Funeral of Syd Wilhelm [Job 10:12] (26-Jun-2015)

This sermon was preached at St Mark's Lutheran Church, Mt Barker, 11am.

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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

You have granted me life and steadfast love,
and your care has preserved my spirit.

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, breathe out upon us all your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.

I have chosen this verse today for our funeral service today, because it happens to be one of my favourite verses. It comes from the book of Job, which we normally think about as a book about suffering. The man Job loses all that he has, his wife and his children, his possessions, his livestock, and he even loses his good health, and finds himself sitting in the dirt covered with ashes. But all throughout the book of Job there are little glimmers of sunlight that keep shining through the clouds.

This little verse is a one such glimmer of sunlight: You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.

Actually, as a pastor, this has been one of my favourite passages to read to people when they are expecting a child or have just had a child. A couple of verses before, we have an absolutely delightful picture about the way God has created us, where it says: Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. And then our verse: You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.

So we can see we have a little dairy farming verse, about milk and cheese, and even God knits us together with bones and sinews, much like a knitted doll—I thought this passage has got the Wilhelm family written all over it!

But the reason why I have particularly chosen this little verse is because often when we pastors have to sit and think about preaching at a funeral, I often think: How is this funeral different? And more importantly, What’s different and unique about this person? It always amazes just how different and unique each person is, and then when they die, how different each situation is. Sure, many people lead similar kinds of lives, but not with the same people around. God calls each of us, not just as individual people, but he places us in the company of certain people. He calls us not to live on a desert island by ourselves, but he calls us to live together with certain people, whom he has called then to live with us.

And so, when I think about Syd, there are a few things that strike me: and that is that he was given a long, full life, which is a wonderful blessing from God. But also, he was given a long, happy marriage of 71 years—it’s rare to meet people like that today, and gives other married people who are still many years behind that milestone something to look up to, and again, it’s a wonderful blessing from God. And also, he was given a loving family. To have someone who lived so long, in such a long marriage, with such a family is much rarer today than we think. It’s sad that Syd has died, and yet, still we can look back on his life as a whole and say that it was a good life, with a happy ending.

Of course, there are plenty of people who are not blessed in the same way—some people have unhappy marriages, sometimes by no fault of their own, and have what seems like their unfair share of unhappiness. These people are often richly blessed through sharing in Christ’s suffering and in his cross. But also good things in life are a wonderful blessings, and when they happen, we should celebrate them, and give thanks to God for them.

And so the verse says: You have granted me life. It is not Syd who granted himself a life. It is not Syd who worked and earned for himself 92 years for himself. God it the one who graciously gave this to him, without anything contribution from Syd. God is the one who appointed his fixed time here on this earth, and had his particularly number of days numbered. Job says: You have granted me life.

And it is God who gave to Syd a long and happy marriage of 71 years. Jesus himself says that marriages are not simply just worked out between us—it’s not just that boy meets girl and that’s it. It’s God who introduces them to each other, he’s the matchmaker. Jesus says in Matthew: What God has joined together, let no one separate. It is God who created Syd, and it is he who joined Syd and Marj for their many years together.

And it is God who is the giver of a family. It is him who also pours out the new generation like milk and curdles them too like cheese.

Wouldn’t it be a terrible thing if God had given us life, but then we lived as if this same God hated us and had no interest in us? Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing?

We read our verse: You have given me life, but not just life. You have given me life and steadfast love. The same God that gives us life, also gives us steadfast love. It’s not as if we say that God is merciful, but at the end of the day, it’s up to him to do whatever he likes. But God has told us that he won’t just do whatever he likes. He sent his Son, Jesus, to die for us, and to rise again from the dead for us, because he wants you to know that he has committed himself to this world, and he will love you to the end. It’s not that God might give us steadfast love, it’s that he promises it to us. He wants to make us doubly sure. His Son has died and risen, and then all of the wonderful gifts that Jesus of forgiveness of sins, life and salvation the Holy Spirit has poured right onto your head when you were baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Syd was also baptised in the same way—and it’s not just water that was put on Syd, but God’s word, God’s eternal promise that he has made this person his child. And all throughout our life, we continue to grow in our understanding of God’s word, to hear his gospel, to receive the body and blood of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper, to be allowed to come into God’s presence to pray and bring all our needs to him. This is God showing his steadfast love. You have given me life and steadfast love.

But then the bible verse also says: You have given me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.

Remember Jesus when he was on the cross, and he said: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. This is a wonderful passage which is a great prayer for Christians as they prepare for death. And it also shows that just as God has preserved our spirits by his care all throughout our lives, he continues to preserve our spirits right into the next life, when we look forward to being with Jesus in Paradise. And our spirits are preserved right up to that wonderful time, when we will be raised from the dead with our bodies, and reunited with our souls in a wonderful glorious way, and transfigured just like Jesus and his glorious body. And we see this in the second reading we heard today where it says: For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

And we also remember the words from the Gospel reading today, where Jesus says: I am the resurrection and the life. Jesus doesn’t just gives us life in this life, but he also gives us life, and promises us a resurrection and a future with him and all the saints and angels for eternity.

And so, we read our bible verse again: You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit. We give thanks to God for Syd’s life and all the many blessings that so many people have received from him. But Syd’s death may be sad for us, but it’s not sad for him, and so we look forward that wonderful time when we will be with Jesus and all of his people and be reunited by Jesus with Syd and with all those people who believed in Jesus. And so isn’t it a wonderful thing that God has not just granted Syd life and steadfast love, but he also has granted us life and steadfast love, and right up until today, we pray that God’s care would also preserve our spirits.

Before we finish, I’d just like to say something for Marj. We know just how close you and Syd were, and I remember when Syd went into hospital, you said that this was the longest time you’d been apart. Well, you have had another husband for even longer that Syd right from the day when you were baptised and become not just God’s child, but we joined to Jesus who is our heavenly bridegroom. And even though our earthly marriages are only for a set time, our eternal marriage is forever and ever. And even through the time when Syd was in hospital, Jesus your heavenly husband had never left your side, and he still won’t.

We read in Psalm 68 that God is the Father of the fatherless and protector of widows. It’s been such a wonderful gift for Marj to have someone to pick you up when your down and the same was for Syd. We never actually really belong to our husbands or wives—they are simply a gift from Jesus. And when Jesus then takes us to himself, then it’s a happy thing, and we are just waiting for the same Jesus to take us to himself. So Jesus has never let you down before, and he is not about to let you down now. Jacob sent his family across the river Jabbok, before he wrestled with God until he blessed him and then met his brother Esau the next day. In the same, Syd has just crossed the river ahead of us. God will send us there in his own time, and even though we might feel like wrestling with him for a little while, Jesus, our brother, and our heavenly bridegroom, will never let us go until he blesses us. In fact, he always keeps us with him, and he always blesses us.

So be encouraged. We were having a joke earlier in the week that Syd had always wanted to sing “Fight the good fight” as his marriage hymn! But no—“fight the good fight” isn’t a marriage hymn—it’s for this course of this life. Our marriage with Jesus keeps on going, and it is never a fight. It is a fight against our flesh, and the world, and the devil, but now, we trust that Jesus has fulfilled his wonderful promise for Syd, just as he promises for us. And so St Paul says: Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which we you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. Holy Spirit, come to us, and may these words also be true for us! You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.

Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.