Two Great Promises for the Grieving

[This message was shared this afternoon at the funeral for Dorothy.]

Psalm 23

Romans 8:31-39

I only met Dorothy a few times at Baptisms. She was friendly and open. 

But last week, as I met with Loretta and Karen and some of the family, I learned of a warm and adventurous person who happily took on challenges–like making wedding gowns and bridal party dresses–and who dealt with life with good humor. 

She liked to mark holidays in a big way, putting up decorations and sending out cards with notes. She wrote Christmas letters and letters for special occasions. She did for others, including not just family members, but also neighbors and friends.

I loved hearing about how she and her family dealt with the inevitable conflicts that arise in any family. She spoke her mind and the other family member spoke theirs, then there would be peace between them. It reminds me of what God’s Word says: “If you become angry, do not let your anger lead you into sin, and do not stay angry all day.” (Ephesians 4:26, Good News Translation) In other words, dust-ups between people who love each other are inevitable; but by God’s power, our call is to resolve our disagreements, forgive each other, and move on. Dorothy seemed to live this.

She was well-loved. I like what Mason wrote in one of his notes to me during my meeting with the family last week: “She always cared for us…She never been rude to us…She is loved.” That’s a great eulogy by an eight-year-old!

But in the midst of your sorrow today, God’s Word brings you all both comfort and hope. Both of the Bible passages the family has chosen for today bring these two gifts from God.

Psalm 23 is the most famous of the 150 hymns that make up the Old Testament book of Psalms. Its composer, King David, was a shepherd. So, not surprisingly, David saw God as the shepherd of people who put their trust in God. 

Sheep, it should be said, are stupid. They easily get lost, wandering off for the next enticing thatch of grass, heedless of danger. They’re defenseless against predators, just like you and I are subject to the dangers of sin, death, and temptation. Just as sheep need shepherds, we need God, our good shepherd, to lead us away from sin, death, darkness, and despair, to lead us to forgiveness, life, hope, and peace.

Jesus, God the Son, called Himself “the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep.” But ten centuries before Jesus’ birth, David could see that God wanted nothing more than to shepherd, to lead, anyone who trusts in Him through the hard moments of this life into an eternity with God beyond all grief, tears, or goodbyes.

David writes in our psalm, which is a kind of love song to God: “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing…Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:1-4) The God we know in Jesus doesn’t run away when we grieve or hurt. He stands with us. He walks with us. And because He's been through grief and death, He understands us when we go through the same things!

But He does more than that. Psalm 23 also says: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies [even the enemies of death and grief and the sin that alienate us from God and others]. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows…” (Psalm 23:5) Because, as our other lesson from Romans 8, reminds us, nothing can separate us from the love the good shepherd Jesus has for us, we can know, with King David that God’s “goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:6)

You and I have an advantage over King David. He knew God through God’s Word and God’s promises, to be sure. He had experienced God’s love and God’s power and God’s forgiveness in the depths of grief and heartache, as well as his own sin. But today, you and I can see and experience the greatness of God’s love for us more certainly. In Jesus Christ, God the Son, God took on our human flesh and He became our servant, dying on a cross bearing our sin and our death in His sinless body. God absorbed all our sin and death and grief into Himself on the cross so that, when God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, He could open up life with God for all who repent and believe in Jesus. Jesus told the grief-stricken Martha, and He tells you today: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die…” (John 11:25-26)

In the crucified Jesus Christ, God promises to be with you in every situation that life in this fallen, imperfect, and sometimes hurtful world may bring. 

In the risen Jesus Christ, God promises that He will be our good shepherd even beyond the gates of death, leading us to an eternity where there is no more grief, no more tears, and where all who have died trusting in Christ will be with God. 

Friends, as you trust in Jesus as Dorothy trusted in Jesus, you can be sure that you will live in God’s house along with her forever.

Who knows? She may already be planning what cookies she’ll bake for your arrival. May God bless and comfort you all in the promise of Jesus’ resurrection! Amen

 

Four Promises from God

[This message was shared today at the funeral for a young woman and mother of three whose death came suddenly.]

Psalm 23
Romans 8:31, 37-39
John 3:16
For all who knew and loved Kelsey, this is an unimaginably hard time. All of you, especially Kelsey’s children, are in my prayers for the days ahead. Her mother and grandmother have both told me about how Kelsey struggled in this life to find herself, to find her place. Her Facebook page confirms that. In the introduction there, she wrote: “God is life. My [babies] make it worth living.” In what little I know of Kelsey, I hear the story of a young woman who adored her three children, even as she yearned, in her own way, for both God and for some happiness in her life.

In the days, months, and years ahead, you who grieve will struggle. And you will yearn to see Kelsey. It would be unnatural for you not to grieve, even wrong. And it would be abnormal for you not to want to see her. You will also have struggles.

I’ve followed the Lord, sometimes well, sometimes poorly, for more than forty years. In that time, I’ve tried to pay close attention to His Word. Despite these things, let me begin today by telling you what I don’t know: I don’t know why this has happened.

But let me also tell you what I do know: God didn’t cause this. We live in an imperfect world in which people get hurt, desperate, and lost. That's what happened to Kelsey.

But there is hope!

That’s why today, I want to share four promises from God that you can hold onto for strength and encouragement as you face the future.

The first is this: The God we meet and can know in Jesus Christ understands all about our struggles, our griefs, and burdens. He understands what you’re going through and what you will be going through in the days and years ahead better than anyone else possibly could.

The Bible says of Jesus that He was: “a man of suffering, and familiar with pain” (Isaiah 53:3). Jesus, God in human flesh, is God’s guarantee that whatever pain, grief, or challenge you confront in life, God gets it.

He understands your grief not as some far-off observer, but as One Who has been exactly where You are today. If you will turn daily to Jesus, bringing to Him your pain, your unanswered questions, your grief, and even your sin, He will understand. He will give you strength. He will give you peace, forgiveness, and hope.

