with an evil conscience
upon his deathbed. As death approached, all Johannes could dwell on was the
depth and number of his sins throughout his life.
Johannes’
problem was that at the moment of his death, all he knew was the law. Satan
held each of his secret sins before his eyes to convince him that his faith and
piety had been a sham and that he had never had true repentance. The devil led
Johannes to believe that he was beyond God’s mercy, having sinned too
grievously too many times.
Savonius
begged the confounded man to look to his own religious experience throughout
his life for comfort. Johannes could only see his wicked thoughts, his wayward
prayers, and his many sins. Savonius’
appeal to past religious experience only led Johannes further into despair of
God’s mercy. Savonius, himself relying upon his own religious experience and
piety, realizes at this moment he has
nothing
to offer the man as a pastor. Shame suddenly grasped the young pastor, so much
so that he stepped outside and became physically ill. The only comfort Savonius
understood was that of the transformed life, that a Christian could take
comfort in their spiritual experiences and personal piety. The man dying in the
next room shattered this comfort.
It
is only at the arrival of Johannes’ former neighbor, a woman named Katrina,
that the situation changes. Johannes tells Katrina, “It is repentance that I
lack.” Katrina rebuts, “You do not lack repentance, Johannes, but faith. You
must believe this living Word of God: ‘But to him that worketh not, but
believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him as
righteousness.” Johannes asks why he has not then received a clean heart, to
which Katrina responds, “That you might learn to love Jesus.”
Johannes
wrongly assumed that if God didn’t take sin out of his heart, he must not be
saved. Katrina points the dying man back to the gospel. “If you had received a clean
heart and for that reason had been able to earn salvation – to what end would
you then need the Savior?” When the Christian sees the depth of his sinfulness
and his unclean heart, that does not mean he has ceased be a Christian. It
simply means He is a Christian, just as St. Paul was a Christian but continued
to have an unclean heart throughout his life, yet trusted solely in the gospel
that Christ forgives all who seek Him in mercy.
Savonius
is called upon to give the dying man Holy Communion, so that he might receive
the forgiveness of sins before he dies and have his faith strengthened by the
Blessed Sacrament. That day, Savonius learned that the true consolation for the
Christian isn’t their conversion experience, their good works, or their piety,
but Christ crucified to atone for the sins of the world, including theirs. He
saw how Satan can distort good works, a transformed life, and all sorts of
piety, showing them to be a sham. That day, Savonius learned the gospel from a
peasant woman.
It
has been said that the Christian faith teaches men how to properly die. This
story illustrates that point. On our deathbeds, we cannot hold to any
experience we have ever had as a Christian. We cannot dwell upon our piety and
how much of a “good Christian” we have been. We cannot even rely upon our own
repentance, how sorry we are for our sins. Every good work is imperfect. Selfishness
is woven deep within our prayers. There is truly nothing good in us, for sin
saturates all our desires and motivations. Even as Christians who have been
regenerated by holy baptism, fully saved by that washing of water and the
spirit, our renewal is a process which is never completed in this life.
The Christian cannot look to the completeness of their
repentance. Nor can he look to his good works, piety, prayers, or any
experience for comfort and proof of our salvation, because each of these
remains steeped in sin and imperfect in this life.
The only thing that can console the conscience troubled
by sin is the promise of the gospel. Christ gives us the atonement, his
righteousness, and all the blessings won on the cross in the promise of the
gospel.
If
the Christian faith teaches men how to die, how will you die? You will not die
by taking comfort in any of the things named above. You will die with Christ
crucified for sinners before your eyes. On that day, whenever the Lord wills it
to be, you are to keep your sight on Christ’s atoning death for the sins of the
world. Faith believes the gospel, that His suffering and death was for you, for
your forgiveness and life. We sing something like this during holy week in the
final stanza of the hymn, O Sacred Head,
Now Wounded:
Be Thou my Consolation,
My Shield when I must die;
Remind me of Thy Passion
When my last hour draws nigh.
Mine eyes shall then behold Thee,
Upon Thy cross shall dwell,
My heart by faith enfold Thee.
Who dieth thus dies well! (TLH 172.10)
How
do we die, and live, for that matter? With our eyes fixed upon Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world by atoning for them upon the altar of the cross. There is no other place
for our eyes to be at that moment, or any moment, than on Christ crucified for
sinners. Ad Finem Illum, Amen.
