Grace

One thing that has made a great impression on me about Stan, was how in many ways, the way he lived his life was, as one of my former pastors would put it, “being Jesus with skin on” to those in his life. In his Sunday School classroom, he wanted the kids entrusted to his spiritual care to remember only one thing, you need Grace, you don’t deserve it, and it only comes from Jesus Christ. He had a deep, abiding love for his family, for his lovely bride, his children, and was always there for his friends. The few memories I have of Stan in the short time that I knew him was of that big, warm smile and the friendly way that he had with people, that made me feel right at home and like I had known him for most of my life. Those of you who have known him for most, if not all, of your lives have shared with me some of your memories of Stan. I would encourage you to treasure them, and share them with each other in the days and weeks ahead. In a lot of ways, the way he lived his life was an unspoken witness to others of the love that Christ had for him. He set a great example of Christian living in the way he dealt with others. When you think of Stan Kjergaard, I hope and pray that you will remember the example he’s given us on living the Christian life in our daily lives.

In our Gospel reading for this morning, we heard Jesus tell us “ 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.” (John 14:2-3) Later in the reading in verse 6, Jesus tells us how we get to that place He has prepared for us when he says “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Because Stan believed that Jesus had done that for him, that Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life, no matter what sins he had committed in his life, no matter what could lead him to despair, Stan is now with his own eyes seeing the fulfillment of that promise of Jesus in our Gospel reading for today. He really knows what Grace is all about, because he’s in the presence of His savior. He’s in a place today, a place that Christ has prepared for him and promised to him, that is so amazing, so wonderful, so joyful, so beyond description, that if he could have the chance to come back here, be freed from all the stress, affliction, disease, and everything else in this sinful, fallen world, he wouldn’t want to come back here. But, Stan would want to make sure that he saw each and every one of us with him, in the presence of God for all of eternity, that we believed that promise of eternal life and salvation are also for us. Indeed, as St. Paul writes in Romans chapter 8: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am 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.” (Romans 8:35-38) Nothing separated Stan from the love of God that was his through Jesus, and nothing will separate us from the love that Christ has for those of us who are here today.