Jesus once said; “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) That promise is for you today and for the days ahead.

Here’s another important promise from God: When you don’t know what to do, this God we know in Jesus can lead you in the right direction. In the passage I read a few moments ago, from Psalm 23, the psalmist writes “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.” (Psalm 23:1-3) When, in our grief, we turn to Jesus, He will lead us.

Here’s another promise I hope that you’ll hold onto today: Nothing can separate you from God. If you will fall into His loving arms, He can carry you through the grief and whatever else you face in life. I know this from first-hand experience.

In the New Testament book of Romans, we’re told: “...neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

Reach out for the God we know in Jesus. As long as you want Him in your life, He will never let you go! Never.

And there’s a fourth promise from God that I want to share with you this evening. No matter how many times we break down...no matter how many times we fail...we have a promise that cannot be taken away from those who trust in the Lord. Jesus shared it late one night with a man who came to Him looking for answers. This is what Jesus told them: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Jesus went to the cross to take onto His shoulders all the pain, death, sin, and darkness that meet us in this world. He voluntarily accepted the defeat handed out to us by these things so that, in sharing them, He could lead us out of our slavery to them and into new life.

When Jesus rose from the dead on the first Easter Sunday, He was making it possible for all who surrender to Him to have eternal life with God.

That life breaks into this world when we trust in Jesus and rely on Him to take us through this life.

And one day, all who have trusted in Him--believed in Him--will live in His perfect kingdom where, as we live in God’s direct presence, pain and death will be banished, all our tears will be dried, our grief will be no more, and we will know that one thing for which Kelsey always yearned: perfect peace with God...with ourselves, with others.

May these four promises from the God we know in Jesus--that He will always understand us; that He will lead us when we turn to Him; that nothing can separate us from His love given to us through Jesus; and that He will give eternity to those who dare to believe in Jesus--give you strength, encouragement, peace, and HOPE in the days and years ahead. God bless you. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

A Place, A Hope

[This message was shared earlier today during the memorial service for Jane, a disciple of Jesus who was part of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Psalm 23
John 14:1-6
My wife Ann and I first met Jane in August, 2013, when we came for a visit with the people of Living Water for a weekend designed to help the congregation look us over and decide exactly what they wanted to do with us. We knew Wayne a bit from his work on the call committee. But Jane was a new acquaintance.

She struck me immediately as a person of faith in Jesus, good humor, a quiet commitment to serve others (including needy animals), and a live-your-life-come-what-may attitude.

All of those attributes were tried greatly over the last year-and-a-half of her life.

Someone has said that adversity has a way of showing who a person really is. Since the onset of her medical issues, who Jane was could be clearly seen.

She was exactly who she always seemed to be the first time we met her--a person of faith and good humor, a person committed to service who took life as it came to her--and even more.

She was so intent on not having people fuss over her in the period before her death that her passing caught many by surprise.

Wayne, David, Anne, and all of you who make up Jane’s family, we know that you grieve the loss of a loved one who was such a vital presence in all of your lives.

But we pray that you can take comfort from the same faith and hope that allowed Jane to be the person she was, even at the end of her life.

In Jesus Christ, we can all have the same hope and power for living and the power to face dying that we saw in Jane. That’s why the words of Jesus in today’s gospel lesson, John 14:1-6, are perfect.

They’re words spoken by Jesus in a moment a bit like this moment. Jesus is in the upper room with the apostles. He’s made it clear that He is about to die and the apostles are shocked and grief-stricken.

But Jesus assures them: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Jesus had a place prepared for Jane.

He has a place prepared for anyone who dares to let go of things like our common human desire to be our own gods, our puny imagination’s inability to fathom the possibility of a power greater than us, or our unwillingness to accept the witness of the church’s first martyrs that this Jesus, seen to have been murdered on a cross, was also seen to have risen from the dead. Jesus has a place in His kingdom for anyone who opens their minds, hearts, and wills to Him and His good news.

Jane knew that. Jane lived that. She was one of the people who, by her faith in Christ, let eternity slip into this life, allowing all of us a glimpse of what promises belong to those who believe and how those promises can impact the ways we live, the priorities we adopt, the promises we keep.

Her illness baffled Jane and caused her suffering, to be sure. The nights seemed especially hard for her. But her illness didn’t disrupt Jane’s faith or destroy her hope. She lived in simple, faithful response to the message in the only sermon by Jesus quoted in the gospel of Mark: “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

The time has come.

Jesus has died and risen for needy mortals like you and me.

He has prepared a place for all who turn from their sin and receive God’s forgiveness and trust in the gospel message of new life for all who trust in Christ.

It’s time now to turn to Jesus and live with God in our lives.

When Thomas heard Jesus speaking of the place that he was going and that the apostles knew where that was, he was baffled. What was Jesus talking about? Several years into their apprenticeship under Jesus, following Jesus everywhere He went, Thomas still had no idea where Jesus was taking him. “Lord” Thomas says, “we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” To be with the God Who made you and loves you and sent His Son to die and to rise for you, the way is Jesus Christ.

This is not sweet-by-and-by stuff! We can have life with God right here and now. Jesus promises all who follow Him: “I am with you always.” Even now, as you pass through “through the darkest valley.” The Savior Who could not be contained by death is unlimited in His capacity to give you the strength, peace, and hope of God.

King David, writing in Psalm 23, showed that he knew the God ultimately disclosed to all the world in Jesus. That’s why he could say that he feared no evil and that God could comfort him even in darkness.

He can bring comfort to you too.

The apostle Paul once addressed the disciples of Jesus in the first-century church in Thessalonica. The Thessalonian Christians grieved and worried about the eternal destinies of loved ones who had trusted in Jesus but who had died before Jesus returned to the earth. Would they miss out on the resurrection when Jesus returned to the world?

Paul told them that he didn’t want them to grieve like the rest of the human race. They grieved as people, he said, “who have no hope.”

