Dad's Graveside and Memorial Service Sermon

May 17, 2011

This is the sermon given by my brother at Dad's Memorial Service.

Dad always like to give me jobs to do. I think maybe he liked that a little too much. Some years ago, out of the blue, he told me he wanted me to do one last job—this one. As usual, he did not ask me if I wanted the job or how I felt about the job. He just wanted me to do it.  When giving me a job—no matter how boring or difficult—he would usually say that the job shoud be easy. And as usual, it is not.

Later, Dad—assuming I was going to do it—told me that it made him feel good that he had someone to plant him properly. Dad always liked to plant things...just two days before he died he said we needed to get the watermelon planted. But the most important thing is that years ago he planted himself by the streams of living water and drank from the water that Jesus said would "become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." That planting makes today so much easier as this is only a symbolic planting because of what happened before.

Hebrews 12:1-2, "We have around us many people whose lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should remove from our lives anything that would get in the way and the sin that so easily holds us back. Let us look only to Jesus, the One who began our faith and who makes it perfect. He suffered death on the cross. But he accepted the shame as if it were nothing because of the joy that God put before him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God's throne."

The older I get the more envious I am of those who have kept the faith and finished the race. We each have a race marked out for us to run. It may not be as we would chose, but we need to finish having kept the faith with our eyes fixed on Jesus, and Dad did just that.

At services such as this, it has always bothered me that anyone would think or try to memorialize and extol the eternal impact of a life lived, 70, 80, or 90 years in 15 or 30 minutes, or even in a day. In eulogies, since we do not wish to say anything bad about the dead we often leave the impression that they were perfect performers. Dad was not a perfect performer—and neither are any of us. We can be thankful that God is not expecting perfect performances from us, but rather desires and has a right to expect a perfectly loving and faithful heart towards him and others. That Dad had by the grace and mercy of God. The mercy of God—not getting what we deserved. The grace of God—getting what we do not deserve. Probably the song I heard him sing (or whistle) more than any other was The Love of God. The Love of God. For him, receiving that love made all the difference. By accepting what Christ had done for him.

The Love of God

1)  The love of God is greater far

     Than tongue or pen can ever tell;

     It goes beyond the highest star,

     And reaches to the lowest hell,

     The guilty pair, bowed down with care,

     God gave His son to win;

     His erring child He reconciled,

     And pardoned from his sin.

          Refrain:

          Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!

          How measureless and strong!

          It shall forevermore endure - 

          The saints' and angels' song.

3)  Could we with ink the ocean fill,

     And were the skies of parchment made,

     Were every stalk on earth a quill,

     And every man a scribe by trade;

     To write the love of God above,

     Would drain the ocean dry;

     Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

     Though stretched from sky to sky.

Verse 3 was penciled on the wall of a narrow room in an insane asylum by a man said to have been demented. The profound lines were found when they laid him in his coffin.  

I want us to look at some truths from scripture to help us focus on what Dad is experiencing now and will experience in the future. I really do not know how people live without knowing, believing, or living in the promises of God. What a wonderful privilege we have possessing and personalizing the truth of God's Word.

So just where is Dad and what is he experiencing now? He is not here. He is not in the casket. He left his body last Saturday night. Dad did not die—his body died.

II Corinthians 4:16 - 5:10 - "So we do not give up. Our physical body is becoming older and weaker, but our spirit inside us is made new every day. We have small troubles for a while now, but they are helping us gain an eternal glory that is much greater than the troubles. We set our eyes not on what we see but on what we cannot see. What we see will last only a short time, but what we cannot see will last forever. We know that our body—the tent we live in here on earth—will be destroyed. But when that happens, God will have a house for us. It will not be a house made my human hands; instead it will be a home in heaven that will last forever. But now we groan in this tent. We want God to give us our heavenly home, because it will clothe us so we will not be naked. While we live in this body, we have burdens, and we groan. We do not want to be naked, but we want to be clothed with our heavenly home. Then this body that dies will be fully covered with life. This is what God made us for, and he has given us the Spirit to be a guarantee for this new life. So we always have courage. We know that while we live in this body, we are away from the Lord. We live by what we believe, not by what we can see. So I say that we have courage. We really want to be away from this body and be at home with the Lord. Our only goal is to please God whether we live here or there, because we must all stand before Christ to be judged. Each of us will receive what we should get—good or bad—for the things we did in the earthly body." 

We are not our bodies. We only live in them as long as they live. When they die, those in Christ go to be with the Lord. Luke 23:43 - (to the thief on the cross) "Today you will be with me in paradise." The stone was not rolled away from the tomb so Jesus could get out. It was rolled away so we could see in and see that Christ was not there—he was risen.

Dad is where the Lord is. "No eyes have seen, no ears have heard, no mind can conceive what God has prepared for those who love him." But, God has revealed it to us by His spirit. We know enough to know this is not just a better place but the best of all places to be. Faith has become sight.

Dad is away from the limitations, weaknesses, disease and decay of his old body. How long has it been since he could do all the things he liked to do? What must it feel like to have broken free from what has hindered so long? But what is it like to be away or out of this body? 

II Corinthians 12:1-5, "I must continue to brag. It will do no good, but I will talk now about visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who was taken up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. I do not know whether the man was in his body or out of his body, but God knows. And, I know if he was in his body or away from his body, but God knows. He heard things he is not able to explain, things that no human is allowed to tell. I will brag about a man like that, but I will not brag about myself, except about my weaknesses." 

How can he see without eyes, hear without ears, walk without legs and touch without hands? Can God the Father who is spirit see, hear, move, and touch? We were made in his image which is more true of the spiritual than the physical.

John, who most certainly was "in the Spirit" and out of the body when he explained all that he saw and heard what we have in the book of Revelation actually saw souls. These souls were aware, spoke, and put on white robes. Dad is seeing sights, hearing sounds, and in all ways sensing paradise in ways we can only imagine. Being in the presence of God can only be more wonderful than we can imagine—not less—as it is the fulfillment and perfection of all that God has created, designed, and prepared us for.

But, there is something great in God's plan yet to come. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ guaranteed all things new—a new heaven, a new earth, and a new body. 

Yes, Dad as great as he has it now, will receive a new body along with all those in Christ (dead or alive) when Jesus returns to this earth. We know something of what that body will be like by looking at the resurrected body of Christ.

Flesh and bone (no blood) - Luke 24:39, "Look at my hands and feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."

He will eat - Luke 24:42, "They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he ate it in their presence."

He will not be subject to the laws of physics as we know them. - Read John 20 (appeared in rooms).

The stone was not rolled away from the opening of the tomb to allow Jesus to come out, but to let us see that the tomb was empty.

I Corinthians 15:35-57, "But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come? How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same; men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another, and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another, and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.  

   So it will be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

   If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

   I declare to you brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead in Christ will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

I thought at first that Spring just seems to be the wrong time to die with new life emerging all around. But then I thought—Spring is the time for planting and the waiting for the harvest. The very fact and assurance that Spring will always follow Winter is a promise made by God over 4000 years ago.  

"As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." Genesis 8:22 

Dad, your body is being planted at just the right time. Now we wait for the harvest that is sure to come. God always keeps his promises.   


Next Entry:  Psalm 118