A very nice passage...

As stated before in this blog, Luther often refers to the hymn, "In the midst of life." Here Luther makes a nice twist, to "In the midst of death we are in life." How comforting this proclamation of Gospel would be at a funeral of one who died in the faith...

AELW 4:115-116

"the victory of Abraham, Isaac, and all the saints is faith. He who has faith overcomes the fear of death and conquers and triumphs eternally. About this 2 Cor. 1:9 says: “We have set our hope on the living God who raises the dead.” Indeed, we have scarcely a single trace of this faith. For we believe so long as we do not feel death; but when death makes its appearance, fear and horror follow at once.

Therefore it is something wonderful and impossible for reason to believe that God can, and wants to, do away with death and change it into life. But it is far more astonishing that Abraham and Isaac were convinced that this entire action was sport and not death. Anyone readily believes that for God indeed death is sport; but if I am to maintain the same conviction for myself and in the case of my body—that death is not death—no physician, no philosopher, and no lawyer will ever convince me of this.

For who will associate and reconcile these statements: Death is not death; it is life? Moses himself asserts the opposite. For if you listen to the Law, it will tell you: In the midst of life we are in death, according to that ancient and pious hymn in the church. But this has reference to the Law alone. The Gospel, however, and faith invert this hymn and sing thus: “In the midst of death we are in life. Thee we praise as our Redeemer. Thou hast raised us from death and hast saved us.” For the Gospel teaches that in death itself there is life, something which is unknown to and impossible for the Law and reason. Hence Paul exults in Col. 2:15: “He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them.” Likewise in 2 Cor. 6:9: “As dying, and behold we live.” This is the power of faith, which mediates in this way between death and life, and changes death into life and immortality, which, as faith knows, has been bestowed through Christ."