7 July 2018
Text: John 11:20-27 (Isa 25:6-9, Rom 6:3-11)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Dear
Robert, Rhonda, Robert Jr., family, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ,
and honored guests: “Peace be with you.”
These
were the first words that Jesus spoke to His disciples after He rose from the
dead. The reason that Easter is so
important to us Christians is because of times like these: the loss of a wife,
a mother, a grandmother, a mentor, a co-worker, a friend. Although death comes to all of us, we try not
to think about it. But sometimes we
simply cannot avoid its sting.
We
mourn our loved ones. And we
should! We love them. We miss them.
This is very hard. There are no
words of my own that I can offer that will bring you comfort, but God has words
of comfort for you, dear friends. I am
merely the spokesman, the bearer of good news.
The Good Shepherd Psalm of David, Psalm 23, includes the words “Thy rod
and Thy staff, they comfort me.” That
comfort comes from our Good Shepherd, Jesus, the one who defeated death, who
rose from the dead, and who promises to raise His followers from the dead, just
as He did His friend Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha from our Gospel
reading.
The
prophet Isaiah speaks comfort to us, promising us a new earth, one freed from
suffering and death, a world of “rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich
food full of marrow, of aged wine well-refined…. He will swallow up death forever; and the
Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces…. Let us be glad and rejoice in
His salvation.”
Our
Lord Jesus swallowed up death by His own death on the cross: forgiving our sins
– including Betty’s sins, my sins, your sins, and even paying the price of the
sins of the whole broken, fallen world by His sacrifice. Jesus also promises to wipe every tear from
our eyes, as He is the one whom Isaiah speaks of doing that very thing. For He will do for His friend Betty just what
He did for His friend Lazarus. Jesus
said, “I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live.” What came next was Jesus visiting the grave
of the brother of Mary and Martha, and Jesus called the name of His friend
Lazarus, who then rose from death upon Jesus’s command, walking out of his own
tomb, and embracing his sisters and his friends.
In
Christ, death doesn’t get the last word!
St.
Paul spoke to us anew today in the Scriptures, reminding us that “all of us who
have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death” and “we were
buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in
newness of life.”
By
God’s design and will, Betty Hartmann Childress was born into this world in the
year of our Lord 1939. She was baptized into Christ Jesus and lived a life of
78 years by God’s grace. She was called
home just over two weeks ago, and now waits for her loved ones to join
her. And she also waits for Jesus to
call her body forth from her own tomb: a new body, one without age and disease,
one incapable of death, one in which she will enjoy that “feast of rich food…
of well-aged wine.” Her tears and ours
will be wiped away forever. Whether we
feel worthy or not, we are baptized into Christ – who lived and died and rose
again, who raised Lazarus, and who promises to raise Betty and all of us who
believe and are baptized, all of us who confess Him as our Lord and our God,
our Savior and our Master, as the one who died to defeat death.
And
all of this, dear friends, is packed into that little phrase that Jesus said
when He greeted His disciples after His own death and funeral, after He walked and
talked again (even as will Betty), saying, “Peace be with you!”
For
that is the peace of God that passes all understanding, the peace that brings
us comfort even in sorrow, the peace that reminds us that death doesn’t get the
last word.
Peace
be with you, dear friends. Peace be with
you!
Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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