Sermon preached on August 22, 2026 at the funeral of a former parishioner and founding member of the parish. May he continue to rest in peace and RISE IN GLORY. As always, it will be helpful for you to read the assigned texts by clicking on or tapping their links below before you read the sermon. Here I emphasize why it is so important for Christian ministers to preach on the Death and Resurrection of Christ at Christian funerals. It is the only balm for our grieving souls. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

Lectionary texts: Revelation 21.1-7; Psalm 23; 1 Corinthians 15.1-26, 35-38, 42-44a, 53-58; Saint John 11.17-27.

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

I am Kevin Maney, a retired priest in the Anglican Tradition, and I am here today at the invitation of Len’s family. Thank you, Sharon, for allowing me the privilege of preaching and presiding at his funeral. I have known Len for a long time. Back in the day we were neighbors and friends. His death is deeply personal and my heart aches as I grieve the loss of my longtime friend. I therefore do not come here today as an impartial preacher; I grieve with the rest of you. But neither do I come to eulogize the dead because even the most eloquent eulogies will not bring the dead back to life, no matter how well the life was lived—and Len lived his well, he was one of the good guys. Instead I come to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ crucified and raised from the dead because only Christ can and will restore the dead to new life. We all need to be reminded of our Resurrection hope because as we shall see, it is the only real balm for our grieving hearts and I strongly encourage you to embrace that hope fully today.

Death under any circumstance is hard, isn’t it? But when it is preceded by an extended period of suffering, disability, and pain, it is especially odious. Death is the ultimate form of Evil because it robs us of our human dignity as God’s image-bearers and can leave survivors stunned and angry when it occurs suddenly or unjustly. Death ends permanently the things we cherish most about our intimate relationships in this mortal life and in being human. We can no longer see our beloved, hear them, touch them, smell them or interact with them as we did before they died. Our Lord Jesus also knew this about the evil of Death because Saint John reports that he snorted in anger at his friend Lazarus’ tomb just before raising him to life (St. John 11.38), a preview of coming attractions for us. Death is our ultimate enemy, the last enemy to be destroyed as Saint Paul reminds us in our epistle lesson. It entered God’s good world as the result of human sin and has inflicted its evil on us ever since. Like Martha in today’s gospel lesson we want to throw our hands up in desperation and ask why God allows this to happen.

But if you paid attention to our gospel lesson, you heard Jesus talk about a breathtaking hope—hope defined as the sure and certain expectation of things to come, not wishful thinking—as he gave Martha and us an ultimately more satisfactory answer to her “why” question about Evil and Death. Jesus did not answer her question directly. Instead, echoing Psalm 23, he acknowledged that while Evil and Death still exist in God’s good but sin-corrupted world, he had come to destroy their power over us, which he did, at least initially, in his Death and Resurrection.

That is why Christian funerals are so important. They serve to remind us that for those who are in Christ, Evil and Death do not have the final say because of God’s great love for us expressed in the Death and Resurrection of Christ. As Jesus tells us in our gospel lesson, resurrection isn’t a concept, it’s a person, and those like Len who are united with Christ in a real and living relationship are promised a share in his Resurrection (cf. Romans 6.3-5) when he returns to raise the dead and usher in God’s new world. Jesus’ new bodily existence attests to the fact that we humans—body, mind, and spirit, the total package—matter to God, and that new bodily existence, not death or some ethereal disembodied experience, is our final destiny for all eternity. This is what resurrection is about. This is what we celebrate today and why we can celebrate at all.

Saint Paul talks about the nature of our promised resurrection body in our epistle lesson and it is worth our time to review what he has to say. Saint Paul tells us that unlike our mortal body that is subject to disease, decay, and death, the resurrection body with which we will be clothed will be like Jesus’ resurrected body. It will be a spiritual body, that is, it will be a body animated and powered by the Holy Spirit instead of being animated and powered by flesh and blood as our mortal bodies are. This means that our new body will no longer be subject to all the nasty illnesses, diseases, and decay to which our mortal body is subjected. Whatever our new body looks like—and surely it will be more beautiful and wonderful than our minds dare comprehend or imagine—it will be impervious to death and suited to live in God’s promised new world, the new heavens and earth. 

