Die Entschlafenen

There are certain moments in life that are so quiet, so still, so unexpectedly tender that they seem to slow the entire world. Not dramatic moments. Not tragic ones. Just the moments when evening settles over the house and everything finally stops moving.

When the phone stops buzzing.

When the children are asleep.

When the light in the hallway slips under the door.

When the hum of appliances becomes the loudest sound in the room.

When you lie down, and there is nothing left but your thoughts and your memories.

It’s in those hours—between waking and sleeping, between today and tomorrow—that the soul becomes honest.

Questions you were too busy to ask during the day rise to the surface. Faces you haven’t seen in years appear in your mind. Voices long gone seem to echo in the quiet.

And it’s there—precisely there—that grief does its deepest work.

Because no matter how strong you are, no matter how long it has been since someone you love has died, night has a way of returning them to you. Not physically. But emotionally. In memory. In longing. In ache. In the desire to hear just one more word. See one more smile. Feel one more touch.

In those hours, the world between the living and the dead feels very thin.

And that is where our faith must be strong.

Because the heart is vulnerable at night.

And the night has always been the hour when the enemy whispers the most convincing lies.

Not loud lies.

Not blasphemous lies.

Not outrageous lies.

The gentle lies.

The comforting lies.

The believable lies.

The lies that sound like love.

It is here—in the soft, delicate silence of nighttime—that the biblical truth about death matters more than it ever does in a classroom or a doctrinal study.

And so we begin our journey there, in that honest space.

With you.

With your memories.

With your losses.

With your longing.

Because a sermon about death is really a sermon about love—love interrupted, love wounded, love waiting for restoration.

And nothing expresses that longing—nothing captures that ache—more beautifully than a piece of music first sung in 1599, then given new life by a German cantor nearly 400 years ago.

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“Wachet Auf”: The Song of the Sleeper

In 1731, in the city of Leipzig, Johann Sebastian Bach lifted a centuries-old hymn and wrapped it in harmony so perfect that it feels almost eternal. Wachet Auf, ruft uns die Stimme—“Sleepers, Wake! The voice calls to us.”

It is a call:

to open your eyes,

to rise from your slumber,

to be ready for the Bridegroom,

to step into the joyous procession of the redeemed.

The world has called it “The King of Chorales.”

Some have called it a “soundtrack of hope.”

Others have said it feels like “a sunrise put to music.”

And though Bach never intended it this way, it has become one of the most beloved Christian expressions of resurrection joy.

But here is the irony.

Here is the twist.

Here is the gift hiding inside this sermon.

When Bach says, “Sleepers, wake!”

the sleepers are not the dead.

The sleepers are the living—

the spiritually drowsy,

the distracted,

the unaware,

the ones who should be awake to the nearness of Christ.

But Scripture says something else about sleep.

Something quieter.

Something deeper.

Something pastoral.

It says the dead—the ones we miss, the ones we grieve, the ones whose voices we long to hear in the quiet of the night—are the true sleepers.

They are not watching us.

They are not wandering.

They are not whispering.

They are not appearing.

They are not speaking.

The dead are asleep.

Not awake.

Not conscious.

Not active.

They sleep in Christ,

held in His hands,

kept in His memory,

resting until the true “Wachet Auf” moment comes.

This is where our sermon begins:

With the first movement—

the gentle biblical truth of death as sleep.

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MOVEMENT I — The First Theme: Death as Sleep

Jesus did not soften His language, and He didn’t use metaphors casually. When He stood before His disciples and spoke of Lazarus, He said words that have held the hearts of grief-stricken believers for two thousand years:

> “Our friend Lazarus sleeps;

but I go that I may wake him.” (John 11:11)

He didn’t say,

“Our friend Lazarus has passed on.”

or

“Our friend Lazarus is in a better place.”

or

“Our friend Lazarus is watching over us.”

He said, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps.”

And when the disciples misunderstood, Jesus did something profound. He clarified not just Lazarus’s condition—He clarified all human death:

> “Lazarus is dead.”. (v. 14)

To Jesus, death is sleep.

To Jesus, resurrection is awakening.

This is not poetry.

This is not metaphor for the sake of comfort.

This is literal.

This is theological.