Steven Dale Aves
Born December 6th, Year of Our + Lord 1948 in Lansing, Michigan
Baptized into Christ January 29th, Year of Our + Lord 1956
at Seymour Ave. Methodist
Church, of Lansing, Michigan
Married
in Christ February 17th, Year of Our + Lord 1973
at St. Matthew’s Lutheran
Church of Holt, Michigan
Confirmed in Christ, Year of Our + Lord
1973
also at St. Matthew’s
Lutheran Church of Holt, Michigan
Died in Christ August 3rd, Year of Our + Lord 2022
at the Veterans Administration
Regional Medical Center in Denver, Colorado
Soli Deo Gloria – To God Alone Be Glory
Deanna, Julie, Wesley,
Cillian and Dexter, Kelly, Leighton, to the family and friends of Steve: Grace, Mercy and Peace to you, from God our
Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Get dressed.
Deanna shared with me how she
and Steve used Portals of Prayer for their devotions, and how she has saved the
devotion for June 21, titled “Get Dressed,” based on our Old Testament
reading. This devotion helps her, on
those days when the sadness is so deep, helps her to remember God’s promises,
and His call that she should get about her day.
It is good and right to mourn the death of a loved one, and some days we
may not be able to do much. But as Steve
reminded Deanna in his last weeks on earth, the Lord has more plans for her, more
things to do through Deanna, even as he has plans and tasks for each of us.
Get dressed. A helpful devotion for Deanna. And we remarked, also a fitting way to think
about the life of Steve. He was a beloved
husband, father, grandfather, friend. Steve got up everyday and got dressed, to
get to work. As the Lord said to
Jeremiah, “But you, dress yourself for work; arise, and say
to them everything that I command you,” so also Steve each day set about
the tasks that he understood the Lord had given to him.
My privilege to know and work closely with
Steve, and to gather for worship with him, this privilege for me only lasted these
last 18 months. I don’t know so much
about his earlier life. But I know a few
things. Born in 1948, Steve heard the
call to get dressed in a soldier’s uniform and serve in Vietnam, as an Army
infantryman. Nothing glorious or pleasant
about that call. But Steve got dressed,
and served his country with honor.
In 1973 Steve got up and got dressed as a
bridegroom, and fulfilled the tasks of husband to Deanna for the next 50 years. Fifty years as husband, and then also father,
and grandfather.
Steve got up and got dressed to work as a
grocer for decades, earning and saving and carefully spending to provide for
his family. Through this he also served his
neighbors, his coworkers, employers and customers.
Over time Steve was called to dress as a family
man, a community man, and a church man.
Again and again as we consider Steve’s life, we see him getting up, getting
dressed and doing the work he was called to, serving the people that God had
put around him in his life. Steve served
a great deal in this little church. We
have multiple roles to fill here at Our Savior’s, as Steve was one of my
elders, and our treasurer, and our altar guild. He kept the candles looking
good, but he also always got the absolute most out of each candle, before
replacing them.
But as wonderful as they are, none of these
different sets of clothes that Steve put on morning by morning are the most
important thing. Not to God, and not to
Steve. When we lose someone we love, it
is quite natural for us mortal creatures to focus on the various ways that the
dearly departed served, to talk about all the good they did. And that’s o.k., as long as we keep one thing
clear: for our Lord, and so also for the Christian, none of these things we get
up and get dressed and go do have any eternal value, unless we
are first dressed by God for His eternal banquet.
You see, none of our clothing nor the works
we do in them make us fit for God’s heaven.
Jeremiah was called by the Lord to get dressed for work precisely
because God’s people Israel were not doing their job right. Called by God to be His chosen people, set
apart and richly blessed, the people of Israel were in return called to the
work of faithfulness, to loving, trusting and worshiping only the Lord God. They sometimes outwardly dressed the part,
but they constantly failed to fulfill it.
God’s people gave in again and again to temptations to mix other false
religions in with their true worship, temptations to ignore God’s ways and laws,
and instead walk in the sinful ways of their neighbors. Which is to say, they were a lot like we are:
sinners, constantly prone to turning our back on God, despite all He has done
for us.
