The Lutheran Hour

"The Lord Be with You"

#68-33
Presented on The Lutheran Hour on April 22, 2001
Speaker: Rev. Dr. Dale Meyer
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries

Text: Psalm 38

Prayer: O Lord God, Lord of the life that conquers death, Lord of the hope that overcomes despair, we pray that You be with us at all times, especially when we feel alone and scared. By Your Holy Spirit, remind us in our trying times that You look upon us in the loving face of our Savior Jesus Christ. His death paid the price for our sins and His resurrection on Easter assures us of eternal life. Lord, be with us. Amen.

Each of us has to live our own lives. No one else can do that for you or me, but it sure is a big, big help to know someone is there for us. Last month I met and interviewed Dee Simmons. Dee wrote a book called “Ultimate Living” and in it she tells about one time when it was so important to have someone there for her.

The setting is a surgical room where Dee has just undergone a procedure. She writes, “I was waking up, gradually realizing the procedures had been completed. I heard Dr. Godat’s voice calling my name as our small, sterile surgery cubicle swam into view, and my eyes began to focus.

“Dr. Peters…now standing in the corner, hands folded, gazing down at his shoes. ‘He’s much too young,’ I thought disapprovingly. ‘Too sure of himself, too. Why is he here?’

“It was Dr. Godat who stood beside me, gazing into my face, his eyes filling with tears. ‘Dee,’ he said in a voice filled with compassion, ‘you have breast cancer, but I’m going to take care of you.’

“I couldn’t answer. I looked at Dr. Godat, Dr. Peters, and my mother, who stood near the operating table. One tear slowly slid down my cheek” (p. 5).

Maybe you can identify with Dee Simmons. Perhaps like her you’ve been in a hospital bed with people looking down at you. If that hasn’t happened to you yet, we have all been in situations where we realize we are alone. Yes, there may be people around you. Dee had her loving family and helpful doctors around her and she appreciated their presence very much. Still, they weren’t in her place. She was the one who had to face the cancer. Those are times of reality — times when you and I face the fact that each of us live our lives alone. At times like that, what a great help it is to know the Lord is with you.

“The Lord be with you.” That’s sounds nice and pious, doesn’t it? Religious jargon aside, what does it really mean? There are many places in the Bible that unpack the meaning for you, but today I have chosen one, Psalm 38. Here we find the words of a person who was gravely ill. Historically, the psalm has been attributed to King David. Perhaps he wrote it; perhaps not. Whoever the author was, people were looking at him just as doctors, nurses, family and friends looked down at Dee or stand over you on a sickbed.

The first verses give us a flavor of Psalm 38. Listen. “O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger or discipline me in Your wrath. For Your arrows have pierced me, and Your hand has come down upon me. Because of Your wrath there is no health in my body; my bones have no soundness because of my sin.

“My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning. My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart” (Psalm 38:1-8).

What strikes me about those verses is the psalmist is talking about more than a medical condition. Did you catch it? The psalmist sees some connection between his illness and his past sins. “Because of Your wrath,” he wrote, “there is no health in my body; my bones have no soundness because of my sin.” Hmmm…. Is illness a punishment from God? In my ministry I’ve heard some say “Yes” and others say “No.” In Bible times people thought the answer was a simple “yes.” “You’re sick? You must have done something sinful to have caused it,” so many thought back then. We 21st century people like to think we are sophisticated about life but the old psalmist can teach us a thing or two.

On the one hand, his illness did make him think about his sins. In verse 2 he says, “Your arrows have pierced me.” In verse 18 he writes, “I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.” If this was written by King David, you know he committed some major league sins: adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. The prevailing attitude in those days, as I said, was that illness was direct punishment from God for sin. Did the psalmist see it that simply? I’ll answer that in a moment.

Illness definitely gives us a chance to think about sin and God. As they say, when you’re flat on your back the only place you can look is up. Looking up to God from a sick bed, or in any situation where we feel painfully alone, should bring to mind the sins of our past. How can you lie there with nothing to do but think and not be reminded you have not been the person God intended you to be?

