Funeral Sermon

Funeral Sermon for

Tom Cochran

January 31, 2005

Giving honor to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, fellow clergy in this Gospel Ministry, Mayor Cunningham, Distinguished members of City Council, Honorable Judge Jim Humphrey. To Jo Nee, the children and family members.

I am humbled to stand before you today to share in this home going service. I had the unique privilege of knowing Det. Cochran on three different fronts.

I knew Tom as a police officer, when he served with the Dearborn County Sheriff Department as a detective, and then working with him on the Lawrenceburg Police Department.

There were times I would watch Tom interview suspects and by the time he had completed the interview, I was confessing. He was truly great at what he did. I remember watching a video of him interviewing a suspect who had been reviling him self to women and with then Detective and now Sheriff David Lusby, Tom in talking to the suspect began to put the man at ease by saying, look I understand, everybody does, Dave even does it, don’t you Dave. If you could have seen the look on Dave’s face. Tom got a confession.

I also knew him as a Christian; one Sunday Tom visited our Church and sat quietly probably wondering what in the world we were doing, but the next Sunday he came back, I saw his foot pat and his hands clap and then he stood up. And at the end of the service he walked up to me and said I can’t wait until Jo Nee gets home so she could come to Church with me.

I believe it was the following Sunday Jo Nee and the kids came and as the pervious Tom stood up and began to clap and the look on Jo Nee’s was as if to say what in the world is wrong with my husband.

But Tom had found peace with his God and his place in his God and soon the family, join the Church.

But, I also know Tom as a friend, someone who was committed to his family his job, but most of all his God.

So we have come to pay tribute and honor a life well lived; a life that has touched many.

Tom was a special person to all those that knew him. He confessed his love and belief in Jesus Christ to his family.

Until you got to know Tom, you would had known him to be a quite but, sincere man.

However, after you became his friend his relaxed humor came to the fore front and his quietness was pushed aside. When you became his friend - you were his friend in deed.

But Tom know that everyone who is born into this world will also have to leave it. For most people their deepest instincts and convictions tell them there is something beyond the grave.

Creation teaches that life can pass through different forms and that life may even come out of death.

The caterpillar lives the first part of its life crawling on the ground. After fulfilling its course, the caterpillar curls up and seemingly dies.

Then out of that body a beautiful butterfly comes to life. No longer forced to crawl on the ground, it spreads its wings and flies upwards.

Men and women also spend a short time on earth and then we have to move on.

For each one of us there comes a moment when time ceases, a moment when we leave the bonds of time and enter another world, the world of eternity.

Death is our universal fate because of the sin of Eve and Adam our first parents, but death is not the end.

Death for the Christian is the beginning of Life. Death is Life with God and all those loved ones

that have believed on Gods Son; Jesus Christ and have gone on before.

Life is a journey. A journey to eternity.

Death is the vehicle that takes us home.

This place in time - with so many troubles, pain, anguish and hurt cannot be home.

There is a better place!

Tom or any of us - aren’t going to heaven because we have been good. We are going to heaven because Christ died on that cross for us. Tom believed it and confessed it and lived it with a Christian heart.

For each of us a time is coming when we will open the door step from this life and step into eternity.

Jesus Christ opened the “Door to eternity” when he died on the Cross.

When we pick the door to heaven we enter through the door of death and sleep in the arms of Jesus.

It is hard to rejoice but we should rejoice in our souls because Tom accepted Christ in this life. He proclaimed publicly how he loved the Lord.