Precious In the Sight of the Lord
Barbara Garrett Memorial Service
October 24, 2008
2 p.m.
Death is where the rubber of our earthly lives meets the road of ultimate reality. Death is where we are compelled, even in our grief, to decide what we really believe about ultimate reality.
What do we really believe about what happens to us after we breathe our last – after life leaves our mortal bodies?
This past Monday, just about an hour or so after Barbara Garrett went from this life, into the presence of the Lord, Jim Grinnell and I were up in the hospital room with a few members of the Garrett family, and extended family, and Bob and Shirley McWilliams.
As the family and the rest of us said our goodbyes to Barb, there were many tears. There was grief and mourning. Jim Grinnell, being the consummate pastor in that moment, had the family gather around Barb in her hospital bed and pray. As he prayed, he noted this passage of scripture, which I’d like to spend a few minutes considering this morning.
Psalm 116:15 Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
Isn’t that an odd way to describe death? With the word precious? To most of us, grievous seems like a more appropriate, more descriptive word. How about Hard. Difficult. Painful. But, the Psalmist tells us that, to the Lord, the death of His saints is a precious event.
I began to think about the word precious and about this verse…about what the word precious means in our everyday understanding, about what’s precious to us. At its ultimate, precious means someone or something for which we’d give everything, or almost anything.
But in our most common usage, precious means, “of great value or high price.” It’s a word we might use to describe valuable jewels. It means highly esteemed or cherished. It means dear or beloved.
When we think of Barbara Garrett, it’s very appropriate to use the word precious, isn’t it? She was precious to her husband of 59 years, who faithfully cared for her when she was ill and suffering, which encompassed many years of her life, and most of the last 5 weeks. Barb was precious to Jim when she was ill, but she was also precious to Jim when she was well, and when she was enjoying the precious things of life, like God’s creation in Colorado or New Hampshire, or the simple pleasures of gardening in her own backyard.
Barb was precious to her children. She was precious to her grandchildren. She was precious to her great grandchildren.
Just as much, Jim, was precious to Barb. To Barb, her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, were all precious. She valued each one, she held all of you dear, she cherished you. She was also very proud of you.
That was obvious. You could not spend more than 10 minutes with Barb, without hearing her bragging on her kids, her grandkids and great grandkids… telling you how smart they were, what great jobs they had, what great singers or musicians they were, how kind they were, what great soccer players they were.
And it wasn’t just talk. The woman that her great grandchildren called “greatmommy “ was present at so many of her grandkids and great grandkids special events through the years. This was a greatmommy who was there for these who were precious to her, as much as her physical condition allowed.
Mikayla, and Micah, I can just imagine if she were here today, your greatmommy sitting on the back row here at TCF where she always sat, and just beaming with greatmommy satisfaction as you sang this afternoon.
And all you great-grandkids - the story of you holding candles up here during that song would have been told again and again. You were all very precious to her.
But even considering these more common understandings of how we might think of what’s precious, it’s still more than a little difficult to call the loss of someone so precious to us, a precious event.
One of the things I’ve learned is that life is precious. The lives of our loved ones are precious, as is our short time on earth with them. That’s why we mourn their departure. That’s why it hurts so much. Because they’re precious.
But here’s where the rubber meets the road again. As followers of Christ, our lives are precious to the Lord as well – and our deaths are precious to Him, too. Our deaths are precious to the Lord perhaps for several reasons. But perhaps the most important reason is because of what it cost our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 1:18-19 (NIV) For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
Our lives, and our deaths, are precious to God because of what it cost Him. It cost the blood, the suffering, the death, of Jesus. As His saints, the Word of God tells us we are bought with a price. And the word price, is the root word, from which we get the word precious. We are of great value, we are precious, to God. We are precious, valuable to the point of being worth everything to Him.
Matthew 13:45-46 (NASB77) "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
We are precious. Barb was precious.
John 3:16 (NIV) "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.
We are so loved by God. Barb was so loved by God. She was precious to us, and she was precious to the Lord. So precious that, like that pearl of great value, Jesus gave everything, He paid it all, He gave it all, so that Barb could spend eternity with Him. So that those of us who receive the freely offered gift of eternal life could spend eternity with Him.
Barbara Garrett’s death is precious to the Lord because of what it cost Him. When Jesus completed his work on the cross, and said, “it is finished.” He knew who among us would finish the race in this life. I believe Barb finishing the race was precious to Him.
Because of the precious blood of Jesus, Barb’s death was the end of this life on earth for her, but just the beginning of eternity with God.
Jesus spoke these words of comfort to us.
John 14:1-3 (NIV) "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 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.
This afternoon, Barbara Garrett is in the presence of the Lord. She’s in heaven’s waiting room, which the Bible calls Paradise. She’s not suffering, she’s not sick anymore.
Charles Spurgeon the great English Victorian preacher, wrote about the death of Richard Baxter, the great Puritan preacher. Baxter lay dying. Some friends came to see him. They asked him what we’ve all asked at times like that, “How are you doing?” Baxter was weak and obviously near death. But with great effort he answered. “I am almost well.” Spurgeon writes, “Death cures; it is the best medicine, for they who die are not only almost well, but healed forever. You will see, then, that the statement of our text implies that the aspect of death is altogether altered from that appearance in which men commonly behold it. Death to the saints is not a penalty, it is not destruction, it is not even a loss.”
Honestly though, to us, in the here and now, it is a loss. But to Barb, it’s a gain.
And to the Lord, her death on Monday October 20 was a precious event. In our grief at losing her, we can find comfort in the knowledge that precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints, including our dear sister Barbara Garrett.