When Christ returns to raise the dead and usher in God’s promised new creation, the dimensions of heaven and earth will no longer be separate domains for God and humans respectively, and which currently only intersect. Instead, as Revelation 21 promises, the new Jerusalem, NT code for God’s space (heaven), will come down to earth (human space) and the two will be fused together in a mighty act of new creation so that all forms of darkness and evil will be banished and we will finally get to live in God’s direct Presence forever, just like our first ancestors did before they rebelled against God, only infinitely better. There will be no more sorrow or separation or sickness or suffering or pain or death or evil of any kind. We will be reunited with our loved ones who have died in Christ and get to live forever with our new body and limitless new opportunities to be the humans God created and always intended for us to be. To be sure, this promise of new heavens and earth has not yet been fully realized and so we must wait in hope and faith for our Lord Jesus to return to usher it in—that is why Death is the last Enemy to be destroyed. But even if we must wait, the promise of new creation is the only solution that will ultimately satisfy our hunger for justice and life because only in God’s new creation will all the injustices and hurts in this life be made right and Evil vanquished. In this case, Len’s life, body, and faculties will be fully restored (what better justice for the injustice of his massive suffering?) and severed relationships caused by death will made whole and complete again, a life of perfect health and happiness that will last forever, thanks be to God! What can be more just and right and awesome than that?

Please don’t misunderstand. I am not suggesting that we should not grieve; that would be cruel nonsense. You don’t love a person for an entire lifetime and then not grieve his loss when he dies. But as Saint Paul reminded the Thessalonians, we are to grieve as people who have real hope and not as those who have none at all. It is this resurrection hope, the promise of new bodily life in God’s new heavens and earth, that we claim and proclaim today. Our resurrection hope is the only real basis we have for celebrating Len’s life, worthy as it was, because without union with Christ, none of us have life in this world or the next, we are merely dust in the wind.

And now we return to Jesus’ question to Martha and us in our gospel lesson. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this? If you do, then act like you do, as people who have a real hope and future, irrespective of your mortal status! Here is a practical suggestion to help you get started. When you remember Len, choose to remember him in his prime, at the peak of his power, not in his later years in his infirmity. Why? Because when Christ raises him from the dead, he will once again be in his prime, only on steroids, this time forever, fully restored and healed. In this and other ways, let the Lord Jesus offer you real consolation in your grief so that you can live and proclaim his gospel boldly and faithfully in your life. 

I don’t know why God allows all the suffering and bad things that happen in this world. I don’t know why Len was afflicted as he was. I don’t know why he and his family, especially Sharon, had to endure it all as it unfolded. None of it had to go that way, yet it did. But I do know this. Len has been washed clean by the blood of the Lamb shed for him on the cross and made fit to stand in God’s holy Presence forever. He will be clothed one day with a new body patterned after the body of his Lord Jesus and set free to love and use his talents in spectacular new and old ways that honor God and others forever. I know that on the cross, Len’s sin, along with ours, has been dealt with once and for all. I know that Death will be abolished in God’s new world because Sin will be abolished and Death is the result of Sin. Both will be absent in the new heavens and earth. How do I know this you ask? I know all this because Jesus Christ is raised from the dead, the embodiment and initial fulfillment of our Resurrection hope and promise.

The promise is mind-boggling. But the God we worship is mind-boggling. After all, we worship the God who has the power to raise the dead and call into existence things that don’t exist (Romans 4.17)—nothing is too hard for God. Jesus’ promise that he is the resurrection and the life is ours, not because we are deserving, but because of who God is, our God and Father who created us to have life with him forever, and who is embodied in Jesus Christ raised from the dead. That is why we can rejoice today, even in the midst of our grief and sorrow. Because of his faith in Christ who loves him and who has claimed him from all eternity, we can have confidence that Len is enjoying his rest in heaven, safe in Christ’s care, until God’s new creation and the resurrection of our mortal bodies come in full. And that, of course, is Good News, not only for Len, but also for the rest of us, now and for all eternity. 

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