Followers of Jesus grieve. Death is real. Loss is real. Missing those we have loved is real. I spoke with a widow the other day who said of her husband, “I miss him every day.”

But followers of Jesus also have hope.

In Jesus, they know the God Who sustains and encourages the grieving and protects them from despair.

In Jesus, they know the God Who understands our pain.

And in Jesus, they know the God Who has overcome illness, grief, and death, Who has blazed the trail to an eternity with God filled with joy, life as it was meant to be lived, useful work, and utter love.

They know the God Who through Jesus promises that if we will accept the crucifixion of our old sinful selves, sharing in His death, He will share Christ’s resurrection victory over death!

Because Jane followed Jesus, she is experiencing the eternity Christ prepared for her even before she was born.

And I know that if there is one message she would have me share with you today, it would be this: To be comforted, to live life to the full, to face death without fear or cynicism, follow the Lord that has prepared a place for you.

Follow Jesus.

Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Contentment and Going for Broke

I spend Quiet Time with God most mornings. (Quiet Time is explained here.) The focus of my time with God today was Genesis 10 and 11 and Psalm 4. God seemed to most speak to me in two verses from the Psalm. (If you would like help in starting your own Quiet Time with God for five days a week, let me know. I'll be glad to point you to resources that will help you do that.) Here's some of what I wrote in my journal today.

Look: The Psalm seems to begin with a plea from David to his people. Some scholars suggest that it was written as “David was asking his enemies to reconsider their support of Absalom” during Absalom’s rebellion against KIng David, his father. [Life Application Bible]

But then, a shift takes place. David talks about his own approach to life and, he can’t seem to help himself. He praises God:

“There are many who pray: ‘Give us more blessings, O Lord. Look on us with kindness!’ But the joy that you have given me is more than they will ever have with all their grain and wine.” (Psalm 4:6-7, Good News Translation)

David seems to be saying that he has learned contentment. He’s not always looking for more; he thanks God for what he has.

That’s easy enough for a king to say, I suppose. And given that David’s son, Absalom, is appealing to the people’s sense that David isn’t sharing enough, this statement by David may have landed like a lead balloon in the eyes of his opponents. Didn’t David understand their grievances? Probably. David probably also understood that this was a rebellion of elitists, of people like Henry Ford, who, when asked how much a man needed to live on, answered, “Just a little more.”

David is saying that what God has given to him, much of which could not be measured in material things, but in joy, is more than any of the craving rebels will ever have. You can have stuff, power, and success and still not be content, not have joy. Joy seems to not be happiness, but contentment that I have because I live in peace with God, a peace that passes understanding and a peace that never ends. My sins are forgiven. I have been made new (2 Corinthians 5:17). And God is walking with me through everything I experience in life (Psalm 23; Romans 8:31-39; Matthew 28:20).

Paul writes to believers in the New Testament: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7)

The risen Jesus tells His followers in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

It is this peace that I think David is talking about, a peace not dependent on outward circumstances, but on God alone.

Paul had that contentment, though, unlike David, he was far from wealthy or powerful: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” (Philippians 4:11)

Paul isn’t saying that he’s content with the circumstances he’s in (he was imprisoned at the time he wrote them), but that he’s content in the midst of whatever circumstances.

There’s a difference.

I think that David’s sentiments here in Psalm 4:6-7 are compatible with Paul’s from Philippians 4:11. David is trying to convince the rebels to lay down their arms. There is nothing wrong with followers of the God we know in Jesus wanting things: outcomes, situations, etc. But they view everything through the perspective of faith. What they want will not stop them from thanking God for the eternal relationship with Him they already have through faith in Christ. And not getting what they want will not destroy their faith.

Listen: Lord, I swing between wanting outrageous things that are clearly not in Your will, on the one hand, and giving up on asking You for anything, on the other.

Neither is faith: one is covetousness; the other is resignation. Both are sins, failures to trust in God as God.

I allow my thoughts and feelings to shape my faith and moods at any given time, rather than allowing myself to be shaped by what You teach in Your Word.

In John 16:24, Jesus says, “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.”

To ask in Jesus’ name, as I have reminded people over the years (and which I need to constantly remind myself), doesn’t mean that Jesus’ name is a good luck charm that makes the request acceptable to God. That would be superstition and attempted manipulation of God.

John, who records Jesus words there, helps to clarify their meaning in his first letter: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” (1 John 5:14)

So, to pray in Jesus’ name is to ask God to grant our prayer request only if their consistent with the will, the character, and the intentions of the God we know in Jesus.

I take this as a license to go for broke: to ask for anything. But I also take it to mean that, when we sense from God’s Word or the promptings of His Spirit that the things we’re asking for aren’t in His plan, for whatever reason, that we will change our prayers.

Even when God says, “No,” that’s an answer to prayer.

And, as David reminds in this passage from Psalm 4, the joy God has given us by allowing us to be in relationship with Him is greater than all the good stuff this world has to offer.

And in Christ, we know that an eternity of perfection is in store for those who remain faithful in following Christ. Paul talks about this in 2 Timothy 4:8: “Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

There are some prayers though that we may pray for long years and even if there is no hint of improvement, we must keep praying them because we know that they are consistent with the will of God. This includes prayers like those in which we ask that God will send workers into the harvest so that new millions will come to faith in Christ (Matthew 9:38); that God will orchestrate the coming to faith of some prodigal we may know (Luke 15:11-32); and that God’s justice and mercy will come to all people (Micah 6:8), to name just a few. These are big prayers and there’s a lot of sin and bad habits and demonic opposition to the fulfillment of any of them. But when I know that something we pray for is in the will of God, I must not stop. Such persistence in praying--driven by love and not by selfishness--is one way I acknowledge the joy that God has given to me through Christ and that I want all people to experience.

