Funeral Sermon: New Creation–Real Hope in the Midst of Our Grief

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Death under any circumstance is terribly difficult, isn’t it? But when death comes suddenly, prematurely, and catastrophically the way it did to Betsy, it is even harder for us to accept. Like Martha in this evening’s Gospel lesson we are tempted to throw our hands up and cry out in despair, “Why did you let this happen, Lord?” If you are hoping that I will give you a definitive answer to that question, you will be sorely disappointed because I cannot. I do not know why God in his infinite love and wisdom for his human creatures allows evil to afflict us in the way that Betsy’s lung disease afflicted her. Neither do I know why God does not let us humans in on the joke, why he does not tell us why he allows evil to exist in his good creation.

All this suggests that we would be much better served if we stopped asking the why questions and concentrated more on what God is doing about the problem of evil and death. If you listened carefully to Jesus’ response to Martha’s “why” question in the Gospel lesson, you noticed that he did just that. Jesus did not answer her question directly. Instead, Jesus gave Martha a much more satisfactory answer and that is what I want to focus on this evening because it is the only basis for real hope and real Good News in the midst of our grief and loss. Specifically I want to offer you a word of Christian hope and look briefly at what that is all about.

From all eternity God has always had a rescue plan to save us from the power of sin and death. It started with the calling of his people Israel and culminated in the death and resurrection of Jesus. That is what the whole narrative of Scripture is about and I obviously don’t have the time to rehearse it all for you tonight (aren’t you glad?). In telling Martha that he is the resur-rection and the life, Jesus was summarizing a story Martha would have known very well, the story of God’s rescue plan for us. But Jesus added a new chapter to it and here it is. God has entered human history in the person of Jesus of Nazareth to rescue us from the tyranny of evil and death by dying on a cross for us so that we could be reconciled to him forever. God did this for us because he loves us and created us to have a relationship with him, not to destroy us.

On the cross, God has dealt decisively with evil and death, bearing himself its terrible consequences and the consequences of our rebellion against him, thereby giving us a real hope and chance to live with him now and forever. “But wait,” you say. “Look around you! Are you kidding? Evil and death are still flourishing! Betsy’s untimely and awful demise is proof of that.” True enough. Evil and death still exist in God’s good but fallen world. But the cross is not the end of the story. As Jesus reminded Martha, his resurrection gives us a preview of coming attractions of what God ultimately has in store for his people.

As both the OT and NT tell us, God does not intend to destroy his world or his people. Instead, he intends to renew it and his people in a mighty act of recreation. When Christ returns in great power and glory, he will bring about his new heavens and earth, what Scripture calls the New Creation. Our mortal bodies will be raised from the dead and we will be given a new resurrection body, the kind of body Jesus has. Our new resurrection body will be impervious to all the nasty things that can afflict our mortal bodies. In the new heavens and earth, the New Creation, there will be no more suffering or separation or sorrow or sickness or disease or evil or death—ever. There will be new life to live and new work to do, work that will bring God praise and glory, life and work that we will find infinitely fulfilling and meaningful. And best of all we will get to live in God’s direct presence forever. We need to be careful about getting too specific about all this because Scripture is not terribly specific. But whatever the New Creation looks like it will surely be more glorious than we can comprehend or imagine because God is its author.

I don’t know about you but I find the hope of New Creation to be a much fuller and richer hope than the idea of dying and going to heaven to spend the rest of eternity as a disembodied spirit as some believe. And from what I know about Betsy, I suspect she would too. A person as full of zest for life and having a passion to help improve the lives of others, in large part by helping improve teaching and learning, would surely relish living in God’s New Creation with her new resurrection body where there will be infinite opportunities for her to continue to grow in her work and love for others.

So why am I telling you all this? Because this is the hope to which Jesus was alluding when he told Martha that he is the resurrection and the life. It is God’s gift of grace offered freely to everyone without exception. This is also the hope to which we commend Betsy this evening.

But what about us? After Jesus finished telling Martha about the hope of New Creation that was in him, he asked Martha the fifty-cent question. “Do you believe this? Do you believe that I am the resurrection and the life? Do you believe that those who live and believe in me will live, even though their bodies die?” Likewise, Jesus asks us the same question in the midst of our grief. “Do you believe this?” The extent to which we can answer yes is the extent to which we can have real hope and real Good News to sustain us in our grief and loss.

May the God of love and power bless us with the grace to answer yes to Jesus’ gracious question. May God bless us with a sure and certain hope so that we know Betsy is with the Lord who loved and claimed her from all eternity. May God also bestow on us a faith that will lead us to affirm the wondrous and mind-blowing truth that nothing in all creation, not the terrible lung disease that afflicted Betsy and not even her death, can separate her from God’s great love in Christ for her (cf. Romans 8.31-39). If you have that kind of hope and faith, you really do have Good News, not only for Betsy, but also for yourself, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Getting Ready to Live in the New Creation

 32 They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. 33 “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.” 35Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” 36 “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. 37 They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”  38 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” 39 “We can,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.” 41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

–Mark 10.32-45 (NIV)

Ever thought of what you will be doing in God’s promised New Creation after your mortal body is raised from the dead and you are given your new resurrection body? If so, pay attention to today’s passage as it gives us some general guidelines. As Jesus makes clear, anyone who follows him had better be prepared to love and serve others because that is how it is going to be in his kingdom.

