28 November 2018
Text: John 14:1-6 (Ps 37:4, Rom 6:3-11)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Dear Roy and Ralph; family and friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, and
honored guests: “Peace be with you.”
1919
was quite a year. Woodrow Wilson was
president. The treaty that ended World
War One was signed. Prohibition went
into effect in the United States. And Babe
Ruth joined the New York Yankees. Closer
to home, the City of Gretna was six years old, there would not be a paved
street for several years, and people were still getting around with horse and
buggy, and of course, the ferry. Our
congregation had a new pastor named Eugene Schmid.
In
November of that year, our beloved Bernadine was born, twice. She was born in the flesh on November 4, to her
loving parents Herbert and Edna Bennerfield. She was born again of water and the Spirit on
November 16, baptized in that font right there by Pastor Schmid, being carried
to our church and to that font by her parents.
And being born of water and the Spirit, our Lord Jesus Christ rescued
her from sin, death, and the devil.
At
the age of twelve, Bernadine recited the catechism from memory and she was
confirmed by Pastor Schmid, who gave her the verse that we heard as our Old Testament
reading: “Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires
of thine heart.” And as the years and
decades rolled by, many things changed in our world, our country, and our city,
but Dee continued to sit in these pews, confess her sins and receive
absolution, hear the Good News of Jesus Christ from this pulpit, and partake of
the Lord’s Supper at this altar – week after week, right up until the week of
her departure. Just three weeks ago, we
sang Happy Birthday to Dee as she smiled right there, celebrating her 99th
birthday. Dee took the Lord’s invitation
to “delight in the Lord” literally, and she faithfully lived it out here in the
church her whole life long.
Dee
also carried all three of her own children to this very same font, where they
too were born again by water and the Spirit at the hands of Pastor Schmid. She raised three faithful children who also take
their delight in the Lord.
And
in her inability due to age to come to church on her own, Ralph brought her
here to continue to delight in the Lord.
Dee’s
faith, which was given to her at baptism, and which she passed along to her
children, is a kind of circle of life. But
not in the morbid sense of the Disney song. No, we mean a literal circle of life, for
circles never end. Bernadine’s eternal
life began at the font, about which St. Paul teaches us: “Do you not know that
all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into
His death? 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.”
Dear
friends, just as Jesus rose from the dead, so too will Dee and all the redeemed
of the Lord. She is with Christ in
heavenly glory, and we wait for the reunion in which we will all be reunited in
a new body, in a new heaven and new earth, a new world free from sin, from
sickness, from age, and from death. That
is the promise Jesus made to Dee at her baptism. It is the promise that we share as
Christians. It is the ironclad promise testified
to by the empty tomb that stands defiantly in Jerusalem, and the marble font that
stands defiantly in Gretna.
“For if
we have been united with him in a death like his,” St. Paul continues, “we
shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know
that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body
of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to
sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if
we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We
know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die
again; death no longer has dominion over him. For
the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he
lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and
alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Dee
knew this. Dee confessed this. Dee lived this. And this Christian faith is Dee’s “delight in
the Lord.”
Those
who do not delight in the Lord do not share our hope, dear friends. They are deprived of what fueled Bernadine
Bennerfield Capdeville’s life of delight in the Lord of 99 years, and then even
to eternity. But the good news, dear
friends, is this delight in the Lord that Dee enjoyed, and now enjoys forever,
is there for anyone. It’s for you. It was earned by our Lord at the cross, and
it is delivered at the font and in the Word. Our Lord promises eternal joy beyond anything
that we can imagine to those who are baptized and believe. This is why we Christians mourn, but not in
the same way as unbelievers. We mourn
because we miss our loved ones, but we mourn knowing that we will see them
again, in the flesh, with perfectly re-formed bodies, and hearts and minds that
are perfect.
That
blessed assurance is the gift that the Lord gave to Bernadine, and the gift
that she made sure her own children have. That is the gift that is given to Christians
young and old every day in every far-flung village on our planet, and it is the
life of the delight in the Lord, the Good News that still resounds from this
pulpit, and has consistently from many pastors over the decades.
Hear
the comforting words of our Lord, the one who claimed Bernadine as His own, who
has taken her to Himself, and who redeemed her for all eternity: “Let not your
hearts be troubled,” Jesus says. “Believe in God; believe also in me,”
He says, tenderly inviting us to join Him.
He says, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so,
would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take
you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” That is why, dear friends, Dee takes her
eternal delight in the Lord.
Jesus
says, “And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know
where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I
am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me.”
That
magnificent revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ: “I am the way, and the truth,
and the life,” was true when He said this to Thomas, it was true in 1919 when
He said this to Bernadine, it was true at your baptism, dear brother, dear
sister, and it remains true for all eternity.
And
so we Christians take heart, even as we mourn, for we are comforted. We remember our baptism every time we hear the
invocation at the beginning of the Divine Service: “In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.” We gather here in this same holy house “with
all who offer here their worship and praise,” with our dear brothers and
sisters whom we see, as well as with “angels, archangels, and all the company
of heaven,” that are unseen to us: the company that includes our dear sister in
Christ, mother, grandmother, parishioner, aunt, great-grandmother, and friend:
Bernadine Bennerfield Capdeville.
It
is our great joy to sing with her for eternity, to confess Christ with her, to
remember our baptism with her, and to hear anew that verse that was given to
her right here 86 years ago, and is, because of Bernadine, given to us again
right here and right now: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He
will give you the desires of your heart.”
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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