11 March 2020
Text: John 14:1-6 (Isa
25:6-9, 1 Cor 13:1-13)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Dear
Joe, Michael, Michelle, Mark, family, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ,
and honored guests: Peace be with you!
For
some of you, today will rank among the most difficult days that you have had to
experience, as the burden of losing a loved one, a dear one, a beloved one such
as Gay, presses hard upon us. And yet,
there is indeed comfort in the love of family and friends who draw together, grieving
together, remembering together, crying together, and even laughing together.
And
especially you, Joe, you are blessed to have such loving, devoted children and
a family that you and Gay brought into the world to bring you comfort even in a
time such as this.
And
the greatest comfort is found in the Word of God. For there is Good News there. The Scriptures testify of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who suffered and died to pay for our sins, and who rose again to
destroy death, and to turn the grave into something temporary.
We
Christians mourn the loss of our loved ones.
We sure do. But as St. Paul says,
we don’t mourn as unbelievers do, for we have hope: hope of the resurrection
according to the Lord’s promise. And
keep in mind what “resurrection” means: it means to be raised again in the
body. We Christians don’t believe that
we die and live as spirits forever in heaven, playing a harp in the
clouds. We Christians do not believe
that our loved ones become angels.
Angels don’t have bodies. They
are spirits. They cannot eat. They cannot embrace loved ones. They cannot marry or have children or grandchildren. Angels cannot participate in Taco
Tuesday. No indeed, becoming an angel is
not what our Lord has in store for our dear sister in Christ, Gay Elizabeth
Hamilton Dingler. Instead, the Lord
promises to raise her, bodily, from the dead.
All
of the precious memories that I have heard from Gay’s family involve joys of
the body: the look on her face as loved ones came to visit, her tears of joy
upon being with grandchildren, and yes, Taco Tuesdays and cookouts. Gay is not an angel, she is a human being
created in the image of God! She is a
bodily person unique in the history of humanity. And because of sin, because our world is
fallen, because our ancestors fell into sin, because we too sin – we are
mortal. We die. But thanks be to God that Jesus says He has
gone to “prepare a place for” Gay and for us.
Angels don’t need a “place.” But
we, who live in bodies, do! Jesus said,
“In My Father’s house are many rooms.”
He has prepared a room for Gay, so that her face can again light up when
loved ones visit. Scripture speaks of a
new heaven and a new earth, and the restoration of our bodies – without age,
without sickness, without wearing out.
When
Gay was bodily baptized into Christ, she received the promise of the
“resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” And when I would bring her the body and blood
of Christ – as her health often made it difficult for her to come forward – she
received her Lord bodily from my hand.
She needed Christ brought to her, because she recognized her need and
knew just what He promised her! She was
overjoyed when Joe was baptized and was unquestionably brought into the promise
with her. At every service, Gay
confessed her own sinfulness, and she confessed Jesus as her Savior. And what this means, dear friends, is that
our mourning is temporary. For we all
await the resurrection and our eternal reunion in the flesh, in our bodies,
where we will once more eat and drink and embrace and look one another in the
eyes – never again to be separated, and never again to endure age and
suffering. Never again, dear brothers
and sisters! This is not my promise, it
is Christ’s promise! It is why He came
into our world. It is why Gay was
baptized.
For
listen again to what eternity is like from the prophet Isaiah; “On this
mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a
feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well
refined.” Again, this is not the life of
angels, but of human beings created bodily in God’s image, made perfect through
our Lord Jesus Christ. “He will swallow
up death forever,” says the Lord. “The
Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.”
“Let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”
Many
of Gay’s beloved friends know her from her tireless work as a nurse:
ministering to the needs of the body.
And this is a holy vocation of compassion, a work of love for people who
are suffering in their bodies. Again,
this is not something the angels can relate to: only fleshly human beings. Love is not a feeling or emotion; love is
action based on self-denial and thinking of others. Gay’s service as a nurse was a reflection of
the love of Christ for all of us. He
worked through her. Her vocation is a
mirror of the Lord’s mercy that expressed itself in His healing of the
sick. The nurse’s work is at times hard
and unpleasant, but it is an offering of love.
And
we are called to emulate the virtues of the saints, to see how they loved
others, and we, looking to Christ, conform our lives into this pattern of
love. And though in this life, we are
imperfect, we recognize love: It is patient and kind, it doesn’t envy or boast,
it isn’t arrogant or rude, it isn’t self-directed or mean-spirited or filled
with resentment. Rather love “rejoices
with the truth. It “bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” And as St. Paul teaches us in the Holy
Scriptures, “the greatest of these [virtues] is love.”
Christ
loves Gay. He placed His own name on her
in Holy Baptism. He fed her with His
body and blood. He strengthened her
faith. He worked through her own love
and compassion and calling to serve her husband, her children, her grandchildren,
and many, many of her friends in this life – even total strangers! And Jesus has now called her home to be with
Him. Jesus has prepared a place for Gay,
and He will raise her in the body on the last day.
There
will be more Taco Tuesdays and opportunities to share a joyful meal
together. There will be tears of
reunion, and hugs, and the joy of being together in bodies restored to
perfection. We will see her again, and
we will rejoice. We will be in the presence
of Jesus, and we will be the people that we were created to be all along. God will “wipe away tears from all
faces.” And we indeed have a place
prepared by our Lord Jesus Christ, a place of many rooms in our Father’s house.
And
again, as difficult as it is to say goodbye for the time being, we will once
more greet one another in eternity. And
this, dear friends, is what St. Paul means by “hope.” We have “hope” because we have the
promise. Yes, we mourn, but we mourn in
the joyful expectation of eternity: an eternity of life in bodies that will
never again be parted from one another.
And this is how it is that our Lord invites us right here and right now,
through our tears, and in the midst of sorrow, to laugh defiantly at the devil,
the world, and our own sinful flesh. For
the Lord’s promise is for Gay, for you, for me, and for all who believe. We are being prepared day by day to be
reunited. And we look forward to it!
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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