Eulogy J. Green
John 14:1-14:8
It was on August 30, 1993, that God decided, this is the day to send the world another gift to touch the lives of others. No doubt his Mom was the first to feel the full impact of that gift as she suffered labor pains. But at the birth of her child, Jawaan, her heart was filled with joy at the birth of a beautiful healthy baby boy. No one knew what potential she holding in her arms on that day as she cuddled little Jawaan . Her thoughts that day were on being the best Mom she could be.
We all enter this world as children of God whether we are aware of it or not. Whether we believe in God or not, God has a claim upon each and every one of our lives. God has a plan and a purpose for each of us, because in our unique ways all of us have been created with gifts, with talents and with skills. How we choose to use them will make all the difference in this brief period between birth and death that we call life. One day, each of us will be called back to the God who created us to give an account for the life that we have lived. God has given us the ability to make choices for ourselves. Even though God loves us all tremendously, God will never force Himself upon us. He waits for us to turn to follow him.
Jawaun entered this world and became a son, a nephew, a brother, a cousin, a friend, a homie, a worker, and a child of God created in the image of God. He has made the journey from the heavens to the earth and to the heavens once again as we all will one day do.
It’s never easy saying goodbye to someone we love and care about. God shares in our suffering and grief in that the Lord knows the loss that we feel. Jesus the very Son of God, Himself cried in the bible with two of his friends, Mary and Martha, in the loss of their brother. They told him, “Lord if you would have been here, our brother would not have died.” We all would like to undo death or stop it from coming altogether.
But death is something that is as much a part of living as everything else is. It is not something that has to be feared. Jesus takes away some of the sting of death by telling those who choose for follow him. Jesus also said, “let not your heart be troubled, for you believe in God, then believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions, and I am going away to prepare a place for you.”
Some ask “if God is loving, why is there death.” I see it as, because God is loving there is death. Can you imagine what a burden it would be to have to live life forever in the way we know it here on earth?
What it would be like to forever have pain in our bodies for hundreds of year, to have unforgiveness in our hearts year after year ,to be mad at people for centuries, to be addictied to drugs for decades, to be in bitterness in our soul, or to be stuck at the bottom of poverty forever. God has seen all the evil, and the madness, and the pain that goes on in the world, and God has determined that at some point this must stop. That point is death.
We want to think that all of us are entitled to a certain number of days, weeks, months and years. We all expect to die of old age. This makes Jawaun’s death at age 19 even more difficult to bear. How many of us here at near that same age or even younger? But there is no such entitlement to a specific number of days found in the Bible. People of all ages die everyday. That is why we should treasure each other while we can. The Bible encourages us in Psalm 90:12 (NIV) Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. The message of the Bible is that death is always close at hand, walking by us like a constant companion.
Some of us are alive today, simply because of God’s grace and God’s mercy. We know we were in some situations, some accidents, some places, and we were doing some things that should have taken us out of this world, but God had other plans for our lives. God is the only reason we are still alive to tell about what almost happened.
Did you know that the Bible teaches that while you were in your mother’s womb, God had something special in mind for you? Did you know that most of us, never get around to discovering just how precious we are in the eyes of God? We’re not precious because we’re so good. We’re precious because of what God knows that He can make of us. For all of us were made in the image of God. But not all of us discover the benefits that come from being made in God’s image.
When God sent Jawaun into the world, He sent the world a gift. Jawauan was a gift. I asked his family to help me understand what Jawauan was like and to give me a summary of how he had been a blessing to them, they told me so great things.
Jawuan was a happy person who lifted the spirit of others. He very quickly got the nickname Boogie, as he was always into something. His smile alone could have a captivating influence on you. How many of you right now can see the smile he’d have on his face. Him mom said, Jawuan was respectful of others. He knew how to listen even when he didn’t want to hear what you were saying. He simply remained respectful.
For all of you young ladies out there, you know that Jawaun was handsome. He knew how to capture a ladies heart with his charm. He was athletic with an athletic build, and that just added to his ability to be a smooth talker and cassonova as we would say back in the day. I’m sure more than one of you young ladies have had a crush or two on Jawaun.
Jawauan even became the apple of his sister’s eye. She enjoyed doing things for her big brother, and the years seemed to have brought them even closer to each other. One of his brothers even used the word superman when asked to give some one world descriptions of his brother
Jawauan was somewhat of a fashion artist. He knew he had the looks and he wanted to make sure the clothes complimented him well. His clothes were together. His shoes were cleaned and you were not going to find wrinkles in his outfit. Some have gone so far as to say that he was neat freak.
Jawuan was filled with determination and when he set his mind on doing something, you might as well consider it done. He could be self motivated. But if you put money into the equation and he needed the money, he became single focus and got the job done. His mother wanted her kids to be close to each other, so she actually paid them saying “here’s 10 dollars if you play basketball together.”
Jamaal became a super athlete, scoring points quicker than LeBron James could in order to end the game and collect the $10. When Jawauan needed some money for his phone, he got his mother to get him out to Minuteman by 5am just to get a chance to work at a job. They sat there for 2 hours waiting to be called to work but the call didn’t come that day. They simply talked together
Jawaun enjoyed music. When adults were not around, he’d try his hand at some rap music. He was just a fun loving kid. His aunt use to wrestle with him, but once he got taller than her, she knew it was time to end the wrestling matches.