Respond: Today, let me be intentional in thanking You for all Your blessings, most especially for Jesus. Help me pray for workers in the harvest; for justice for the oppressed--for blacks, the unborn, refugees, women, minorities around the world; for the return of prodigals who have left You; and for me to be a disciple-maker. In Jesus’ name.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

The God Who Changes People

In Genesis 49, Jacob, one of the patriarchs of Biblical faith, is dying and pronounces blessings on each of his twelve sons. But his blessings on two of them, Joseph and Judah, are the most intriguing.

Joseph is one of the most interesting people in the Bible. Despite being sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, he, unlike any human being I can name from Genesis--except the mysterious Melchizedek--maintains his faith and his integrity throughout his life. Because of this, God uses Joseph, in the midst of adversity, to save His chosen people.

But then, there's Judah. Judah is the guy who, in Genesis 37, first suggested to the other brothers that they sell Joseph into slavery and be done with him. Joseph was his father's favorite and the siblings didn't like him at all.  Judah, then, could be seen as a bad guy. And he was sinner. Judah was Joseph's Judas, in a way.

On the other hand, it was Judah who, years later, offered to become a hostage in order to save the youngest brother, Benjamin. Judah seems to have submitted to the melting of his heart so that the one who once set in motion a scheme that would have, effectively, been a death sentence for one brother, offered to take a similar sentence for himself in order to save another brother. Judah was a sinner in whom something seems to have happened.

Judah had, by the grace of God, grown. He had changed.

The grace of God, God's undeserved forgiveness, help, and favor, which He today offers to all people through Jesus Christ, can do things like this to people. Second Corinthians 5:17, in the New Testament, says: "...if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old is gone, the new is here!"

So, did Judah "deserve" the blessing Jacob pronounced, which included that he would become the ancestor of Israel's kings, including the One conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of Judah's line, Jesus, the King of kings? No. Judah didn't "deserve" that blessing, no matter how his life had been changed.

He deserved it no more than Joseph deserved greater blessings. Joseph hadn't deserved the pain in his life. He hadn't deserved its success either. Joseph had been "set apart" from his brothers by God, but could, at any time, have chosen to turn from God, making his life easier. But God graced him with the power to turn to God instead. That wasn't Joseph's doing any more than the blessings granted to Judah were his. It was all God.

We don't know what plans God has for our lives. And often--maybe usually--they are different from the ones we make for ourselves. Sometimes, the plans of God can be painful to us--just ask Joseph. Still, to follow God's plan, to turn to Him daily in repentance and belief in God the Son, Jesus, is the better path. Even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we needn't fear. God will be with us.

A prayer: Change my heart, O God. Make it ever true. Change my heart, O God. May I be like you. In Jesus' Name. Amen [See here.]

Sheep Need to Surrender to the Shepherd

Of Psalm 23, probably the most beloved of all the psalms: "The blessings and comfort of this psalm do not come to sheep that do not follow the Shepherd. As Jesus reminds us, 'My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me' (John 10:27)."

Read the whole thing.

Joy in the Midst of Sadness

[This was shared during recent funeral services for Helen at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]

Psalm 121
Romans 3:21-27
Psalm 23
John 11:21-26

There is inevitable sadness today. The last thing any of us thought we would be doing  this morning is grieving the loss of Helen. While she and her family knew that she had some health issues with which she was dealing and that her week was to bring medical testing, there was no thought that last week would bring her passing. Nor that it would happen so quickly.

But, for all its sadness, this day isn’t untouched by joy either. Helen has been spared a set of treatments that might have been long and hard. It’s easy to believe that God has intervened and taken her to be with Himself.

The last memory I have of Helen before this past Wednesday night, when she was taken to the hospital ER, was of her standing in the church fellowship hall, talking and sharing a quiet laugh with Margaret, probably as they discussed some detail of the Lutheran World Relief soap drive.

In some ways, that moment, observed from a short distance, encapsulates my experience of Helen: a woman with a servant’s heart who served God and others without calling attention to herself, who enjoyed laughing in the fellowship of friends and family, who lived for God’s purposes, and who, as in the job she held for twenty-five years with Halls, undertook her tasks with intelligence and diligence.

Helen was also a person who loved her family dearly, baking cookies for David and the boys to enjoy during their work days even recently. Matthew once told me that in her later years, she took to giving family members hugs and dispensing laughter more liberally, conveying how much she cared for each one of them.

Helen was just a wonderful person, the epitome of the word, lady.

And anybody who knew her for just a short time also knew that Helen trusted in Jesus Christ.

Because of her faith, I am sure that she’s in the company of the Lord and His people right now. I know that comforts you, Linda and David, and your families, this morning.

Today, I’m also sure that there is one message that Helen would want to share with her family and friends above all others.

We see that message reflected in various ways in all of the Bible lessons we just read. But none better distills them than the words of Jesus, spoken to His friend Martha, who was grieving the loss of her brother, Lazarus. Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?"

We human beings, you know, have two great enemies from the moment of birth. One is sin, that inborn condition of separation from God and the life that only God can give from which we all suffer. King David spoke for us all when he said in Psalm 51, “...I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”

Because sin separates us from the perfect life God has in mind for us, it introduces our second enemy, death and all the things that go with death--relational discord, physical deterioration. “The wages of sin is death,” the New Testament reminds us. And, in another place (Romans 8), God's Word tells us that the whole creation--including you and me--groans under the burden of our separation from God...and, like a woman in childbirth, in anticipation of the new creation God is bringing into being through Christ.

Helen knew and believed that, despite these enemies, though she might die, yet she would still live. Second Corinthians 5:17 contains a promise which can sustain us even in times like these: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! [And all] this is from God Who reconciled Himself [that is, torn down the wall of separation from Him and the life that He gives] through Christ...”

You who grieve Helen’s loss this morning can know that, because she was “in Christ,” because she trusted in Christ, she is with Him, is part of His new creation.

It’s a creation no longer groaning under the burden of sin and death, no longer groaning in anticipation of what God will do in the future.

Helen is living in that future.

There is no cancer.

No Zenker Diverticulum.

No cardiac issues.

No aging or the deterioration that goes with it.