Jeremiah feared and tried to avoid God’s
call for good reason; his work was to condemn his countrymen’s sin and warn of coming
invaders, invading enemies sent by the Lord, to punish Israel and take them
into exile. Jeremiah put on the
prophet’s mantle, and accepted the prophet’s lonely way, in hope of turning his
people back to God. Even though he knew
that defeat and exile were coming.
How did Jeremiah do it? How did he bear up under this terrible
task? Because Jeremiah was also given
another message, a message of future hope, a message of return and forgiveness
and renewal. For example, in chapter 23
of Jeremiah the Lord proclaims:
3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of
all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their
fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4 I
will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no
more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.
5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign
as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the
land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved,
and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will
be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’
That righteous Branch who would come and
save Israel is also the Righteous Savior who came and saved Steve, who comes
still today to bring forgiveness and salvation to you and me. Jesus, God the Father’s eternal Son, laid
aside His robes of heavenly glory and got dressed in the flesh of mankind, to
be about the work His Father gave Him.
The Creator of the universe made His earthly debut as a naked baby,
wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Jesus wore the clothes of a child, of a
carpenter, of a wandering preacher, all to complete the task His Father had
given Him, the task of providing eternal clothes that prepare sinners for
heaven. And in a divine and awesome
mystery, the Son of God, in order to win for us forgiveness and Godly
righteousness, even submitted to suffering.
Dressed in royal robes by mocking Roman soldiers, then stripped naked
and nailed to a cross, Jesus hung in the place of unfaithful Israel, and in
your place and in my place, suffering our punishment, in order to give us the
robe of His perfection, His sinless holiness and righteousness.
So, when on the third day He rose from the
dead, (for death could never hold onto the Author of Life), Jesus left His last
earthly clothes neatly folded on the bench where His dead body had lain. For Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had lowered
Jesus from the Cross and dressed Him in burial clothes. But Jesus no longer needs those burial
clothes, for He is risen. Death is
defeated, once and for all. Clothed in
all the glory of heaven, the resurrected Savior came forth from the tomb, to
share the Good News of His victory with Mary, and Peter and John, and the
Eleven. The Good News of forgiveness
delivered through the ministry of forgiven sinners, sharing God’s love with
other sinners.
Forgiveness delivered through common things,
like water, combined with God’s Holy Name.
For all who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, are clothed
with Christ. His righteousness covers their sin and thus they are dressed for
heaven, by God’s amazing grace.
These are the clothes that mattered most to
Steve, and they are the most valuable thing for you, too. The robes of Christ’s righteousness, given
freely to all who recognize their sinful need and trust in the forgiving love
of Jesus, poured out on the Cross, these are the only clothes that make you
right with God.
Being clothed in Jesus’ robes, knowing that
despite your sin, God forgives and accepts you for Jesus’ sake, this is the
only way to dress, the only way to live, forever and ever, Amen. And these invisible clothes received by faith
are not just for the distant future.
They also change your today. Freed
by Christ from fear and guilt, the Christian is set free to love, to serve, to
sacrifice, because the Christian has already received all the riches and glory
of God’s Kingdom, by faith in Jesus. The
Christian does not fight for his country or love his bride or raise his
children to earn God’s favor, or in fear that God will punish him if he
doesn’t. No, the Christian is simply set
free to love as Christ first loved us.
We saw this in Steve. But even more, because as Steve would be
first to tell you, he was still a sinner, we saw Steve’s faith in the way he
kept putting on the full armor of God, week after week. Steve kept returning to the Source, to have
his faith renewed. Returning to the
places he knew Jesus had promised to meet Him: in His Word, in the gathered
congregation, in the the Holy Supper of Christ’s Body and Blood. Here, again and again, Steve’s robes were
washed clean, pure bright shining white.
Washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb.
Steve’s soul now rests with the Lamb, awaiting
that day when the trumpet will sound and the bodies of the dead in Christ will
rise to meet their Savior in the sky, to live, body and soul reunited in His
glorious presence forever and ever, with the Spirit and the Father, and all the
saints and angels. In this in between
time, Steve would have you hear again today this truth: only unforgiven sin can soil your clothes and
exlcude you from God’s heavenly banquet hall.
But in Christ Jesus, crucified, resurrected and ascended to God’s right
hand, all sins of mankind have been forgiven.
Steve got dressed in this precious Gospel to his dying day. You should too. Get dressed in Christ and His
forgiving love. Because it is for you,
today, and forever and ever, Amen.
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