Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ... Our text for meditation this afternoon is taken from the Isaiah reading, but especially these words: Isaiah 45:4... [4] For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. [5] I AM [is] the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, [6] that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I AM [is] the LORD, and there is no other. [7] I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I AM [is] the LORD, who does all these things. Mom, family, Christian family and gathered friends... today is one that many see as a day of sadness and utter end, but it need not be. Grandma Freda longed for this day and truly desired to be released from this veil of tears. Grandma had seen many long and hard days, many challenging things in her life that marked and scared her. But she also saw many things of great joy for her. From traveling to so many exciting and beautiful places, from striking mountains even to New York City. From the simple pleasure of watching birds and looking for deer, moose and other game she found peace and quiet joy. From the birth of her child, to grandchildren, great-grand children and even great-great grandchildren... she had so much joy in each of you, and more than some will ever understand. Today, as we remember her, many thoughts will come and many moments of reflection will hit everyone differently. For as with all people, perceptions, experiences and views vary. All people are truly an enigma, especially to those who love and live with them. We must understand that death is confusing, as we were not to be mortal but eternal with God. We must understand that death causes anger and frustration - but that frustration must be directed at the proper place, and that is Satan and his weapon death. We must understand that grief is a thing that never really ends. It is much like arthritis, it makes us have pain and aches everyday, some days more, some days less, but we learn to deal with that pain, work around it - but know that the pain of separation from a loved one simply reminds us of how much we loved and miss them. Some would not take Grandma as a Christian or even as a baptized child of God... but that would be a mistake. Though she was not outwardly “churchy” or sought to be in God’s house she, yet lived in God’s grace, especially considering the words today of Isaiah, hear them again... [4b] “I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. [5] I AM [is] the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me,” ...God calls, God names, and God gives - even to those who may not know or fully know him. Freda was gathered and called by God in a nontraditional, but old fashioned way at a revival meeting... where she was baptized down in the creek. That is key, even if she did not know or fully understand what a great gift, what a great covenant promise God gave to her in that simple water and word... it was the trustworthy and true promise of God that mattered all. For you see it is God’s love and mercy that is far greater than anything we can do. As we see and understand that gift of mercy poured onto her, consider how much Freda meant to so many people here and also in Arapahoe. Each of you received countless letters and cards on birthdays, anniversaries, special days and sometimes - just because she had something to write - just to you. Today, you see a reflection of the care and love she gave in her own unique way by the faces and emotions of all of you gathered here. Also, at the memorial service held in Freda’s honor at the Good Samaritan Care Home, her Nebraska home for a little over a year - more than 40 people gathered to honor her... and dozens more sent well wishes and notes of memories of how much they enjoyed and loved having gotten to know her. Nurses who cared for her at the Cambridge hospital and at the Care home all loved her and shed many tears at her passing from this world. Short was her stay there, but large was her impact on many people. That is living as an unknown Christian, but one who without even knowing it has shared that gift that God gave to her with others. I was blessed to have her come to many worship services I gave at the Care Home and several Bible studies as well. She, as do most of the residents of the Care Home love the old traditional hymns, but she also followed the readings very closely. I had the feeling in Bible study though that she had kind of an Archie Bunker feeling about God’s Word. Meaning, “I heard it years ago, and I believed it then... if I change my mind I’ll tell you.” In the reading in 2 Corinthians today, Paul talks to us about what Grandma Freda felt and wanted. Hear again Paul, “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. [2] For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, [3] if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. [4] For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Many times several of us had the similar conversation with Grandma Freda... wherein she would ask why am I still here, why can’t I just go to sleep and not wake up. She was tired of this world, tired of the hostility, tired of the horrible things that happen around the world and even close at home and she wanted to be released. Truly, her earthly tent, was wearing out. As her strong heart went through several hard events, it wore down that titanic strength which she had and just as she desired, she fell asleep and quietly, painlessly went from this temporary life, putting off the tent of this world’s flesh to be swallowed up by true and abundant life. We know and trust in this not because of anything she did for good or ill, but because we are “prepared [] for this very thing [by] God, who has given us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee.” Because we know these things to be true from the Word of God, we can be “always of good courage;” for “We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord”... no longer is Freda away from God, but she is now with him. We know this because as the Scriptures tell us that “we walk by faith, not by sight.” If we were to walk by merely what we see, what we think or what we want things to be, we will always fall short, always fail and ultimately lose God, for we have become a god at that point and turned from His Grace. In fighting those temptations and in seeing the true life that comes from passing through the barrier of death, “Yes, we [can be] of good courage,” and we can say to an unbelieving world that we “would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” Those words of courage and comfort bring us to the clear words of Jesus who wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Jesus, fully knowing that he would raise Lazarus from the dead, still weeps at the sight of the pain of his friend’s loved one’s sorrow and his own anguish at the death of one of his saints, one who was a treasured friend. Jesus then gently corrects the misplaced guilt of Martha who believed somehow things would have been different if the people gathered around Lazarus had been different - or that Jesus’ mere presence would have stopped the death. She did not understand that the greater miracle was to come - and that was the resurrection of Lazarus from that cold dark tomb of death to light and life. Life that was a living witness to the power of Christ to heal and to save. Jesus gives her and us the greatest comfort of all when Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, [26] and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” Precisely, in physical death we die in this world which comes not at our choosing or desiring, not by our design or timetable, not by our own way... but on the day and time and manner in which God has set for us, even if we have not known him well - to come to him in paradise to await the resurrection of all flesh. In the Name of Christ Jesus, Amen.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 21:13:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015