Today, Helen stands in the presence of the living God, whole and healthy and holy, stronger and more filled with life than you and I can imagine.

These great blessings are nothing that Helen or any other of God’s saints--God’s set apart people--could earn. These blessings are gifts God grants to those who trust in Jesus as their only God and their only hope.

Jesus once told an old man named Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world [including everyone in this sanctuary this morning] that He gave His only Son [Jesus Himself], so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Helen, you can be sure, is with the Lord right now because she believed in Jesus.

But, Jesus is more than an insurance policy for us once we have died.

The Bible teaches that, in Jesus Christ, eternity, God’s grace, and the privilege of being God’s children has invaded this world. Even in the midst of grief, suffering, confusion, and tough decisions, the person made new by the love of Christ, can stand strong in knowing that God stands by them always.

Psalm 121, which we read a moment ago, is from the Old Testament’s book of worship, the Psalms. This particular psalm is part of a group of them known as the song of ascents. They were meant to be sung by God’s people as they traveled by foot, on animals, or in wagons on their way up the mount on which God’s temple stood. It begins:

“I will lift up my eyes to the hills-- From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; The Lord is your shade at your right hand.”



You see, the God we know in Jesus Christ isn’t just sitting back in heaven waiting to bless those who trust in Him after they die.

God never sleeps! He never slumbers!

If we dare to stand with Him, He will always stand with us.

And He is standing with you today, comforting you in your grief, offering to you the same hope in Him with which Helen, in her quiet faith, lived each day.

Jesus has promised those who trust in Him, “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”

God’s Word assures us that nothing can separate us from the love of God given in Jesus Christ, the Savior Who died, taking the condemnation for sin we deserve, and then rose from the dead to push open the gates of eternity for all who dare to believe in Him.



Helen believed in--she trusted--the God made known in Jesus, “the resurrection and the life.”

It’s that faith that can allow you, even in your grief, to rejoice! Helen is with the Lord in Whom she placed her hope.

And it’s also faith in that same God, a God Who took on our humanity and suffered the worst this world can being, so that He can give you His best--God’s love, God’s grace, God’s forgiveness, an eternity of hope, and the promise that He will never leave you nor forsake you if you will trust in Him as your only God--that can sustain you in the days to come.

Cling to Christ today and always.

You will know, as Helen did, that Christ can always be counted on to strengthen you, give you help, and one day, raise you up to live with Him and the company of saints for all eternity.

God bless you.

Amen

Hope for the Living

[This was shared during the funeral for Dale, a member of the congregation I serve as pastor, earlier today.]

Psalm 23
Romans 8:31-39
John 11:17-27

Over the past three-and-a-half years, as his pastor, I’ve gotten to know Dale a bit. Because Dale, who was never a talkative man from what I have gleaned, was increasingly silenced by illness in this period, some of what I’ve learned about him has come from others.

One day, for example, while visiting Dee at her house, she showed me a beautiful piece of furniture that Dale made for her dining room. He was a tremendous carpenter!

But his talents weren’t confined to carpentry, of course. Luke used to tell me about how knowledgeable Dale was when it came to anything mechanical or, as Luke would put it, “handy.” (High praise from Luke!)

From everyone—from Dale himself—I also learned how much Dale loved the outdoors. He loved to boat and hike. Were it up to him, I think, Dale really would have kept a “home, home on the range.” (A song he loved to sing.)

In later years, unable to hike or travel, he enjoyed, when the weather allowed, sitting on the deck amid the trees and the chatter of the birds. (I know he appreciated the gift of the “birdie cam” he recently received.)

Dale’s love of nature was also reflected in the home he built on that hill near Lake Logan back in the 1970s. This dwelling did not always meet with Elaine’s approval. As some of you will remember, the first time I visited Dale and Elaine, she commented on their house, “Dale says it’s secluded; I say it’s isolated.”

From that, I learned something else about Dale (and Elaine): whatever differences in their personalities, these two who grew up as classmates in a rural Michigan one-room schoolhouse, were a team. Dale smiled when Elaine said things like that to me. It was the smile of recognition of a “discussion” they had rehearsed countless times before.

Sometimes, Dale’s smiles would turn into laughter that I loved to hear: the breathy, hearty laugh of someone truly tickled.

I came to know Dale also as a man of great intelligence.

And I also experienced Dale as a caring person. When someone was in the hospital, he wanted to know how she or he was doing. He relished telling me how things were going with Sandy’s and Perry’s lives and work and with his grandchildren. He enjoyed it when neighbor Butch brought his own granddaughter Isabelle, a young ball of energy, along for visits. After I had a heart attack last summer, I mentioned that the church council was after me to take it easier; Dale fixed me with a stare and asked bluntly, “Are you doing it?”

On top of all this, Dale was a man of quiet faith. He was always anxious to receive Holy Communion during our visits. Even when it had become a struggle for him to move his hand to his lips, he determinedly ate the bread and drank the wine that are Christ’s body and blood. And no one ever more sincerely thanked me for bringing the Sacrament to him.

Dale was truly grateful for the grace and love of God, whether he saw it in the meticulously engineered beauty of the created world or in the gift of Jesus on a cross, Whose death and resurrection brings eternal life to all who turn from sin and believe in Him.

And it is to this I want to point all of you who grieve Dale’s passing today. At one level, Dale’s death brings a story to a close. With that, there will be, understandably, some sense of relief. Dale had suffered from multiple maladies over an extended period of time. His suffering is ended. But his death is a sad ending for all of you, too: A father, a grandfather, a friend, a strong presence, is gone.

But you can take heart. You can have hope. Dale’s passing is also a beginning. The Gospel lesson from John which I read a few moments ago tells the story of what happened one day when Jesus went to Bethany, the hometown of friends: two sisters and a brother named Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.

The sisters and the whole town are grieving when Jesus arrives. Lazarus was dead. At first, Martha seems to lash out at Jesus. "Lord,” she says, “if You had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”

But to Martha in her grief and her confusion, Jesus says, “Your brother will rise again” and “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” He then asks Martha to trust those assertions. Jesus asks her to believe them, to believe in Him.