If you have ever worshipped with a congregation that uses the historic liturgy of the church, you may recall a time when the minister turns away from the altar, faces the congregation, and solemnly says, “The Lord be with you.” The congregation responds by saying, “And also with you.” It so happened that one Sunday the minister was facing the altar, and realized there was something wrong with his lapel microphone. He turned from the altar and faced the congregation, tapped the mike, and said, “There’s something wrong with this thing.” To that the congregation responded, “And also with you.” Humorous story but it makes a serious point. There is something very wrong with each of us. It is sin. It is our sometimes open, sometimes hidden, rebellion against God. Back to the question, does God use illness to get even with us because of our sin?

“The Lord be with you” does not mean God is present in your life to punish you. The Bible teaches “The Lord be with you” means that God is present to forgive your sins. The psalmist knew that disease was one of the results of sin being in the world but he didn’t see that as God’s way of getting even with him. Instead he put his hope in the help and forgiveness of God. “O Lord,” he begins the psalm with his focus on a good God, “do not rebuke me in Your anger or discipline me in Your wrath.” The last verses carry the same tone of hope in a God who saves sinners. “O Lord, do not forsake me; be not far from me, O my God. Come quickly to help me, O Lord my Savior” (Psalm 38: 21-22).

Yes, lying flat on your back makes you think about what you’ve done wrong, but God comes to you in His Son Jesus to say, “I forgive you.” Jesus is the Savior the psalmist was talking about. As John 3:17 says, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” With your faith placed in Jesus Christ, you can be confident your illness is not God’s way of getting even with you because of your sins. Instead, you can claim Romans 8:1 as your own. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” “The Lord is with you.” The forgiving face of your Savior is smiling upon you.

And that forgiving face of Christ offers you a great hope for living. I told you about Dee Simmons and her fight against cancer. One of her favorite verses is Psalm 118:17, “I shall not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done.” About that verse, she writes, “Any of us who deal with cancer can take a lesson from that bold scripture: ‘I shall not die but live.’ Notice David does not mention murderous enemies, wild animals, advancing armies or anything else. David kept his eyes on what he wanted. He ignored every obstacle and simply focused on the goodness of God” (p. 101).

Dee’s words tell us that the Lord is with you. Are you with Him? I know you can’t see Him, at least not on this side of eternity, but you can read His words to you in the Bible. Dee writes that she does that for 45 minutes every morning. Let the smiling face of your Savior come down into your heart with His words of forgiveness and hope.

And let His ears hear your prayers. I know I’ve shared the following story with you, but it bears repeating. It seems that a man was in the hospital, seriously ill. It was one of those alone-in-the-room, staring at the ceiling times. Into that loneliness walked a man who identified himself as the hospital chaplain. The patient told the chaplain he had not paid much attention to God during his lifetime but now was afraid and wanted to talk with God. The problem was he didn’t know how to do it. The chaplain was sitting in the chair next to the bed and said, “Talk to the Lord the same way you’re talking to me. Imagine He’s sitting in this chair with you.” Good advice. Prayer is that simple and we all need to do it.

Dee Simmons is one of millions of cancer conquerors. We pray to God for the elimination of that disease and for so many others. But a friend once said to me, “Dale, what if there isn’t going to be a recovery? Sure, God can always do a miracle, but what if it becomes obvious day-by-day that God isn’t going to work the miracle we’re praying for. How do we approach that situation?”

“The Lord be with you” applies here, too. The Savior who looks down on the bed of a person who will recover is the Savior who also looks down on the sickbed of one who will not. This Savior who looks down with love on you is not only the Savior who died for your sins, but also the Savior who rose in victory over death. That’s what Easter is all about. If your case is terminal, Jesus reaches out to you and promises, “Because I live, you shall live also” (John 14:19). “Take my hand by faith,” is the Savior’s invitation. “Turn your life over to me, and I’ll lead you through the valley of the shadow of death and into the heavenly kingdom I won for you.”

In the story I shared about the man who had to learn how to pray, the chaplain came back a day or two later and found the bed empty. He went to the nurses’ station and asked about the man. The nurse reported he had passed away but added, “It was a strange thing. We found him sitting on the side of his bed with his head and his folded hands on the chair next to the bed.” The chaplain smiled. The Lord had been with that man and that man was with the Lord.

