[The sermon I preached for my aunt’s memorial service at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Albany, OR.]

Audio of the sermon is here:

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Family and friends of Chris, especially Aaron and Franki, Kellen, Harlow, and Ellis, Kathie and Anne: the grace of God and the mercy of Jesus and the comfort of the Holy Spirit be with you today as you grieve, though not as those who have no hope, but as those who share with Chris confidence in the coming resurrection.

Though it’s very fragmentary and hazy, I remember, as a child, visiting an old farm house, which my mom says was in Klickitat, Washington [actually, it was probably in Silverton, OR], where Chris and George lived, and I remember playing with Lincoln logs that George had made (which I think my brothers and I played with for a very long time, and I believe they’re still around for our children to play with). She was often with our family at Christmases, and then with Aaron, too. For most of my childhood, and probably through at least college, I received a card on my birthday. We called her “Auntie Chris” as children.

As an adult, I still called her Auntie Chris, but I came to know more about her as a person, and not just as one of the adults related to me. I learned more about her life, about her struggles and difficulties, and about her health issues. I think I remember most clearly her distinctive and infectious laugh. I certainly never heard her complain, though she faced many different challenges.

As a Christian, I call her sister. All the members of Christ’s body, because He has made us children of His heavenly Father, are brothers and sisters of Jesus, and so brothers and sisters of each other. We all know that human relationships can be difficult, full of sin and conflict. But in spite of those difficulties, we are bound to these particular people by birth, by God’s providence. We often do our best to mess up those relationships, but it is exactly there that we learn how to love, how to forgive, how to serve those who often hurt us the most, because they are closest to us. When those we love die, we often feel that sting of sin, and its power in the law of God, that is, how things should be, but often aren’t.

In the midst of that, and beyond it, to be united to each other in Christ means that those wounds that we give and that are given to us can be healed. We can find peace that is unavailable to those who are not in Christ, because we know that Jesus takes all sin on Himself, and makes peace between us and God, and then between us and other people. It is not necessarily easy, and sometimes it is extremely hard, but that is why we continue to pray, every single day, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

That human relationship, between people who are in Christ, is the most important human relationship. We call each other Christians, brothers and sisters, fellow redeemed in the Lord. But as a pastor, and here today in the midst of grief, as important as what we call each other in our human relationships: sister, mother, grandmother, aunt—what is most important is not what we called Chris, and not what we call each other, but what God calls us. “Fear not,” says the One who created Chris and each one of us, “for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine” (Isaiah 43:1). What we call each other might change; it’s changed by time, by sin, by death. But when God calls you, He never takes it back. When He called Chris in Holy Baptism by His own holy Name, Father-Son-Spirit, He made a promise to her. I have called you by Name. You are Mine. He joined her to Jesus’ death and resurrection, so that her death would be over and done with in His. Now our death is just the way He gets us to resurrection.

Because of the death of the eternal Son of God in flesh, a day is coming when death will be swallowed up forever, when God Himself will wipe every tear from every face, and the reproach, the shame, of His people He will take away from off the earth. When we see Him with Chris on that day, we will say, “This is our God. We have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.” On that day, when the perishable, dying things of this creation, these perishable, dying bodies, are clothed with the imperishable, undying life of Christ, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

We know very well—too well—the perishable and the mortal. We know the humbling nature of this life, as we keep trying to reach for what we think will make us happy, what the world calls the good life, what we naturally assume of the people we naturally call the “greatest” in this world. But Jesus has a different standard for greatness in Matthew 18, which was the assigned Gospel reading for yesterday. He uses children as the measure of that greatness. And it’s not because they’re cute and innocent. It’s not because they’re naturally good. It’s because they’re helpless, dependent, and in need. Who are the greatest under the reign of Jesus? Those who need the most help, who suffer the most, who are most dependent.

Chris needed help with various things, and that dependence shows us something that is true of all of us, related to Jesus. We are all entirely dependent on the gracious gifts of God for both our bodies and our souls. We are entirely dependent on Jesus for His mercy and forgiveness. I doubt that Chris asked to be humbled in those ways, but when this life humbled her, she learned what we must all learn eventually: to be turned from our own claims to be self-sufficient, self-made, independent, not needing anything from anyone. It is precisely those who are dependent, in need of mercy, asking and relying on God for everything we have and everything we need whom Jesus brings in to His Kingdom.

He welcomed Chris in to that Kingdom as an infant 74 years ago, and He kept her as His own dear child until He welcomed her into His nearer presence. But that is not all. Things are still not quite as they should be. Her perishable and mortal body, and ours, still wait for the imperishable and the immortal. We still wait with her for our lowly bodies to be made like Christ’s glorious, resurrection body. We may not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: the dead will be raised, and we will all be changed. No more hospitals, no more nursing homes, no more diabetes, no more sickness, no more death. No more tears, no more pain, no more crying anymore.

The seventh-century English Christian, Bede, whom the Church remembers on May 27, wrote this: “Christ is the morning star, who when the night of this world is past, brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day” (The Venerable Bede, on Revelation 2:28). When the night of this world is past, the baptized, believing children of God in Christ will be reunited in the everlasting day of eternal and resurrection life. Chris is halfway there; God grant it to each one of us to join her forever in the light of the morning-star, Christ, who is Life itself, our life.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 9/7/23