Jesus asks the same thing of you this morning. You see, if the promise that Jesus makes to share His Easter victory over sin and death isn’t true today, it isn’t true. It is precisely for moments like these that Jesus makes His promise to be the resurrection and the life!

And our faith in Jesus’ resurrection promise isn’t just a hope whispered against the grim realities of life. After telling Martha that all who believe in Him will live with God forever, Jesus gave a sign of His capacity to make good on His promises. He stood at the place where Lazarus' body had been placed some four days before and commanded his friend’s dead bones to come back to life on this side of eternity. The voice of Jesus, God in the flesh, spoke with the same voice as the One Who called the heavens and the earth to life in the first place. In response to the command from that voice, Lazarus stepped out of his tomb, back into the embrace of his family.

Of course, Jesus would, shortly after the events at Bethany, give an even more emphatic sign of His authority over life and death and sin. After bearing the weight of all the sin of human history—including your sin and my sin—on the cross, though Himself sinlessness, Jesus rose to life again. The Bible says of the crucified and risen Jesus: “God raised Him up, having freed Him from death, because it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.”

Fortunately, God recognizes how hard it is for us to believe such good news, especially on days like these. That’s why He sends the Holy Spirit to any of us who want to believe. If we will pray to the God the Father in the Name of Jesus, the Holy Spirit will help us to believe in the same Lord so welcomed by Dale every time he gratefully received the Lord’s Supper and listened to God's Word...the same Lord he so reverenced every time he joined the Saint Matthew family for worship over the radio on Sunday mornings.

In the days and years ahead, you will miss Dale, just as you have missed Elaine. Grief is natural and understandable when the love runs deep and the memories are piled high.

But those who follow the risen Jesus don’t grieve like others do. We have hope. We belong to a Savior Who rose on Easter.

Because of Jesus, Dale will rise too. So will all who believe in Jesus.

May God fill you with this hope and the peace that comes from it in the days ahead…and through all the days of your lives. Amen

Still Reasons for Hope!

[The funeral for my Uncle Jim happened yesterday. I was honored to be asked by my Aunt Marge, my father's older sister, to preside. This is the sermon I shared then.]

Isaiah 40:27-31
Romans 8:31-39
Psalm 23
John 11:21-27

Aunt Marge, Danny, Jennifer, Cindy, and all your family members: Alongside Uncle Jim, you’ve been through terribly hard times. In just a short while, you’ve suffered sudden multiple losses after long suffering on the parts of people you loved.

There will be, sadly, hard times yet ahead. The loss of loved ones isn’t something people can just “get over.” In a sense, losing Uncle Jim—who, along with Aunt Marge—presided over a “brood” that included eighteen great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild, is something none of you will ever “get over.”

And why should you? When the ties of love are strong, so is the sadness you feel when the familiar voice and the well-known heart are gone.

But, as the Bible says, we who believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, don’t grieve as people without hope. We have hope. Even today there is hope!

There’s hope, first of all, because the moment Uncle Jim left this life, his suffering ended and he entered a new reality. The words of Isaiah, chapter 40, spoken by God to His chosen people, Israel, through the prophet hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, are for you to hold onto today. "Those who wait for the Lord,” God says, “shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Through trust in Jesus, we can know that Uncle Jim, denied his health and the ability to walk in this world, is not only walking again, but is running without weariness. He’s once again alive, living in the presence of God.

But this passage from Isaiah is also a promise to you. Uncle Jim’s long illness and the other adversities and tragedies faced by this family have left you depleted and tired. But God will give you strength! The God Who created the universe and died and rose for us, can give you rest and renewal! “Come to Me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,” Jesus says, “and I will give you rest.”

Aunt Marge: When I read the passage from Romans 8 a few moments ago, Ann smiled because I've told her many times that if it isn't read at my own funeral, I'm getting up and reading it myself. I love it so much because it contains another amazing promise, one that underscores this hope that you can have as you move through day to day in the weeks and months to come. Those who trust in Jesus Christ as their God and Savior, it says, can live knowing that nothing “in all creation…will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

God has not forgotten any of you or any of us this morning! That, God says in another place in Isaiah, is impossible: “I will not forget you…I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands.” Even now, God is...

• as close as a prayer, 
• as close as His Word in the Bible, 
• as close as a church fellowship in which we can confess our sins, hear the Gospel, and receive Christ’s body and blood* along with others who, like us, need comfort and hope and strength, 
• as close as a friend or a family member willing to listen, to help, and to pray with you.

But we have hope more than just for this life. In the lesson we read from the Gospel of John, Jesus has gone to a town called Bethany, where a friend of his, a man named Lazarus, had died four days earlier. His sisters, Martha and Mary are beside themselves with grief. When Martha first sees Jesus, she gives words to what many people think when a loved one dies. “Lord, if You had been here,” she says, “my brother would not have died.” Martha feels that Jesus had abandoned her.

Jesus doesn’t bother sparring with Martha; God is big enough to take our accusations and our sense of abandonment. After all, if we get upset with God, it only proves our belief in God because you don’t get upset with a God you don’t believe is there. (Jesus Himself would later have the same feelings as Martha had, when, as He was being executed on the cross, He cried out, “My God, My God, why have Your forsaken Me?”) Instead of being defensive, Jesus told Martha plainly, “Your brother will rise again” and “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

Then Jesus asks Martha a question that He asks us again this morning: “Do you believe this?” Martha said that she did. Without any evidence but the credibility and love she saw in Jesus, Martha said that she believed that all who trust in Christ will live again.

Shortly thereafter, Jesus gave a sign that He could be trusted to make good on this promise to those who turn from sin (repent) and believe in Him: He called Lazarus back to life.