It’s funny how some things from childhood stick with you. The first time I remember hearing “The Lord be with you” was around Thanksgiving time in 1957. I was 10 years old. Grandma Meyer had died after a long illness. We were in the cemetery in Homewood, Illinois. The committal service had just ended and the family was starting to head toward the cars. For some reason, here’s what I remember. I can see it as clearly as if it happened yesterday. Rev. Brauer, our minister who had done the funeral, walked up to Grandpa and said, “Mr. Meyer, the Lord be with you.” That made such an impression on my young mind that I make it a practice to say that to the grieving spouse after I conduct a funeral. Yes, it made such an impression on me that I’ve taken this time to talk about that sentence with you.

“Never try to go it alone,” Dee Simmons writes. “You need the love of others fully as much as you need the medicines your doctor prescribes, and maybe even more. Sickness can make us feel broken down and defenseless, but other people’s love and encouragement can rebuild our inner person at times when we believe that’s impossible. Reach out to that love and accept it” (p. 171).

Yes, and that’s especially true about the Savior who is smiling at you with forgiveness and the hope of life. When you are alone, when you are scared, look up to Him and be assured that your Savior is there for you. Amen.

LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for April 22, 2001

ANNOUNCER: I’m Mark Eischer. Joining me is Dr. Dale Meyer. Dr. Meyer, the Shroud of Turin is believed by many to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus. It bears a mysterious image of a crucified man whose wounds correspond to those described in the Bible. And no one knows how this image was formed on this cloth. Now we were told back in 1988 that the Shroud, according to radio carbon tests, came from around the 1300’s. But in recent years many critics have issued challenges to that claim. This is documented now by author Mark Antonacci in his book “The Resurrection of the Shroud.” Dr. Meyer, what are we to make of all this?

MEYER: Two things, Mark. On the one hand, it would be very interesting to find out if this is the burial Shroud that was used for Jesus. It’s kind of like climbing Mt. Everest or going to the moon. It’s there. We are curious creatures as human beings; let’s find out. On the other hand, from a theological perspective, it doesn’t really matter! Christian faith is based upon the Word of God, not upon external objects connected with the life of Jesus. After Jesus rose, there is a telling passage in St. Matthew 28. He had the disciples in front of Him. When they saw Him, says verse 17, they worshipped Him but some doubted. Now that’s amazing. They saw Christ face to face after the resurrection and yet some of them had their doubts. If we establish this as the burial Shroud of Jesus, it’s not going to become the basis of faith. The Word of God does that.

ANNOUNCER: Dr. Meyer, just suppose this is the actual burial Shroud of Christ. Are there any potential pitfalls?

MEYER: Yes, there are pitfalls. We can look to Bible history and find one good example of too much importance attached to a religious object. We remember the children of Israel wandered for forty years in the wilderness. We remember they were often disobedient. One time, God got so tired of their disobedience He sent snakes into the camp. Then the children of Israel cried out for deliverance, the Lord instructed Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and put it up on a pole. When the people looked at that bronze snake they would live. Over the years the people began to regard that bronze serpent as an idol. In fact, it even has a name in the Bible, Nehushtan. As an acquired idol, it was eventually destroyed. The same thing could happen here. People could say, “this is the Shroud that was wrapped around Jesus’ body after His death.” And it could become more important than faith in the Word of God which tells us about that death and the Resurrection. So yes, there is spiritual danger involved with putting too much attention on this Shroud.

ANNOUNCER: In fact Mr. Antonacci suggests much the same thing in his book when he recounts the legend of a group of knights who supposedly had this Shroud in their possession during the middle ages. It was said they omitted the words of consecration at Holy Communion because they felt Christ was with them in a much more positive way through His image than He was through the Sacrament.

MEYER: That is theological nonsense. The bread and wine do not gain their power from any eternal object like the Shroud. The bread and wine are body and blood of Christ because of His Word in the gospel. “This is My body,” He said. “This is My blood,” which brings me back to my major point. Maybe the Shroud is true, maybe it’s not. It’s like finding the ark on Mt. Ararat. Fine! Find it. My faith doesn’t need it. My faith doesn’t need the Shroud. My faith has been created and nurtured in me not by those things, but by the Word of God.

ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Dr. Meyer.