Dave Anderson, April 4, 2009
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, through your Holy Spirit, open our hearts and minds to your Word, granting us a renewed and strengthened faith, that we might find comfort in your grace, and hope for the future. Enable us to trust in your gift of eternal life, accomplished for us through the death and resurrection of your Son, Jesus the Christ, so that we might live our lives in the confidence of being reunited with all your redeemed saints in the life to come. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
Let me begin by expressing to you, Dave’s family and friends, not only my own personal sympathy, but also the sympathy of our congregation. Quite frankly, Dave has been a well-loved and respected member of our congregation for more than the 20 plus years that I have served as the pastor of St. John’s. And so we share in your grief, and lift you in our prayers and concerns, that God’s grace might bring you his peace.
This past Wednesday, Jodie and I spent a little time in the office sharing some of our memories of Dave. Now, I didn’t realize that Dave enjoyed gardening, at least raising rhubarb. Jodie said that nearly every year Dave would ask her if she had any extra horse manure that he could get for his garden. Jodie told me that she always answered, Dave, you can come and get all you want.
Jodie than said that Dave would pull up in his car, open up the trunk, in which he had spread out a plastic tarp to protect the carpet, fill a couple of buckets and sit them on the tarp and close the trunk. Then Dave would begin to argue with Jodie about paying her for the manure, to which Jodie would always refuse, telling Dave that what he had taken was just that much less she would have to shovel.
This brought up a crazy thought for me. Regardless of how meticulous Dave might have been in protecting the trunk of his car, you can’t protect against the aroma of that precious fertilizer. I remember a time, shortly after I had graduated from High School, when I had to travel to up-state New York. My boss at the time asked me to stop at one of the cheese factories along Route 19, and pick him up some Limburger. And so, on the way up, I did just that. I picked up a couple of pounds and placed it in a small cooler in the trunk of my car.
By the time I got home, it took months to get rid of that aroma. And for the longest time, when I would get together with my friends, nobody wanted me to drive. But then, seeing how clean Dave kept his vehicles, I’m sure he had some solution to the problem.
And Josie and I certainly found Dave to be a true fan of the Black and Gold. There was hardly a Sunday during the Pirates or Steelers seasons, that Dave didn’t make some comments about the up-coming game or on the status of the season. One day, noticing how Josie tended to wear our team colors to worship, he quipped to me “I know you always wear black on Sunday, but where’s the gold. On supper bowl Sunday, Dave was in the hospital. Josie bought Dave a Steelers balloon for me to take in to him, but the biggest thrill he got was when I told him about wearing my black and gold stole and cincture. “I wish I would have been there to see that,” he said. “I would have clapped.”
I truly loved Dave, as did all of us here this morning. And there is no doubt that we grieve his absence from us. We still long to extend our relationship with Dave, to hear him clap, to listen to his praise and lament for his teams, to feel his touch and embrace, even his grouchy moments. But the reality of our finite life has come home to us. Dave has died. As a child of mortal parents, his earthly life has ended.
But as Christians, “we do not grieve without hope,” as Paul stated in his First Letter to the Thessalonians. For our faith in Christ leads us to acknowledge that as a result of our faith and baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection, our grief is temporary. Our grief will be turned to joy when we are reunited with Dave and all those who have come to faith in Christ, in the life to come.
Dave was a person of faith, who truly believed in the redeeming grace of God in Jesus the Christ. Dave rarely missed a Sunday to worship God for his gift of redemption, when he was able to attend. And he appreciated my visits and always asked for prayer, while he was in the hospital. And I believe that Dave, although wishing that he could have a little more time, knew that his death was near, and died trusting in God’s redeeming grace.
Just a little over a week before he died, Dave requested that I bring him communion. I celebrated that sacrament with him, on a day that he seemed to be more alert than I had seen him prior or since. Although I did most of the reading, he participated in saying “Amen” following the prayers, and actually prayed the “Lord’s Prayer” with Martha and me.
