John 5:24-30; Romans 8:31-39; Job 19:21-27
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In preparation for today, unsurprisingly, I looked back to the message I prepared for Richard’s funeral almost two years ago. I was reminded that Richard was a bit of a homebody, a family man who enjoyed simple things with his family like gardening with his daughters, attending their basketball games, hunting and fishing, but with family, not with large groups of others. In his own quiet, unassuming way Richard showed his love for his family and for Darla, whose ear he would twiddle each morning.
I asked you to share a few things about Darla. Again, unsurprisingly, what you shared with me sounds a lot like, and compliments, what could be said about Richard. Darla enjoyed long bike rides with her dear friend Joyce and her girls, rides that would end with popcorn or Dairy Queen, or at the Wartburg fountain to see the colored lights. Darla enjoyed playing cards with Joyce, for which the girls would provide the “half-time” entertainment performing songs and dances, which always received a standing ovation. And Darla enjoyed the excitement of the casino, the lights, the penny slots, and the thrill of the chase for the jackpot, even if it proved elusive.
I didn’t know Darla very well until Richard died; then I got to know her and some of you as well as we made preparations for Richard’s funeral. However, Darla began to attend services more regularly at St. John after that, particularly those Wednesday afternoons. She told Joyce how much she enjoyed those services. When Darla moved to The Ledges she sometimes attended with Clarence and Rosemary Huck who lived in the same building. I remember a Christmas or two when church members visited The Ledges to sing Christmas carols. Darla was there among the residents gathered in the common room singing along. When Darla was hospitalized back in November, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a phone call from Lori to inform me that Darla was in the hospital and that she was asking specifically for me to come. I arrived there shortly thereafter and was able to bring a bit of Christ’s peace and comfort to a rather difficult situation. I know that the days, weeks, and months following were difficult and unpleasant at times. But not every day. Still, you were there for Darla when she needed you, and you helped her and comforted her, just as she had done for you for so many decades and years. That’s what families do. That’s what Christians do.
We all need help at times, even when we don’t realize it. The death of a loved one is always a wake-up call to that reality. Death is the wage we earn for sin. It is unavoidable. We all know it. But when things are going well and we’re relatively comfortable we tend not to think about it. Then, when it happens, it catches us off guard, it shakes us up, like a rude alarm clock going off unexpectedly and way too early. But Christians look at death differently, and so we look at life differently too. We are not like those who have no hope. We know that we have a helper, a God who loves us and is always there for us, even when we go through dark and difficult times, even when it may seem like he is not there at all, yes, even when it may seem like he is the one permitting our affliction, or the one causing our affliction.
That is because our hope is not in ourselves – if it were, it would be shaky and uncertain, like our emotions which are up and then down and then up again, often within the matter of a day or an hour. No, our hope is not in ourselves, but our hope is in something, someone outside of us. Our hope is in our LORD who made us, who gave us life, who provides everything we need for our bodies and lives, and who has purchased us from sin, death, and the devil, and who has himself died for us and defeated death for us.
That’s why we focus on the things that God has done for us at a time like this, the things that God has done for Darla throughout her eighty-two years lived in his grace. God claimed Darla and named her as his own child in Holy Baptism. He created faith in her heart and nurtured and protected her in faith throughout her life. He brought her to confess that faith in her Confirmation and in her vocations as wife, mother, grandmother, friend, and more. God was with Richard and Darla throughout their married life as they raised their daughters in the faith, who in turn have raised their own sons and daughters in the faith.
The passages of Scripture we heard a moment ago each speak to the confidence, certainty, and hope we have in our God who loves us, who is faithful and unchanging, and who will never fail us. God permitted Satan to afflict the Old Testament Patriarch Job terribly. Because Job’s faith was in the LORD, and not in himself, even in the midst of severe affliction, suffering, and temptation, Job remained hopeful, even confessing his faith in a Redeemer and in the resurrection of his own flesh and blood body over two thousand years before the birth of Jesus saying, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!”
Two thousand years later St. Paul expressed this very same confidence grounded in God’s promise fulfilled in Jesus Christ saying, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? […] Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? […] No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Our Lord Jesus, Job’s Redeemer and Paul’s confidence, our Redeemer and our confidence, confirmed our faith in the Gospel saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” What is so wonderfully comforting and hope-inducing about these words is that hope for life and resurrection is not merely some future hope, but it’s a right now, every day of our life hope that can carry us through dark and difficult times like now. When I hear about the lives of God’s children, like Richard and Darla, I am reminded of God’s faithfulness, how he is always with us even as the shadow at our right hand. He is with us in times of prosperity and joy, and he is with us in times of want and sorrow. Blessed are those who remember this and find comfort and hope and peace and joy and courage and confidence in the never-failing truth that God is for us, always, and that nothing can separate us from his love in Jesus Christ.
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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