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Text: John 14:1-6
(Ps 121, 1 Cor 12:31b-13:13)
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Dear Lloyd and Shannon, Marnie, Cassidy, family, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, and honored guests. Peace be with you.
Fourteen years ago, we gathered here on the occasion of Helen’s departure after sixty three years of marriage to Lloyd. We read the very same readings – the ones that Lloyd and Helen themselves chose. And like his beloved wife, Lloyd knew that he was dying. And like Helen, he faced our greatest enemy with calm clarity. He enjoyed his last few months on this side of glory, knowing that eternal life was going to be even better.
For death is indeed our enemy, dear friends. Lloyd did not sugarcoat it, and neither should we. It is the “wages of sin,” and it is our legacy of rebellion against our Creator. It separates us from our loved ones. It causes us sorrow and makes us mourn. It is not what God had in mind for us. But it is also a defeated enemy. For our Lord Jesus, God incarnate, took flesh for our sake, suffered for our sake, died for our sake, and rose again for our sake. And when I say “our sake,” that includes Lloyd and Helen, who confessed this faith, lived this faith, and died in this faith. And in this faith, they have defeated death, and they will rise again on the last day.
I had the honor and the privilege to serve as Lloyd’s pastor for eighteen years. And the last few years, he was unable to attend church, so the church came to him, bearing the most precious gifts of all: the Word of God, and the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I do feel a little selfish about it, because not only did I have the joy of sharing Holy Communion with Lloyd, but also the joy of conversing with him and getting to know him even more. And when I say “joy,” there is no better word. We always had such delightful conversations, and his home was always peaceful, restful, and orderly – with a beautiful view of the garden: the birds-of-paradise flowers that Helen loved. In fact, I would sometimes wonder if I were overstaying my welcome in Lloyd’s home because I enjoyed my time with him so much.
Jesus speaks of a restful home that has been prepared for Lloyd and Helen and for all who receive this gift – “Let not your hearts be troubled,” He says, “Believe in God, believe also in Me.” Jesus promises: “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.” This eternal home, the promised new heaven and new earth that will replace this fallen temporal life, including the restoration of our bodies in the resurrection, will not feature beautiful flowers that are merely in full bloom one day, but wither and fade, but rather will endure forever. As the prophet Isaiah spoke of this eternal hope: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” Dear friends, the Word is Jesus. And His Word is true. He prepares a place for us that is paradise – not merely a flower named after it.
What a joy to have celebrated the Lord’s Supper, the miraculous presence of Jesus in His Eucharist, while gazing out into the garden – a little reminder of Eden, and of the paradise to come.
For Jesus continues, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” We have a home prepared for us because life extends beyond death. Jesus died to give us His life and His righteousness, “of His own will He brought us forth by the Word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.”
Lloyd chose this passage from St. John’s Gospel because he understood the importance of home. And while his peaceful, restful home with a garden was his and Helen’s beloved home, they both knew that it was temporary. Jesus has prepared for them an eternal home, a perfect home, of which their temporal home was an imperfect preview.
Jesus did all of this for us out of love – the very same kind of divine love that binds a husband and wife for sixty-three years, a love of mutual self-sacrifice for the beloved. There is no greater picture of God’s love and care for us than married life between a husband and wife who make their home together, and selflessly raise children in it. St. Paul’s beautiful and timeless passage about love in First Corinthians thirteen is a picture of the kind of love that God has in Christ for His people – including Lloyd and Helen, who are now reunited in glory, secure in the love of God for eternity.
The Psalmist teaches us where to look for help in times of sorrow and loss, in times of illness and death, in times of an uncertain future, and times of change, as our forebears depart, and as we take up the baton and move into their positions of authority and leadership, as well the time of our own aging and mortality: “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” And the Psalmist also writes: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” The Lord provides us with a rich and lush home, a home with a garden, shepherding us to the “green pastures” and “still waters,” and we will “dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” He leads us to this paradise, dear friends, “through the valley of the shadow of death.” And He leads us, so that we have no fear. “For Thou art with me,” we pray with the Psalmist.
And the “table prepared before Me in the presence of mine enemies” (even the enemy of death) is the Holy Supper, the coming of Jesus, who comes to this place, to this altar, to Christian altars the world over, and even to the homes of the faithful when they can no longer come to this “house of the Lord.” Jesus makes His home with us here in time and space, even as He prepares a home for us in eternity.
Lloyd and Helen chose Psalm 121 for you to hear fourteen years ago, and we are hearing it yet again today, dear friends. And this Psalm ends with a blessing – a blessing that was spoken a thousand years before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd, and it is a blessing and a promise that endures today, and even unto eternity. Let us hear the Word of the Lord, receive it, and take it to heart yet again, dear brothers and sisters: “The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”
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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