Funeral Irene Osborne 9-11-2004
Psalms 116:15-15
Irene Osborne
God took notice and smiled on Thursday morning, and all that great crowd witnesses that surround us gave took notice as Sister Irene Osborne rose up out of her bed and took her place among the saints who have gone on before us.
She had a spot in the arena because she believed the promises of Jesus, when Jesus said in the word of God, “I am going away to prepare a place for you and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am.”
As believers, we do not see death as an end, but as entering into the greater promise that Jesus had given to us. All we have to do is take a look at death from God’s perspective and we know, there’s a whole lot more good things to come. The word of God says in Psalms 116:15 "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints." This means that on September 9th 2004, Irene Osborne, brought joy in a special way to the heart of God.
What was it about her that moved the heart of God? What was it about her, that moved our hearts to sadness, when we discovered that she was now waiting for our arrival in heaven? She was more than a daughter, more than a wife, more than a mother, more than a sister, more than a relative, more than a good friend, and more than a strong Black woman. The greatest of all her titles is that she was a child of God.
The actual date of Irene Osborne’s death is probably not written down in a record book that we can easily get our hands on, you see the date on the obituary refers to the date her body cease to function. The real Irene, the part that lives forever, died a long time ago, when she heard of the call of Jesus Christ as a young girl upon her life. That date was recorded in heaven, because of the celebration which took place because of her conversion.
Jesus said, , "If any of you would come after me, you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their lives will lose it, but whoever loses their lives for me will find it. What good will it be for a you to gain the whole world, and yet lose your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he or she has done.
Sister Osborne picked up her cross to follow Jesus Christ, thereby making her death on Saturday just a means of passing from one form of service to God to another. Her reward will be based on what she has done in her service to God.
How do you go about denying yourself to follow Jesus? It begins with the realization that there is more to life than what we can see around us. It continues with the understanding that everyday, all of us are making choices for our lives that affect us and others. Not only are choices being made, the word of God tells us that a record is being kept of every decision that we make, and that one day we will give an account to God for those decisions.
There use to be a beer commercial ad that said, "you only live once, give it all the gusto you can in life." That slogan actually comes from the Old Testament in the bible. Only the beer commercial stopped halfway with the verse. The verse goes on to say, give it all you got, but realize that God is going to hold you accountable for the way you live it. If you were to die today, would you be ready to give God an account for the decisions you have made, and would you know with a certainty that you would spend eternity in heaven with God? If the answer is not yes, then perhaps your life is being lived in vain.
The good news about Irene Osborne , is that her living has not been in vain because she left this earth not trusting in her goodness, but in the grace and mercy found in Jesus Christ.
God gives each of us an assignment to work with in this world. God provides us all with a gift to offer. In thinking of the gift she had to offer, I think of the gift of hospitality. Irene knew how to make others feel at home
Irene Osborne came bouncing her way into the world in Middletown Ohio the year 1917 in a family of seven children. Now that lets you know she was either going to be a strong woman or a battered one because of what life was like for a black woman at the turn of the century. Any one who knows Irene knows that she chose to be a strong woman.
To know Irene, you may have thought at times she was fussy and opinionated at times. The truth is, Ms. Osborne was simply a liberation freedom fighter willing to wear down her opponents to help them see the truth and value of her opinions.
Ms. Osborne. knew what is was to be the center of attention married to the tall and good looking John Osborne. When the two of them got on the dance floor together, all other contenders need not even bother to apply.
John made her the center of his heart. He had a woman with love written all on her. She was born on Valentine’s Day and they got married on Valentine’s day. I don’t know if it was a John trying to the only one gift or if he wanted to have a reason to give her twice as much as everybody else got on their birthday, but he did it for well over 50 years.
That’s what I call really sticking together to each other. A gorgeous woman for a magnificent man striving to spend their lives together. That’s a winning combination when you have Jesus in the center of it.
Together they poured out their love on their daughter Deborah trying to equip her to become all that she could be. They still had love to give around the house they got a dog the name of
________________________ They loved that dog and the dog loved them.
Life is so strange and so short. That’s why we need to live and to love as though each day may be our last. You may say Irene Osborne Walker was my sister or my mother or my friend or my former co-worker and those things may be true. But the greater truth is that God gave Irene on loan to us for just a little while, and through death God has called her back.
Death is so much closer to us than we think. How often have we narrowly escaped its grasp by unexpectedly stopping on the corner, only to have a car come zooming past out of nowhere, or being in a serious accident and walking away with minor injuries, or suffering a heart attack or stroke yet being close enough to medical help to be saved. No, God has watched over us more times than we will ever know.
There is appointed a day however, in which each of us shall surely die. The best way to die, is to have lived in anticipation of that day in which we will give an account to God. The Bible tells us that Jesus has gone forth to prepare a place for each of us in the afterlife.
Whether or not we make it to the place that Jesus has for us will not depend on whether our good deeds outweighed the bad ones. Everything depends on whether or not we invite Jesus Christ into our hearts to give Him control of our lives.
God has something wonderful for all of our lives. God lays before us two paths in life. One path is very broad and many people travel it, but it leads to destruction. The other path is very narrow but it leads to life. Jesus Christ is the gateway to the narrow path. To get on the narrow path, we must make a choice.
You see death is not something to be feared, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not die but have everlasting life.
Jesus said, let not your hearts be troubled, you believe in God, Believe also in me. For I go to prepare a place for you. Not only has Christ gone to prepare a place for us, Jesus has revealed to us the road in which we should follow.
Irene Osborne has made her choice and her salvation rests totally in the hands and mercy of God. Her confidence was in Jesus Christ her Savior. None of us know the day nor the hour when we shall leave this world. Christ has died on our behalf that we might have life. It’s a simple as confessing our sins, our yielding our lives to him. For in the end, the only decision that will matter is what did we do with Christ. For only what’s done for Christ will last for all eternity.