Later still, Jesus gave the ultimate sign that we can place all our hope in this promise: He took our punishment for sin on the cross and then was raised from the dead. In Christ, we have the hope of everlasting life with God…alongside all who have trusted in Him.

Now, there’s one last hope that we have this morning. That’s the hope for this life we derive from a good example, like that given to us in so many ways by Uncle Jim.

It’s one of the indelible memories of my growing-up years. Somehow, Uncle Jim and I found ourselves alone in the living room of Pop’s and Grandma’s house in Bellefontaine. Marge and Jim had recently celebrated a wedding anniversary and out of the blue, Uncle Jim told me: “You know, Mark, a lot of people say bad things about marriage. But it is a wonderful thing, especially when you're married to the right person.”

Those words were as much a tribute to you, Aunt Marge, as they are in remembering them now, to Uncle Jim. I have to tell you that, along with the examples of good marriages I saw in my own Mom and Dad and those of other couples I got to see up close, it gave me hope that I too, could one day have a good and happy marriage, with which I am blessed today. I never forgot what Uncle Jim told me!

And today, in addition to the hope that comes from knowing that God is with you and the hope that comes from knowing that God has promised everlasting life to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus, I want to suggest that you also latch onto the hope that belongs to those who have been inspired by a good example.

Uncle Jim was a good man who loved the Lord, loved his wife, and loved his family. May his example help give us all inspiration to live lives at the end of which people can say similar things about us. Amen

*Until illness and the closure of the congregation of which he and my aunt were long-time members, Uncle Jim regularly assisted the pastor in sharing Holy Communion during worship.

Remember

[This was shared during the funeral for Dorothy, a lifelong member of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, earlier today.]

Romans 8:31-39
Psalm 23
Luke 12:22-31
There are really only two legacies any of us ever leave behind, only two things we can give others that last.

One is love. The love that Dorothy bestowed on and shared with her family and friends didn’t end on Tuesday. The urgent desire of her family to be with her even in her final hours as she slept and occasionally fluttered her eyes is testimony to the love that was her gift to you, a gift you still possess and always will.

The only other enduring legacy we can bestow on others is our personal testimony about the truth of Jesus Christ. It’s a testimony we can give every day of our lives in words and actions.

The most powerful testimonies don’t usually come from people called to climb into pulpits and proclaim God’s Word. They more often come from people we see regularly, people who live their faith in the everyday places of life.

These testimonies can even come from grandmas who tell their grandchildren as they face new challenges and temptations in life, “Don’t forget who you are.” That, I’m told is something Dorothy sometimes told you, Ben and Sarah.

It seems to me that there are several ways you could have heard that simple admonition.

First, you could have heard it as a reminder of who you are in the eyes of God. Like your grandmother before you, you were baptized at the Saint Matthew Lutheran Church baptismal font. Water was poured over your head in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God was invoked, and, without any qualifications or merit on your parts, God claimed you as His own.

The title “child of God” is a privilege that, again, like your grandmother before you, you claimed as your own when you affirmed your baptismal covenant at the time of your confirmation. First John 3:1 says, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”

Today, I invite you to remember, Ben and Sarah, and all who mourn Dorothy’s passing, that being a child of God is a tremendous privilege. When we children of God grieve, the God Who conquered death (and sin and futility in our lives) through the death and resurrection of Jesus, can be beside us. When we wander from God’s will, as we are all prone to do, God is ready and willing to welcome us into His embrace. When we rejoice, God rejoices with us. Remember who you are.

Of course, there’s another side of that admonition. It was no doubt what Dorothy immediately had in mind when she said it to her grandchildren. Remember that you were raised in a Christian home. Remember God’s commandments. Remember the love and respect you are expected to bear toward not just family members and people you like, but toward those you dislike or those who dislike you, toward strangers. Remember God’s grace and that it is, as we sang a few moments ago, amazing.

But remember too that God’s grace isn’t cheap. To give you His presence today and His promise of tomorrow cost Jesus Christ His life on the cross and that came after He underwent intense agony and the abandonment of His friends.

The very least we owe God in response to this free gift of everlasting life for all who believe in Christ are lives of obedience and love and daily repentance, lives in which we seek, however imperfectly, to tell God thank You and to display His presence in our lives.

Remember who you are.  Dorothy has left you with powerful legacies: love, the great way of living, and the good news of new life through Jesus Christ.

But today, I want to add something to Dorothy’s admonition. Remember who you are, to be sure. But also, remember who she was. Some of who she was comes through in two of the Bible passages we’ve read today, passages I’m told were among her favorites.

One is Psalm 23. In it, the psalmist, speaking as a child of God, proclaims confidently, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for His Name’s sake.”

Because of the heart God has revealed He has for us through Jesus Christ, we can cling to these confident words. As children of God, we can trust, as our lesson from Romans reminds us, that nothing…nothing…in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Another of Dorothy’s favorite passages is found in Luke 12, where Jesus said, “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.” And then Jesus says, “If God so clothes the grass of the field…alive today and tomorrow is thrown in the oven, how much more will He clothe you—you of little faith.”

Martin Luther, the great reformer of the sixteenth century, used to talk about what it will be like when we all come into the presence of God for judgment. Considering all the passages of Scripture that speak of judgment, Luther says that God will look upon two groups of sinners, the whole human race in one of these two groups.

When God looks on one group, they’ll stand naked in their sins, living in the separation from God and self-will they chose while living here on earth.

But when God looks on the other group, He won’t see their sins—though they will be just as numerous and horrible as those committed by those in the first group.

Instead, in this latter group, God will see people clothed in Jesus, people who, in this life, claimed their baptismal heritage and trusted in Jesus for life and hope and peace even in life’s dark valleys.

When Dorothy came into the immediate presence of God on Tuesday morning, she was clothed as she had always been in the righteousness of Jesus. We do a lot of unnecessary toiling and spinning in life. But all we need is Jesus Christ!. Dorothy knew that. She was a child of God. That’s who she was. And that’s why I’m confident that when God met her at 6:30AM on Tuesday morning, the Lord said to her, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Father.”

