(Reading of the obituary)
I think it’s pretty safe to say that this day came as a great shock to almost every one of us in this room here today. While we knew that Grandma wasn’t in the best of health, and had some past health issues a little over 4 years ago, none of us thought that we’d be here, on Friday, March 14, 2008 for her funeral service. I sure didn’t think that I’d be standing here today officiating at her funeral service. In fact, when Aunt Linda called me on Tuesday morning of this week, telling me that Grandma only had a few hours to live and asked me if I’d be willing to come down to Atlantic, I didn’t believe her at first. I didn’t want to belive her. While I’d been sick the previous week and unable to visit her over at the Salem Lutheran Home, I had heard from other family members who had been over to see her that she was doing better. The last time I did get to to visit with her shortly after she went into the hospital, I jokingly told her “Grandma, you gave me quite a scare, don’t do that to me,” to which she responded, “I’m still here, and I hope I will be for quite some time yet.” I sure didn’t expect just a few weeks later to be at her bedside when she was called to her eternal home.
So today, I’m presented with what is one of the most difficult things a Pastor can be asked to do, officiate and preach at your own grandmother’s funeral. I’ve been the Pastor at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Audubon for just a little over 6 months, and Grandma marks the 8th funeral I’ve officiated at since I’ve been here. They’ve all been tough ones too. The first was a graveside service for a woman who hadn’t lived in the area for years, and only had her son and his family there for the burial at the cemetery in Audubon. That was pretty tough, coming up with something to say for a family I had never met. I started thinking to myself “They sure didn’t teach me anything about doing a funeral in this situation, so I’ll just do the best I can.” I thought that would be the last awkward funeral I’d have in a while, but just three weeks later, one of the more active members of my congregation in Audubon committed suicide, leaving behind his wife and 4 children, and leaving the whole community in shock. It was one of the largest funerals Audubon has ever seen, and it was by far the largest crowd that I’d ever preached to, before or since. Again, I thought “they never taught me how to deal with this”, but God led me through that. I’ve had another suicide, and several sudden deaths in recent months. And now, here I am today, asked to do my grandmother’s funeral. Again, fitting into the category of “They didn’t teach me how to handle THAT!”, but relying on God to give me the words and wisdom to share with you. So please forgive me if I seem a little “off” today, because I’m not just speaking as a Pastor here, I’m speaking of a man who has just lost his grandmother, and is grieving along with the rest of you.
When we’re called to mourn, one of the things that families find helpful is sharing memories of the recently deceased. In the last few days, I’ve heard a LOT about my grandmother. It’s been helpful for me since until the last few months, I always lived a considerable distance from her and didn’t get down here to visit her as often as I should have or would have liked to. Each one of us here today have our own special memories of her. I’m going to encourage you all to share them with each other later today at the lunch, and in the days and weeks ahead. It’s one of the ways we’re able to realize how gracious of a God we have that he has given us a mother, grandmother, great grandmother, aunt, neighbor, and friend to love and cherish these many years. Yet, mourning the death of a loved one can be quite a burden on us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We’ll wonder if we’ll ever be able to make it. We’ll sometimes wonder why this happened, why now, why this way? Maybe some of you are in the same boat as me, suffering from guilt, if I had just been here longer, if I had come to see her more often, maybe this wouldn’t have happened, or maybe Grandma would have known that I loved her? It’s quite a burden we carry with us today.
As we mourn, sometimes we’re going to ask the question, where is God in our suffering? Where was God when He decided that Grandma had enough suffering in this life, and took her into His presence on Tuesday morning? Doesn’t He know what it’s like to lose a loved one? Doesn’t He care? To be honest, as I made the drive from Audubon to Atlantic on Tuesday morning, I was thinking of these same questions. But, then I was reminded of the Gospel reading we had this past Sunday, a reading I had just preached on two days earlier. In John 11, we have the account of Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life. Since some folks might accuse me of being long winded (preachers are never that are they?) I’ll give you the Reader’s Digest version of the story. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were brother and sisters who lived in the village of Bethany. They were good friends of Jesus and His disciples, in fact, when He was in the area, Jesus would often stay at Mary and Martha’s house. Now, Lazarus became pretty sick, and his illness was pretty severe. So his sister, Mary, sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was sick and perhaps about to die. Now Jesus doesn’t get to Bethany right away, it’s another two days before he even starts out on the trip, and another two days after that before He arrives in Bethany. By the time Jesus arrives, Lazarus has died, and has been dead for four days, indicating that he had passed away shortly after the messengers had been sent to Jesus, so even if Jesus had started out right away, He’d have been too late. By this time, several Jews from the surrounding area had come to Mary and Martha to comfort them, and Lazarus’ body had been placed in a tomb. Martha went out to meet Jesus, and she said to him “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” Jesus responds by telling her that her brother would rise again, who which she responds in faith “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
At this point, Lazarus has been dead for four days, his funeral has already taken place, and Mary and Martha are trying to get their lives in order. They’re in the same situation you and I are in today, facing a stark, cruel reality. Our loved one is dead. Grandma isn’t coming home. She won’t be raising orchids or cactus this year, she won’t be reading the newest books at the library, or able to enjoy the company of her children and grandchildren. While her health had declined in recent years to where she wasn’t able to get out and do a lot of the things she enjoyed doing, she still had her mind, and we could still talk with her, laugh with her, and enjoy being with her. But now, we can’t do that anymore, and it’s hard. It’s not fair! It’s perhaps even too soon! Yet, what a leap of faith Mary and Martha took when Jesus arrives after the funeral, and they know that Lazarus will rise again. Even when things seem hopeless.
