Certainty: Sermon for the Rite of Christian Burial of Robert James McLaughlin

Funeral Sermon for Robert James McLaughlin
September 17, Year of Our + Lord 2021

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Custer, South Dakota

Certainty               
Job 19:23-27, 1^st Corinthians 15:1-26, John 11:17-27

    To Debra, and all the family, to Linda and Denny and all the friends of Robert McLaughlin, to all those gathered here this morning to mourn, to remember and to celebrate the gifts of God received in and through the life of Bob:

 Grace, mercy and Peace to you, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. 

    Robert James McLaughlin was born into this world on March 21^st, Year of Our + Lord 1928, in St. Cloud, Minnesota.  He was baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, thereby clothed by the grace of God in the righteous robes of Christ Jesus, baptismal robes which covered Bob his entire life.  Bob was called to the vocations of husband to Patricia, father to Deborah, grandfather, uncle, and friend to many.  As a truckdriver and a flatbed specialist to boot, he brought good things to people, people who may never have imagined the hard work required for them to get their stuff.  Over the course of 93 years the Lord worked through Bob to bless many, and we rejoice to celebrate today the good work that God has completed in Bob, welcoming him into the sleep of the blessed death of all believers.  Bob rests in peace with Jesus, awaiting the final trumpet and the resurrection of all flesh, the revelation of the new heavens and the new earth, the sure hope of glory. 

   We who are left behind in this troubled world have many needs and desires today.  Our love and friendship with Bob make us mourn.  We want to remember, to celebrate, to speak of Bob.  Most of all the death of a loved one creates in us a great need for certainty.  Certainty that we know the truth about life, and death, and just what is our final significance.  Who are we, and do we matter?  All of us, some gradually, others suddenly, but all of us will face the fact that life, even when it endures 93 years, is still all too short.  So we want and need certainty about all those things I said in my opening paragraph, about Bob and life and death and God and eternity. 

   Certainty can seem hard to achieve.  Ever since March of 2020, there has been a worldwide shortage of certainty.  Governments, scientists, medical professionals and literally billions of people have tried but failed to gain certainty concerning what exactly is the truth about this new plague.  What is true, and what is false and unreliable?  This certainty problem has been more obvious lately.  But certainty is always hard to come by. 

   On a less dramatic but still important topic, a number of factors left my opening obituary short on certain details.  I am a relatively new pastor here, and while Our Redeemer Lutheran Church was in between pastors, COVID19 made doing the normal things of church life particularly difficult.  We aren’t all the way out of those dark pandemic woods yet.  So, while I have no doubt that Bob was baptized into Christ, I didn’t find a record of the date.  I don’t know, but the Lord knows.  There are many things about Bob’s walk with Christ that I do not know.  But God knows them all. 

   However, I do know this detail.  Two months before his 90^th birthday, on January 21^st, 2018, Bob was led by the Holy Spirit to stand before this altar and publicly profess the Christian faith, as he became a communicant member of this congregation, Our Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church, of Custer, South Dakota.

   And so we rejoice today, even amidst the sadness and tears and whatever other emotions rise within us.  We rejoice, not that it is a particularly amazing thing that Bob professed his faith and joined Our Redeemer congregation.  Rather, we rejoice because Bob was connected by faith to Jesus, that he found certainty in the words of Job.  Bob knew that his Redeemer lives, and that one day Bob, along with Job, would see Him with his own eyes. 

   Death makes mortal men and women doubt and fear, and rightly so.  The world can talk all it wants about the circle of life, or that death is natural, that it’s o.k.  But when death takes one whom you love, or when death draws near to you, there is no romanticizing it.  Even when death is in some ways a relief, as the end of suffering, it is still a shallow helper.  Death is wrong.   It is a sign that something is terribly wrong.  Death is our enemy.  But we are powerless to defeat death.  That is a cruel certainty of life in this world that seems inescapable. 

   But Job, even in the midst of terrible suffering, was certain that his Redeemer lived.  So was Bob.  I’m not suggesting that Job or Bob never had doubts.  But along with their doubts, the Holy Spirit gave them faith, faith in the promises of God, faith that gave them certainty, in the midst of doubts. 

   And so also you should be certain.  For our Redeemer Jesus Christ is the answer to death.  His self-sacrificing death, the death of God’s Son made man, is our certainty, along with His indestructible new life, so clearly explained by St. Paul in our reading from 1^st Corinthians,.  Jesus is the victor over death.  And not just over death. 

   Death was not part of God’s original plan, but human rebellion and selfishness introduced a new factor into human existence.  The power of death is sin, doing wrong, rejecting God’s way, hurting people, most often hurting people you love, who turn around and hurt us.  We can try to pretend sin isn’t real, but death makes that very difficult.  For death comes to us because of sin.  

   So, to give you certainty, your Redeemer Jesus not only faced your death; He also faced your sin. And my sin.  All the sin of everybody.  Sin and death are both defeated, by Christ crucified and resurrected.  Of this you can be certain.  This is the beating heart of the Christian faith.  And it is a faith.  We walk by faith, not by sight, believing the promises God has given us in Christ, even though we can’t see them.  God in His wisdom does not give us certainty by providing visual or physical evidence that we could measure in a lab like a virus or an antibody, demonstrating with empirical certainty that faith in Jesus Christ overcomes death.  God does not give us empirical certainty about His plan for our salvation.  He gives us something better. 

   We need something better, because all the certainties of this world fail in the face of death.  The pain that Martha in our Gospel reading felt at the death of her brother Lazarus was not merely a passing, material anguish. Martha was grieved in her soul; the wrongness of her brother’s death plagued her spirit.  And it is to this moment that Jesus comes to give certainty, by giving Himself.  Jesus gave Himself to win the certainty of forgiveness, which is poured out in baptismal waters, the certainty of love, revealed in cruciform suffering, the certainty of His indestructible life, delivered to Martha, to Job, to St. Paul, to Robert McLaughlin, and to you.

   You should certainly mourn Bob’s passing, even as you remember and celebrate his life.  But don’t just celebrate his 93 years, with all their ups and downs.  Celebrate the life of Bob that goes on, forever, in Jesus Christ, Bob’s Savior, and yours.  Celebrate Bob’s victory, in Christ Jesus, and seek that same certainty for yourself and the loved ones still with you.  Profess the faith which the Church of Christ proclaims.  Gather to receive the gifts the Lord has for you in Word and Sacrament.  Seek the Lord while He may be found, and rest in the peace which passes all understanding, and which keeps your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, unto life everlasting, Amen.