Then, following the service, Dave shook my hand, with a grip that truly surprised me, and with tears in his eyes, said, in one of the most thankful and sincere ways, how much he appreciated all that I had done for him. “You couldn’t have done more,” he said. And I knew, at that moment, that Dave had just said his “Goodbye” to me. He knew that he was about to die, and had placed his life into the loving hands of God.
After almost thirty-five years of ordained ministry, I have come to notice the subtle ways in which the faithful say their good-byes, and express their faith in God’s redeeming grace. Dave was a person of faith, and he died believing in God’s redeeming grace, revealed to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.
And today is such an appropriate day to celebrate Dave’s faith in God’s redeeming grace, as we gather on the eve of Holy Week, the time when the Christian Church remembers our Lord’s Passion for our redemption. Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, when we recall our Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, amid the cheers of “Hosannas.” But those gleeful shouts would be short lived, for on Friday, our Lord would give his life on the cross, in atonement for our sins.
But on Easter morning, the Hosannas return, as we celebrate our Lord’s victory over sin and death, as we recall his resurrection from the grave. This week marks the very basis of our Christian faith. And it was the very basis of Dave’s faith – a faith that enabled him to say his good-byes in peace, knowing that he would one day be reunited with each of us in the very presence of God.
This is clearly the hope of the Christian faith. It is what enables us, who have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, to face our death here on earth in peace. It is the promise of Holy Week, the season in which we focus on how extensive and how unconditional God’s gift of love embraces us. It is the promise of Easter, the season in which we focus on how the apostles were able to overcome their anxiety and fear, to be empowered by our Lord’s promise of new life to open their locked doors and live their lives proclaiming God’s victory over sin and death.
Clearly, the future of every baptized Christian, who trusts in the promise of the Gospel, is to enter into the presence of our risen Lord. To be in his presence, to experience his love and grace face to face, is the goal of our faith. Just listen to how Paul describes it in his Letter to the Philippians. “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you…” End quote.
This is the dilemma that most of those who face their impending death find themselves struggling with. It is hard to say good-bye, and so they often encode it. After all, the future is quite unknown, and it takes a lot of faith and trust to let go. Yet at the same time, the hope of the Gospel promises us a new and vibrant life in the very presence of our crucified and risen Lord. I believe this is what Dave was facing, that day he said his Good-bye to me.
Yet listen to the words of Jesus, whom he spoke to his disciples on the night in which he was betrayed, the night before he died on the cross for us. In his hour of facing his own death, Jesus said, “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 take you to myself, so that where I am, you may be also.
This is clearly the hope of the Christian faith. It is what enables us, who have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, to face our death here on earth, in peace. It is, through the events of Holy Week, on which we gather on its eve, that Dave was able to entrust his life into God’s loving hands. And it was on the assurance of Easter, when Christ rose victoriously over sin and death, that Dave’s hope in being reunited with all those who have preceded him in death, gave him peace.
Let me close with an illustration that I have used so many times at moments like this, but one which I dearly love. It came from my jet set daughter and her husband, who have lived in various countries around the globe. While they were living in Nairobi, Kenya, they encountered a difference in attitude between the African Church and its attitude toward death, and that which we experience here in the United States. Here, in the States, when a person dies, we tend to focus on our loss of the person who has died, using phrases such as “He has left us,” or “She is gone.”
But in Africa, that thought is reversed. Christians in Africa, when they hear of the death of a loved one, say He has arrived, or that they have reached their destination. This change in the way the Africans give voice to their faith proclaims the Gospel. Rather than mourning their loss, they celebrate the hope of their baptism and faith in the crucified and risen Christ. Rather, the African Christians celebrate the hope of being reunited with those whom they love, in the very presence of God.
This is my hope this day, that we might enter into Holy Week, and truly celebrate the gift of God’s grace, poured out for us through Christ’s death and resurrection. For it is the true hope, that can sustain us in life and in death.
Amen.