I didn’t get to know Dorothy the way I would have had I arrived at Saint Matthew years before. But despite dementia, something of her essential self came through in our monthly visits. And much of who she was can be seen in the rich legacies of love and faith she bestowed on her family. That’s why today I know that Dorothy wants all those who are here this morning to one day hear those same words—“Well done, good and faithful servant!”—from God.

And we can hear them, joining her and all the saints in eternity, if we will simply remember who we are as children of God, saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus and our faith in Him.

And whenever you need inspiration, remember who Dorothy was.

If you can commit yourself to remember these two things in all the days that lie ahead in your lives, no matter what, your joy will be full and you will never go wrong. Amen

You Betcha!

[This was shared during a funeral worship in the sanctuary of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Psalm 23
Isaiah 40:27-31
John 3:16-18
John 11:21-27

I knew Luke for only twenty-two months. But in that time, like countless others here at Saint Matthew, I’ve come to appreciate him and rely on him in more ways than I can catalog.

On Sunday mornings, he was always in the sacristy with my remote microphone at the ready, giving me updates on how much time I had as he listened to the radio monitor.

Whenever there was a funeral here at the church, Luke was here, too, making sure, among other things, that the casket pall was laid out and ready; in fact, he told us a few weeks ago that he hadn’t missed a funeral in Saint Matthew’s sanctuary in twenty-five years!

If we were to have Sunday worship, Advent or Lenten services, Bible studies, Church Council meetings, or some other gathering, Luke made sure that there was heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. He climbed a stepladder every week and posted the hymn numbers.

He maintained the boilers and AC systems in this building.

And if the lights were still on when we left the building, he let us know about it.

This maintenance was all part of Luke’s ministry, one for which he was well suited. Luke had an amazing mind for mechanical things. The other day, Bill recalled that, after years as an auto mechanic, his Dad decided to try for a job at Carborundum. He had to take a test measuring his mechanical aptitude. When Luke turned in his test, he’d made a note beside several of the questions. “These are the answers I know you want,” he said, "but, here are the real answers.”

I’m told that his fascination with how things worked went all the way back to his childhood. When he was about ten, he took his sister’s baby buggy apart and couldn’t get it back together. He rode on an escalator repeatedly until, to his own satisfaction, he’d figured out how it worked.

But, though it may take twenty people to replace Luke for all the things he did here at Saint Matthew, people will miss him most for who he was.

He was the guy who, when asked how he was doing, might replay, “Oh, just staggerin’ along.” Larry and Jim told me the other day that, growing up close to the Mowery Garage, they remember that Luke was always friendly, wearing the same smile he wore on the very last day he was able to speak with me on one of my visits to Grant Hospital. There, as I left, typically, he pointed at me and said, “You take care now.” Butch put it well last night when he said of Luke, “We lost our right hand man.” Luke Mowery was everybody’s right hand man.

Yet if his church family and our community will miss Luke the person—and we will, our loss cannot be compared to that of his family.

And it’s to that loss, Blanche, Bill, Suzanne, and family, that I want to speak.

It was clear to me that Luke was a wonderful husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. To others, he was a great friend. He was a great guy: a person who suffered little in the way of foolishness and one who wasn’t comfortable talking about his faith, but who lived it every day.

And it’s to that faith relationship that, today and in the weeks and months to come, I ask you all to turn once again. I want to do it by commending to you two promises and one image from the Bible. I hope that you can hold onto them and find comfort and hope.

Long ago, to an elderly man who had spent years studying religion, but still didn’t know God, a man named Nicodemus, Jesus said, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

If that isn’t true today, it simply isn’t true.

But, in fact, we have evidence for its truth.

We see it in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus died on a cross, taking our punishment for sin, so that death need not be the last word about our lives. He rose to open eternity to all who turn from sin and follow Him.

Jesus’ resurrection underscores the truth of what he said the sister of His friend, Lazarus: “I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus said, “Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

That was Jesus’ promise to Luke. That is Jesus’ promise to you today! That’s the first promise to which I hope you'll cling.

But there’s another promise. Ours isn’t just a sweet by-and-by faith. We have a God Who, through Christ, has shown us that He is willing to go through life with us, in joyful times and sad, when we’re young and when we are old. God isn't afraid to get his uniform dirty!

Psalm 23, which I read a few moments ago, says, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Shepherds, in the ancient world, were tough, practical, strong guys. To have one as a friend would be to know that there was always someone who had your back. That's the kind of friend Luke was to people. But the Scriptures says that God is infinitely and eternally such a Friend, such a Shepherd!

The God we know in Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd Who has your back today, Who stands with you even as you trudge through the valley of the shadow of death. That’s the second promise I hope will comfort you today: The God we know in Jesus Christ promises to always be with those who call on Him.

And finally, I hope that you’ll keep a Scriptural image in your mind. It comes from another of our Bible readings, Isaiah 40:31: “…those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Luke never gave up on living life. He plowed ahead with living and did it with tenacity and good humor, even when he was wracked by terrible pain from the hip issues that hobbled him. He was here in the sacristy on the Sunday before he went for his surgery.

But he was in obvious pain all the time. He had to plan how to get up from a sitting position. It was a struggle for him to get around. He was thankful when someone would save him a few steps by handing him the key he needed to lock up the sound equipment.

But I believe that at the moment he passed from this life, because of his faith in Jesus Christ, Luke passed into the presence of the Savior in Whom He believed. He is no longer hobbled by his hip or subject to the ravages of age. He is running and is not weary; he is walking in total strength.

Three things I ask you to hold onto today:

• God is with His people now.
• God gives His people eternity.
• And God renews those who trust in Him.

Today, I believe that if we ask God if these three things are true, we can, within our spirits, hear all heaven join in God's reply, telling us with a smile and a friendly thump on the back, “You betcha!"*

*I use first names only in the blog version of this sermon. "You betcha!" was one of Luke's trademark phrases.