The disciples clearly don’t get this. Jesus has just told them that he must go to Jerusalem where he will be killed by the authorities there. While they don’t completely understand this they know enough to make them afraid and wonder what on earth he is thinking. In effect, Jesus has just told them that his way is the way of suffering and the cross with his self-giving love about to be poured out for the forgiveness of sins and for our ransom from our slavery to sin and death.

This context makes the conversation between Jesus, James, and John even more remarkable because James and John clearly do not have a clue, not unlike many of us who continue to try and follow Jesus. James and John aren’t interested in the self-sacrifice and suffering stuff. Heck no! They still think Jesus is the ticket to power and glory, the kind of political Messiah that the world of their day would recognize and celebrate (as does our world today). They still equate the kingdom with political power and wealth, with status and prestige.

But Jesus calls them on it and does so rather sharply. “Do you guys have a clue? Do you really know what it means to be a leader in God’s kingdom? Your very question indicates you are clueless and immature! Can you face suffering and death the way I do? Are you willing to give yourself up for the sake of others? Do you even know the meaning of real sacrifice?”

“We do,” they answer. But of course they really do not–at least not yet. James and John sadly will drink the cup Jesus drank and will be baptized with Jesus’ baptism of suffering and death because both would end up being violently martyred. But before Jesus’ death and resurrection they clearly did not get it. They clearly didn’t understand what it meant to be a leader in God’s kingdom.

You see, leadership is not about self-aggrandizement or about being able to have your way whenever you want it. No, real leadership is about self-giving love and service. Real leaders do not look out first and foremost for themselves. They look out for the welfare and benefit of those whom they lead and they put those interests above their own. (They will also spend a lot of time helping to form and cultivate a common purpose so that those who follow can recognize that their leaders are indeed working and acting on their followers’ behalf, but that is a different subject for a different day.)

Servant leadership is Leadership Principle 101 and if you don’t believe me, check out any great leader. He or she won’t be perfect but he or she will consistently demonstrate this principle in his or her conduct. And this is what it will be like in the New Creation. If you want to lead there you had better get prepared for it by training here and now. If you expect this to come naturally you are only kidding yourself because the human heart, hard as it is, is geared toward self-centeredness and self-aggrandizement. It has to be broken and a new set of holy habits have to take its place.

Of course, if you are going to be a servant, you have to have humility, faith, hope, and love. You have to be humble enough to know you are not the center of the universe, that God calls you to serve others. You won’t much want to do that if you do not have a real love for others or if you think you are better than the folks around you. You have to have faith that you are indeed training to be a citizen of God’s kingdom in his New Creation. In other words, you have to have faith that there is a New Creation awaiting you for which you are training. Otherwise, you’d best eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you will die. And of course the hope you have will stem from this faith. Without faith you will not have real hope.

As I suggested yesterday, these virtues do not come easily or naturally. We have to practice them in our own life and together with fellow Christians so that we have some accountability. It isn’t quite as simple as this but you get this idea. Neither do you have to be a leader to practice this because all citizens of the kingdom will have a servant’s heart. We will have that heart because we have learned to develop it over the years and we do that because we love the Lord and love always results in obedience. Not mindless obedience, mind you, but obedience that manifests a keen desire to serve the One who loved us first and gave himself for us in a terrible and costly act.

On the other hand, if you are not inclined to do any of this, chances are you will find the New Creation quite hellish because selfish, self-aggrandizing, and proud behavior will not be allowed there. If you make this kind of living pattern your god, you will certainly find yourself in hell, it seems to me.

But when you learn to live to love and serve others, you learn to be truly free and truly human because you are living in ways that you were created to live and when that happens you will discover that you have peace that passes all understanding as well as meaning, purpose, and contentment. It will be easy for you to do this in the New Creation, in part, because you will be living in God’s direct Presence; whereas here you are not. But it will also be easy to have a servant’s heart because you spent a lifetime here on earth honing and cultivating that kind of heart, with the Spirit’s help of course, so that living in this manner will seem natural and joyous to you in the world to come.

Don’t misunderstand. I am not suggesting that we will have to practice the Christian virtues before we can get into the kingdom. We get into the kingdom by believing in the great love and mercy of God expressed to us in Jesus. But developing the virtues needed to have a servant’s heart will help us live our mortals days with greater richness, meaning, and purpose than if we muck about trying to make life all about us and what we can accumulate. We will find a joy that comes from pleasing our Creator and that is not to be sneezed at.

If you haven’t started to follow Jesus so that you can learn the holy habits of the kingdom, what are you waiting for? It will be the hardest and best decision you will ever make.