Posted on 04/20/2003 7:04:31 PM PDT by Dubya
COMFORT, Texas. (BP)--Army Spc. James Kiehl did not know death was around the corner. No one did. No one ever does.
But on that day in the Kuwaiti desert, with his unit preparing for battle, Kiehl responded to God's call and accepted Christ into his heart. He was saved. His baptism was captured by a television crew, providing joy for friends and family members back home.
Kiehl's walk as a Christian, though, lasted not years, but mere days. In late March, in the heart of Iraq, he was killed, leaving behind a wife who was expecting their first child.
Fittingly, Kiehl was buried April 14, the day after Palm Sunday and six days before Easter, providing a reminder to the overflow crowd at Comfort (Texas) Baptist Church of the glorious simplicities of the Christian faith. God saves sinners -- not through works of their own -- but through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.
Man is saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. It is simple yet complex, and it is the core of Christianity.
From the youngest to the oldest, God's grace and mercy are displayed whenever someone repents and believes. As Kiehl's testimony demonstrates, it is never too late.
Before he went off to battle, Kiehl asked Dallas television reporter Robert Riggs to pass a message along to his friends and family members: Tell them I've accepted Jesus as my Savior.
Kiehl's newfound faith provided hope for those at his funeral.
"It was solemn, but there was Christian joy throughout because of the decision for Christ that he had made," said Comfort Baptist Church pastor Jim Holt, who preached the funeral message.
Kiehl's faith, along with that of other believers, hinges on what the Christian church celebrates this Easter weekend -- the death, burial and bodily resurrection of Christ. Baptism is a picture of this.
The Christian faith stands or falls on Christ's bodily resurrection, the Apostle Paul argued nearly 2,000 years ago. Responding to those who said the dead cannot be raised, he wrote:
"But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without foundation, and so is your faith," he wrote to the church at Corinth. "In addition, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified about God that He raised up Christ -- whom He did not raise up if in fact the dead are not raised" (1 Corinthians 15:13-15, HCSB).
If Christ was not raised from the dead, Paul continued, then "your faith is worthless" and "you are still in your sins."
But Paul concluded, "Christ has been raised from the dead.... O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting? Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!"
Christ's death, burial and bodily resurrection are the crux of the Christian faith. Without them, Paul says, a Christian's faith is "worthless."
This weekend, Christians in the small town of Comfort, Texas, are rejoicing, knowing that one of their own brave ones, James Kiehl, accepted Christ shortly before his death.
They have the joy that the angel at Jesus' tomb expressed to the women in Matthew 28: "Don't be afraid, because I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here! For He has been resurrected, just as He said."
Union with Christ
In the first century the Apostle Paul compared baptism to Christ's burial and resurrection, telling the church at Rome, "Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in a new way of life. (Romans 6:4 HCSB). Here, Southern Baptist chaplain Keith Kilgore baptizes an unidentified soldier while deployed in Kuwait.
Buried with Him
Maj. Roger Criner, an Army chaplain, baptizes a member of his unit, the 69th Air Defense Artillery, in the Jordan River. Criner is a graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
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