He knew how to get a laugh out of people. He was comical. How many of you can think of when the two of you laughed together. How many of us got used to him saying “I’m about to do something—and then “Boom” he’d hit his hands together. He would combine the words barbie and baby and come up with, “What’s up Brabie.” He was known by his trademark food. Some may have needed Red Lobster, some may have needed Applebees. But all Jawaun needed was his Raiman noodles.
One of his proud moments in life came when he got is first state id. You would have thought the boy had won the lottery. He was proud of that card. Maybe it was because it had his picture on it. Or maybe he saw it as his next step to getting a job and making some money. He sure was happy to get his first job at Rally’s.
Another proud moment in his life was about the age of 10, when he created his soap box derby car. He had made this blue car he had created and his mother could only describe it as a hot mess. When they went to the place, of the race, his car stood out like a sore thumb. The other cars looked like they had been designed and created by professionals. But his little heart was not in the least bit discouraged. He just wanted to get at the top of the hill and race down.
When they got to the place where the race was to take place and the vehicles were being entered, it looked as though the officials were going to disqualify the car before it got going. His mother gave them that look that said, “Please don’t break my child’s heart.” As a back up thuough, she was ready to go into an “angry black woman mode” if necessary. Fortunately they let him enter his blue car. It was a cold day. When he came flying down that hill, he didn’t have a chance at winning, but inside he was celebrating his dream. He may have been at the Daytona 500, because nobody was prouder to have raced down that hill. His mom thought he was going to be discouraged at not winning. When she asked him if he was okay? He had the biggest smile on his face and said, “That Was Fun.”
When we asked his mom about the special moments they shared. She said there were so many moments they shared together, but the most special times occurred when nothing was really planned. Her son would simply open up his heart and start talking to her about things she never thought he would. It was in those moments of just mother and son that they experienced a richness that’s hard to put into words. He was touching her in those moments in ways that he did not realize. It made her love him even more.
Jawuan had dreams that were still bottled up inside of him waiting to come out. He was in transition making plans to get his GED in order to go beyond where he was in life. He had dreams of going into the navy. But even in the midst of our dreams and our desires, death can intervene and come knocking at our door.
Often times people will say when some tragedy happens, that it must have been God’s will. No, it was not God’s will for His gift of Jawuan’s life to end the way it did. His life ended because there is evil in this world. God’s will was for Jawauan to reach his full potential. But God’s will is not always carried out. God gives us choices to make with our lives. Our choosing to do one thing, leads to other things, which lead to other things. It’s not that we have to make a lot of bad choices to send our lives in the wrong direction. One choice to hang with the wrong person, one choice to neglect our parent’s advice, one choice to go somewhere we should not go, one wrong choice can lead to devastating consequences. Every bad thing that happens is not because it was God’s plan for us.
There is such a thing as evil in the world. Not only is there evil, there is a force behind evil called Satan or the devil. Jesus told us that Satan is real and that Satan also has a plan for our lives. That plan is to steal from us, to us kill and to destroy us. We think we are making our own choices, and that nobody is leading us in a specific direction, when in reality we are simply following a plan that Satan has carefully laid out for us. Jesus on the other hand tells us, I have come that you might enjoy life and have a great time doing it.
God knew that Satan would try to destroy us all. God also knew that there is a part of us that wants to follow Satan, because he can make doing wrong seem so right and so much fun. He simply does not want us to think about the consequences. God will judge us for the choices we make in this life, but God would much rather forgive us. God actually became a person in the form of Jesus Christ and came into the world to keep us from falling into the plans of Satan.
The wrong that we do separates us from God, and makes us feel further and further away from God. That wrong is called sin. Sin always leads to death. That is why all of us will eventually die. The punishment for our sin is death. But God did not want death to be the end for us. Jesus, the Son of God, came into this world to die in your place. God proved that Jesus was the son of God, by raising Jesus from the dead. Because Jesus has come back to life after dying, God will do the same for each of us who accept what Jesus has done.
If you want to reach the potential for your life that God intended for you to have, you need a relationship to God. You get that by admitting that you have done wrong to God. You ask God to forgive you for the wrong you have died. You believe in your heart that God sent Jesus to pay for your sins, and that God raised him from the dead. You pledge to allow Jesus to live in you by helping you to make wise choices for your life. It does not matter how bad you have been, or what you have done, or even how long you have been doing it. God loves you, but you have to make the choice to turn and go another way.
The more you walk with God, the more you will begin to experience the kind of life God intended for you to have. God placed those talents and abilities inside of you, in order for you to be a blessing to others and a blessing to yourself. Don’t let Satan steal from you, don’t let him destroy the dreams you have, and don’t let him keep you from God’s plan. You can make the decision right now to not only change your life here, but to change where you will be for all eternity.
Going to heaven is not a matter of having done more good things than bad ones. None of us will ever live lives so good that God takes notice of us and say, that one deserves to go to heaven. Going to heaven is dependent on whether you died having accepted the work of Christ or not.
The people who go to heaven, are the ones who realize they never could deserve it. None of us deserves what Jesus did for us, but his grace and mercy is available to us all. We may think we have many days ahead of us to decide what to do with Jesus, but there’s not a soul hear today, who believed a week ago, that we would be in this place at this hour, for this reason.
Today is the day for us to be prepared to go and stand before God. Let us pray.