Jesus responds to Martha “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” Martha responds that she does. She goes to get her sister, Mary, and they take Jesus to the tomb. Now at this point, Martha, Mary, and the crowd of Jews might have heard these words of Jesus, but maybe they doubted them. Maybe they wanted to say “Hey, Jesus, don’t you get it? He’s dead! Dead people don’t get up and walk after they’ve been dead for 4 days! There’s no hope here, stop leading these poor women on and get out of here already!” And maybe you too are sitting here today, with those same type of doubts, wondering if Jesus really understands your pain. He’s God afterall, what does he care if someone dies?
What happens next is just powerful. Jesus saw Mary, Martha, and all the Jews who were there in their grief, he saw them shedding tears, crying out in grief, and what does he do? We’re told he’s quite moved at the sight, and troubled. He asks where Lazarus is buried and they take Him to the tomb. When He gets there, we’re told in the shortest verse in our English Bibles, “Jesus wept.” Yeah, that right. The same God who was there at the beginning of creation, Jesus, who had said He is the resurrection and the life, cries. He’s crying over the death of a friend. He feels the pain, the anquish, the grief, the same emotions all of us here today are feeling. He’s not some distant God, or a God who can’t relate, He’s a God who cries with us, sympathizes with us, grieves with us. He then says a prayer, and calls into the tomb “Lazarus, come out!”, and to everyone’s amazement, Lazarus comes out of the tomb. Alive! He gives Martha and Mary their brother back. Tears of sadness are turned to tears of joy!
Now wouldn’t that be awesome, if Jesus came in here right now, called out “Grace, come out of that casket” and she did? We’d have our mother, grandmother, aunt, friend back. Our tears of sadness would turn to tears of joy. But, that’s not going to happen, is it? So then why did I bother telling you this story? Well, even though Lazarus was raised from the dead, there did come a day where his body would go back in a tomb, and this time, it wouldn’t come out. It’s a day we’re all having to deal with sometime in our lives. At funerals, we’re reminded that the wages of sin is death and we see that first hand. All one has to do is look at this casket to be reminded of that. I often hear people say that “Death is just a natural part of life.” My response to that is “I don’t think so.” You see, death hurts! It hurts the person who dies, because it often weakens their once strong bodies, robbing them of their ability to talk, walk, or do a lot of the things they enjoyed doing in life. By the time I arrived at the hospital on Tuesday, Grandma was so weak she couldn’t speak. If death is a natural part of life, when why did the moment she was pronounced dead hurt so much? Why does today hurt so much for us? Death isn’t natural. Don’t let anyone fool you, you and I were not created originally to die, we were created to live. Sin destroyed that.
But God uses death to bring us to eternal life. With living in a sin filled world, we also have to endure suffering. Grandma wasn’t immune to it, for the past several years, she wasn’t able to get around as easily as she once could, and she was often confined to her home. In the past few weeks, she had to face the reality that she’d probably not be able to return to her home, and spend her time in a nursing home, something she didn’t want to have to do. Yet, God used her death to deliver her from that suffering. Today, she’s in a place where there is no such thing as suffering, no more heart problems, no more aches and pains, weakened eyesight, any of that. Now that’s something to be joyful for, that today, she’s in paradise.
Yet for you and me, we still grieve. She won’t be here for holidays, we won’t be planning a big 90th birthday party, I won’t hear her talk about how much she enjoyed that memorable 80th birthday party we gave her. I won’t hear her talk about watching baseball or bull riding on TV, or hearing stories about Doc, or about what my aunts and uncles were like when they were kids. Most of all, I won’t be able to hear her tell me how proud she was of me. Even though I didn’t see her often, and was always at first nervous about what I would talk about with her, she always found a way to connect with me, whether I was a 10 year old, or when I was 13 and watching Grandpa Sullivan lay in a hospital bed and being afraid of what would happen, or as a lonely kid in a strange high school having her come to visit and want to watch the baseball playoff games on TV with me and know what was going on better than I did (which if you ask my family is quite a feat in and of itself), it’s hard to face the future. Most of you probably don’t know this, but instead of birthday or Christmas cards, Grandma sent me Valentine’s Day cards when I was younger. Of all my grandparents, she was the only one who did that, yet it was her way of letting me know that she loved me, no matter where I was, be it at home, or in college. Next year, I won’t be getting a Valentine’s Day card, and that’s hard. It’s hard for all of us to face the future. But we know that her suffering is over, and she’s now in paradise, forever. Never to feel pain again.
In the words I chose as our Gospel reading, you heard Jesus say “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Just as Jesus has provided rest for Grandma after a weary battle with heart problems and other health issues in this world, Jesus is saying these words to you today as well. As you grieve, as you face life in this world without Grandma, Jesus invites you to come to him, give Him your burden right now. Know that He knows what it feels like to grieve for a loved one, and that ultimately He will give you rest, not just today, not just next week, but forever, just as He has already given that to Grandma.
May God give each one of you the comfort and strength you need, and ultimately the rest you desire, in the days and weeks ahead. Amen.
