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Text: Luke
2:25-32 (Isa 43:1-3a, Rom 5:1-5)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Dear
Charles and Brenda, family, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, and
honored guests: peace be with you.
It
was my honor to give pastoral care to our beloved Claire for thirteen years –
bringing her the Word of God: the Good News of Jesus Christ, as well as the
body and blood of the Lord – both in the church building, and at her home. And all pastors know about those certain
people that you visit, and when you leave, you wonder who was providing care to
whom.
Visiting
Claire was like that.
We
know that the Christian life, like old age, is not for sissies. When Christ calls us to follow Him, He bids us
to take up our cross. That is what it
means to follow Jesus: we follow Him to the cross, to the tomb, and to the
resurrection. That is our journey; that
is Claire’s journey; that is the journey of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Claire’s
life on this side of the grave was marked by bearing many crosses – which she
carried by God’s grace. She suffered
many things in her life, but like Jesus, she turned her face resolutely toward
Jerusalem. She lived with purpose and
trust in the Lord. I was always struck
by her contentment. Her faith served as
a saintly example to me, as we servants of the Word also bear our share of
crosses. Thanks be to God for Claire’s
discipleship of our Lord.
For
we are all sinners living in a sinful and broken world. We all stand in need of a Savior. And Claire’s greatest strength was that in her
weakness, her trust was in the Lord to carry her through. And He did!
The
prophet Isaiah spoke to us anew just now, uttering the promise of God that I
often read to Claire: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by
name, you are Mine. When you pass
through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not
overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned…. For I am
the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
This
promise is for Claire, for me, and for you, dear friends, for all who have been
called by name, as Claire was on May 3, 1931. She was born again of water and the Spirit two
weeks into her life on this side of glory. According to the promise of our Lord Jesus
Christ, Claire was baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, and that divine name was placed on her, and her name was written
in the Book of Life. As Claire memorized
the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ in Mark 16, let us hear it now in this
place while she is with Him: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”
And
as St. Paul also spoke to us anew, let us remember: “We were therefore buried
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. For if we have been united with Him in a death
like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”
The
Lord said then, and says now, to His servant Claire: “I have called you by
name, you are Mine.”
And
this explains Claire’s peace in Christ: “Since we have been justified by faith,”
says the apostle Paul, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is how we Christians can “rejoice in our
sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces
character, and character produces hope.”
Claire’s
hope was not merely for her soul to “go to heaven” when she died. This is not what God promises us. He promises so much more! For our hope as Christians is in “the
resurrection of the body and the life everlasting” as we confessed in the Creed.
For “just as Christ was raised from the
dead, we too might walk in newness of life.… we shall certainly be united with
Him in a resurrection like His.”
Jesus
walked out of His own tomb in victory, and so will Claire, dear friends!
Unbelievers
try to derive comfort from the fading memories of their loved ones, or maybe in
some kind imagination of a ghostly, spiritual afterlife. But we Christians have the ironclad promise of
the risen Lord Jesus Christ that we too will walk out of our tombs, and we will
live forever in a restored flesh, a glorified body: without sin, without
suffering, and without death, just as we were created to be in the Garden of
Eden. This restoration of paradise is
why our Lord shed His blood on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, as the
final victory over death, and the ultimate triumph over the devil! That, dear friends, is the promise given to
Claire, the promise that she confessed and clung to, the promise that we will
all be reunited in the flesh in glory!
Every
time I visited Claire, I brought her the Lord’s body and blood. And just as we do in church, after receiving
Holy Communion, we would speak or sings together Simeon’s Song – even as we
will speak it together again in this service. St. Simeon was elderly. He was a believer in the promises of the
Lord. He was waiting to encounter “the
Lord’s Christ.” In fact, “it had been
revealed to Him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until” this
physical encounter with Jesus. And when
it happened, when Simeon experienced the baby Jesus in His very flesh and
blood, he rejoiced, he “blessed God” with these words that were Claire’s words
and are our words: “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
according to Your Word, for my eyes have seen Your salvation that You have
prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the
Gentiles, and for glory to Your people Israel.”
St.
Simeon was prepared, he was ready to “depart in peace” according to the Word of
God. His eyes witnessed salvation. He experienced the flesh and blood of Jesus
in his own body, and now, death was not a defeat, but rather a victory. For Jesus has come to destroy death, and to
turn the grave into a temporary resting place for those who believe and are
baptized, to those called by name, to those who place their trust in Jesus and
call upon the name of the Lord, to those who eat His body and drink His blood,
to those who hear the Good News and take it to heart.
Like
the elderly servant of the Lord, St. Simeon, who was prepared to “depart in
peace,” so too was Claire. She was ready
and prepared to be called home. Claire
loved her life that the Lord gave her, and she loved being with her family and
loved ones, but she said many times that when the Lord was ready for her, she was
ready to go. She knew this because she
knew the Scriptures, she knows her Lord Jesus, and she sang with all of us: “Lord,
now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.”
She
has departed in peace, dear friends. She
has departed to be with the Lord Jesus Christ and to await the resurrection and
the new heaven and new earth. She waits
in glory, in peace, in joy. And we wait,
still on this side of the grave, still in this broken world, in sorrow because
we miss her, grieving, yet not like the unbelievers, but as a people of hope:
hope of the glorious “resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” And having experienced our Lord Jesus Christ,
being called by name by Him, and in faith in His promises, having met Him in
the flesh, we too are bold to pray: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart
in peace according to Thy Word.” Amen.
Peace
be with you.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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