|
|
|
Posted At: 1:58am by Brent Kuhlman
|
Saturday in Advent 3 Trinity Lutheran Church
14 December 2005 Murdock, NE
Funeral: Michael Charles Todd
+ Jesu Juva +
Romans 8:31-39
It’s not supposed to be this way. Parents are not supposed to outlive their children. Children aren’t supposed to lose their Dad at such a young age. A father is not supposed to find his son in bed that way. And yet here we are at Mike’s funeral.
The temptation is to think that maybe you did something wrong as parents. Or as sons. And that Mike’s physical ailments and death are God’s way of telling you that He doesn’t love you like He used to. Or maybe not at all anymore. That He’s totally given up on you.
But that’s not true. The blessed apostle won’t let you believe that. He says in the text that God is for you. That God is on your side. Always has been. Is now. Always will be.
The apostle Paul could sympathize with Mike. When it came to all kinds of suffering Paul had been there and done all that. Paul was jailed. Flogged. Beaten. Stoned by rocks the size of volleyballs and left for dead. Shipwrecked. Always on the move because everyone was out to get him: bandits, his own people, Gentiles. Everywhere he went he was in danger. Betrayed. Labored and toiled with not much result. Went without sleep. Many times he had no food to eat. Hardly enough clothes. No permanent home (2 Corinthians 11). Experienced the heartache of preaching the Gospel only to have it rejected and labeled a false teacher. A severe physical ailment: that thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12) that God wouldn’t take away. And then martyred in Rome.
And still Paul maintains that God’s on his side, your side, even Mike’s side.
But where’s the proof? Paul says the proof is: Jesus. He’s all the proof that you need.
Because God gave His Son Jesus into death on the Cross: for Mike, for you, and the world. Jesus wasn’t spared our sins. He took them all in His Body on the Cross. And there He answered for them all.
What sins of Mike’s, yours or mine didn’t Jesus die for? Are there any that are left unforgiven? There aren’t. What sinner didn’t Jesus die for? Did Jesus say on the Cross that sinners like Mike, you and me are excluded from His dying? He didn’t.
God’s love is revealed in Jesus. The crucified and dead Jesus. In His dead Body hanging on the Tree God is FOR YOU. There He justified you. Sin, death, and hell all defanged. Defeated. Done for Mike, me and you.
And that same Jesus rose from the grave. He is the first fruits of them who believe. And now He’s at the Father’s right hand interceding for you.
Tell me. What can separate you from the love of Savior Christ Jesus? How about all the troubles Mike had? And he had difficult and intense ones. Tell me. Which one of those difficulties separated Mike from the love of Christ?
If you say any of them did, you’ll have a knock down drag out argument with Christ’s apostle. For Paul is “convinced that 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.” You’re not going to change the apostle’s mind.
He says that “in all these things,” that is, all those troubles, hardships and even death, “we are more than conquerors.” More than conquerors? Really? Yes. But how? “Through Jesus who loved us.”
He loved Mike, you, and me in His bloody Calvary death.
What’s there left to do? Three things.
First, there is the Lord’s call for you and me to believe. To trust that He truly is the Resurrection and the Life. “Do you believe this?” That was the question He asked Martha. And that’s the question He asks all of us today.
We are given to believe that even in the midst of death there is life. Resurrection and the Life Jesus. He says so. “He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
The second thing to do today is to put Mike to bed. One more time. Gently tuck his body in the ground for safe keeping until the resurrection of his body on the Last Day.
Third, go to the Lord’s Supper tomorrow to eat and drink the Lord’s Body and Blood. To remember that Mike is in Christ and that Christ is in Him. And that at the Sacrament Jesus brings with Him all the angels, archangels and all the company of heaven. And that includes Mike and all our loved ones who have believed in Jesus.
Now may the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.
|
Comment on entry entitled "Funeral Sermon"
You may use BBCode within your posts, a reference is available here.
|
|
|
