Text: John 10:10b-15, 27-30 (Isa 25:6-9, 1 Cor 15:51-57)
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Dear Bubby, Ron, Shirley, family, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, and honored guests, peace be with you.
Your beloved Shirley has been called home to be with the Lord after a long and good life. Bubby, you had the privilege of 64 years of married life with Shirley. And even in death, Shirley was at home surrounded by loved ones. She leaves a void that will never be filled on this side of glory, for she is terribly missed by all of you.
Some people will try to comfort you by saying that death is natural, or just a part of life. That’s just not true. God did not create us to die. God created us to live forever. We messed up the plan by our sin. It all started in the Garden of Eden, and got worse from there. For as Shirley confessed again and again in the church’s liturgy, “I, a poor miserable sinner… justly deserve your temporal and eternal punishment.” Even the very best of us is plagued by sin, and this is why we are mortal, dear friends.
Shirley knew this, and this is why she attended Divine Service until her health made it impossible. She received forgiveness and heard the preaching of the Gospel, the Good News, that Jesus died for us and gives us what we cannot give ourselves: eternal life. She received the body and blood of Christ as a guarantee of that promise. I brought her Jesus on her deathbed. Shirley believed the Word of God, and she was prepared to die.
Of course, we survivors are never really prepared for the temporary separation that death is for us Christians. We love Shirley, we miss her, and we mourn. But we mourn in a different way than unbelievers. We mourn with hope. We believe the same promises of Jesus that brought Shirley to Divine Service week in and week out. And we will see her again.
We prayed the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd.” For it is the Lord who shepherds us even through the “valley of the shadow of death.” Jesus tells us that He is that shepherd in our Gospel reading from St. John: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep…. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me…. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”
This is Shirley’s faith and confession. It means that she is safe and sound with Jesus. It means that we who share this faith will see her again. Jesus says He came to give Shirley life, and to have it “abundantly.”
We Christians know that death is not natural. It is our enemy. But it is a defeated enemy. Death was defeated when Jesus Himself died to destroy death, and when we left His own grave, just as Shirley will, just as all believers will. St. Paul teaches us this in our epistle reading from 1 Corinthians: “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” And this is why we Christians, even in our mourning, even through our tears, can say defiantly: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” And we join St. Paul is thanking God, “who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” For this victory was won for Shirley at the cross. It was proven for Shirley at the empty tomb that first Easter. And it was given to Shirley as a free gift of grace when she was baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” For Jesus says: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” Shirley has been saved from death and hell. She has that abundant life as a free gift of God.
Of course, this is still hard. We do feel the sting of death in being separated from our loved ones. Death is not natural. It is not a part of life. But we Christians know why it happens, and what happens. And we Christians know that because Jesus conquered death, so has Shirley.
And so we are all waiting for our reunion. We are waiting for the resurrection. For we Christians also understand that God made us to have a spirit and a body. We human beings are created in God’s image, and we have flesh and blood. This is why we confessed in the creed that we believe in “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” On this side of the grave, Shirley loved to be physically present with loved ones, eating and drinking, feasting and laughing, embracing family and friends. God did not create us to be disembodied spirits, but to be resurrected in the flesh.
Isaiah speaks of the new heaven and the new earth in our Old Testament lesson, promising “a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.” This is because we will be raised bodily from the dead, in bodies that are perfect, without pain, without disease, without aging. Our world will be restored to what it was before sin. We will once more enjoy the perfection of the Garden of Eden. This is God’s promise, the promise that Shirley confessed by attending Divine Services and be receiving Christ’s body and blood. And listen to Isaiah’s good news, dear friends: “He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces… for the Lord has spoken.”
“For the Lord has spoken,” dear friends. This is not my promise, but God’s promise. This is not my gift to you, but the gift of Jesus to you – the same gift given to Shirley: the gift of everlasting life even in death.
And so we Christians do not embrace death, we don’t welcome it, and we don’t consider it anything other than what it is: our enemy. But we also know that the enemy was defeated, and Shirley has victory over death and the grave. Our Lord Jesus Christ, Shirley’s Good Shepherd, declared victory from the cross when He proclaimed: “It is finished!” His victory is Shirley’s victory. And we will see her again!
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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