Sermon: Funeral of Ursula Bulot

13 March 2021

Text: John 11:20-27 (Isa 53:3-6, Rom 5:1-5)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Dear Michael, Jaime, Kelly, family, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, and honored guests.  Peace be with you.

This past year has confronted us with our own mortality.  Most of us know people who have died as a result of the pandemic, as well as others who have died resulting of the complications of dealing with the pandemic.  And in the midst of all of this, you lost your beloved Ursula.

It is for this reason that Arthur and Erna Jacobi brought their daughter to the waters of Holy Baptism, to be set apart as a child of God, made holy in the name of the only true God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  And in this sacrament, she received the gift that Jesus won for her: forgiveness, life, and salvation.

Seven hundred years before our Lord was born, the prophet Isaiah foretold of the Man of Sorrows: “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows….  He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities…. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

As we confess week in and week out in our liturgy, we are all poor, miserable sinners.  Every single one of us.  And this is why we are mortal.  On Ash Wednesday, we were reminded: “Remember, O man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  This applies to all of us, from Adam, right down to the last person to be born before our Lord returns.  This mortal burden is placed upon all of us, even our most beloved, like Ursula.

But in spite of it, this Man of Sorrows, this Crucified One, has come to save us and redeem us.  He called Ursula by name at her baptism.  And he also bears your griefs and carries your sorrows in this time of temporary separation.  For the Crucified One is also the Risen One, even as Good Friday inevitably leads to Easter Sunday.

For that is the day of our Lord’s resurrection.  He conquered death, and promises bodily resurrection to all who are baptized and who believe.  This is a promise that Jesus made to Ursula, and it is a promise that God the Son keeps. 

Our Gospel lesson had to do with this very fact.  Jesus’ friend Lazarus died.  He was placed into a tomb.  The tomb was sealed.  His sisters Mary and Martha and their friends mourned his death.  Jesus showed up and interrupted the funeral.  He told Martha, “Your brother will rise again.”  And she confessed that he would indeed rise again, at the resurrection.  But Jesus made an exception for Lazarus, and raised him right then and there, saying: “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.”

He then asked Martha: “Do you believe this?”  Jesus puts that question to all of us.  We confessed in the creed that we do indeed believe in “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”  For we Christians do not believe that the dead in Christ are destined to be spirits.  We do not believe what other religions believe.  Our faith is radical and even offensive to many.  For Jesus promises a physical, bodily resurrection.  We human beings are meant to live in the flesh: to eat and drink and embrace and laugh and live with our loved ones.  And Jesus will restore us to life again, in the flesh, on the last day.  We will, like Lazarus and like Jesus Himself, walk out of our own tombs.  You will see Ursula again.  Not a spirit, but a person.  You won’t have to content yourself with memories of her.  Rather you will look into her eyes and hear her speak.  You will embrace and laugh and share in the joy of what Jesus has done for us.  This is the promise Jesus made to Ursula at her baptism.  It is the promise made to all of us who believe in Him.

After Jesus told Martha that Lazarus would rise, He asked her: “Do you believe this?”  She replied, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.” 

And it is Jesus alone who is God who has come into our world.  We are rescued by no other name.  For only Jesus died for us on the cross and paid the penalty for the sins of the entire human race.  By this faith, by answering His question, “Do you believe this” with the same “yes” as Martha – we receive the gift of everlasting life.

St. Paul says, “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Dear friends, we are redeemed by Christ, but we still live in this fallen world, hounded by death.  We still mourn, but we do so as people who have hope.  St. Paul speaks of our sufferings – like the suffering you are enduring now – as producing endurance, leading to character, leading to hope.  And in our hope, we receive God’s love “through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

While other religions teach that a person can climb his way to God by good works, it is only the Christian faith that reveals to us that it is God who comes down to us, as a baby in a manger, as a man of sorrows upon a cross, as a risen triumphant Lord leaving behind the tomb, as the sacrifice by which we are restored to communion with the Triune God in whose name we are washed.  And in coming down to us, Jesus saves us, and at the end of this mortal life, He calls us home, like a shepherd gathering His sheep.  And when the time comes, He will call all of us out of our tombs, as He did with Lazarus, and we will rise again.

That’s the promise God made to Ursula, and to all of us.  It is a promise He repeats to you right here and right now by means of His holy Word.  For Jesus is not just a prophet, as other religions believe, or some kind of great moral teacher, as the secular world tells us.  Jesus is God in the flesh.  He is the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in Him, though he die, yet shall he live.

So dear friends, take heart.  You will see Ursula again.  And you will nevermore be separated – even unto eternity.  

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.