Contents Order: Funeral text; Message; Graveside Committal. The prayers I do not use as written, but use as a guide to work from during the service. The theological part of the message is written in terms that unbelievers will understand.
FUNERAL
Prelude
Closing of the Casket
Seating of the Family
Rev. 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
May the blessings of the Lord our God be upon us as we come before him this day.
Welcome
Welcome, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Lois Vochoska. Who was known by God in her mother’s womb, who came to know the Lord God through an anointed relationship with Jesus Christ, and who is now in full communion with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Opening Prayer
We come before you this afternoon to celebrate the life of our sister Lois. We thank you so much for the gift of her life and for the time we were able to spend with her. Lord God, You formed us from the dust of the earth and by your breath you gave us life you made us in your image and you are the one who holds us in your care, we come to you, asking you to be with us now in both strength and power.
We know that Lois is with you and we know that she is now in the great company of faith in your glorious presence, and we know we will be with her again at some time in the future.
We ask that you encircle us with your love, wash us with your peace, and move within our hearts.
May the presence of the Holy Spirit be upon us all...We ask this all in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord - Amen.
BELL CHIOR: It is well with my soul
1Th. 4:13-18 NIV
Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
Therefore encourage each other with these words.
Rom 8:39-39 NIV
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Rev. 21:1-5 NIV
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”
HYMN: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty
MESSAGE (see next section for message)
TIME OF PERSONAL SHARING
(family members first, then others)
Pastoral Prayer
Jesus our Lord, You have given us a new and living hope in Jesus Christ. We thank you, that by dying you destroyed the power of death, and by rising from the grave you opened the way to eternal life.
We know that because you live, we shall live also and that neither life nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be able to separate us from your love.
Your love cares for us in life and watches over us in death. We thank you for the assurance that is such in the kingdom of God
We ask the you be with Lois’ family, Lord have mercy on them. We commit them to you in your unfailing love and into your merciful care.
May your full peace be with them in power and in the times tears and memories, may you surround them with your Holy Spirit, and walk with them through this time.
We ask all of this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord – Amen
Ensemble: Let Us Pray
23 Psalm (KJV)
HYMN: God Be With You Till We Meet Again
Benediction: {given standing right behind the casket}
May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep within your hearts and minds, in the knowledge and love of God, and of the Son Jesus Christ our Lord, and the blessings of the almighty - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be with you always.
Amen.
{Procession of casket out of the church)
Postlude
MESSAGE
Remember her laugh?
Lois had a great laugh. She could be in a noisy room full of people, multiple conversations drowning out each other, and rising above it all, was an inspiring moment of hope – everyone caught it, everyone knew whose it was, and for a brief time we received a gift. Sometimes, it is the little things that matter the most, sometimes it is those things that we are almost completely unaware of that make our lives rich.
Little Lauren would show up at the door to play. Lois would call on Virgil to help get things ready while she set up for tea time. Lauren would sit down while Lois would set the table with the tea set reserved for such a special occasion – her one hundred year old set of china. To Lois, this was the most wonderful way to spend an afternoon.
Right there. That right there. Doesn’t that embody who she is? Because people matter. One hundred year old china is one hundred year old china, but a little neighbor girl, that’s precious.
It seems Lois knew things about life that many people are completely unaware of.
Generous, always full of love, always, always had time for us, a bit strong willed, sometimes a little quirky, determined, – not going to take any grief from you so don’t even think about going there….
In some ways, our life would be so much less, if we didn’t have Lois as a part of it. Wasn’t she so full of life? There was this eagerness to find ways of getting the most out of every moment – which might be why she always was up to the wee hours of the morning.
We all know that she was heavily involved in the arts – doing some great things in Kodiak and here in Anchorage, I know some of you will want to tell us about your experiences with Lois in a few minutes; I also know that many of you were involved with her in choir, chorus, opera and theater, but you may not be aware of the full breath of her artistic experience – I am of course referring to her episode with heavy metal.
Lois had heard from somewhere, you know how Lois is, that the local heavy metal radio station way giving away a free trip to Hawaii and she was determined to get that trip. The contest rules were that you had to be already packed and when the radio station announced the location, you would have to show up ready to go. Lois listened for two weeks, ready for the location to be given. Of course she won. Wouldn’t you have loved to be there at the condo in Hawaii when Lois shows up as the winner of a vacation from a Heavy Metal radio station. They must have been scratching their heads, and you know Lois was just eating it up.
Lois was an Alaskan through and through, and she was a New Yorker through and through; Two things that are a world apart, yet they fit perfectly well with Lois, didn’t they? She was from White Plains, a graduate of Vassar College with a BA in music and started teaching soon thereafter. On her second visit to Alaska she was offered a job teaching, any grade she wanted to teach and she took the job without second thought, calling her family to send everything up so they couldn’t try to talk her out of it - she knew what New Yorkers are like. Lois, she never did anything halfway.
When the time came for her to get married and then start a family, Lois didn’t approach that half heartedly either. She gave everything she had to her family. She poured herself into her children and then into her grandchildren. Somehow, someway she had this instinct, she knew what was needed in their lives. Packages would arrive in the mail containing some detailed item that was needed at that time in their lives. How did she know?
In 1964 Lois was invited to the Bachelors of Anchorage Event at the Idle Hour Nightclub, right off of Hood Lake. This was just a scheme dreamed up by a bunch of single guys to line up dates for sking for the year. Virgil was there. There were rules that only the men knew about – you could spend only 20 minutes with each young lady so that everyone had a chance to get as many phone numbers as they could. Virgil was working the crowd getting his list of phone numbers, when he saw this nice looking lady across the room talking to this tall guy. Virgil walked over and couldn’t get her attention so he tapped her on the hip and said, “Hi, I’m Virgil”. Now, Lois has a little bit different version on the location of Virgil’s hand at that moment, but either way, you can imagine, the “look” she shot at Virgil. In the end it was preordained as they both ended up being some of the very last people to leave, big surprise…Virgil gave her a ride home, there was a lovely kiss goodbye and here we sit today. She always used to say about that night, “I was looking up, I looked down, and I never looked back.
Lois lived a life of celebrating life and Lois was able to love life that way right up to the very end. She never, never looked back.
Let me remind us of this: We have one continous life, and Lois and all she is has continued on. Life doesn’t just end here. We don’t have two lives – our life now, and something completely new when we die. We have one continous life. We also don’t become a different person, or something other than ourselves; We are who we are, and we remain who we are after we are gone.
We often hear: “You can’t take it with you” – but that is not at all true. We do take it with us. Everything Lois was, all her experiences, the laughter, all the joy...all the good and all the bad; all this stuff of life follows us, and it has followed Lois too. See, in the presence of the Lord, what needs to be healed, will be healed, and what needs to be covered will be covered, for Lois was a daughter of our Lord Jesus Christ, and He has promised us that we will be made whole when we stand before him.
Remember those good times? Remember when Lois was there for you, when no one else was? Remember the kindness, the generousity, even those quirky things that Lois did, that may have driven you nuts....they are still there, they are still with us, they are with Lois.
We live in a spiritual world – hard for us to understand, but its true. God made us spiritual beings and we are destined for spiritual things. You may remember that Lois wasn’t just living life, she was living life to the fullest, and her living life to the fullest wasn’t just the activites that she was involved in, or the relationships she had with us; She was able to be who she was, the wonderful person she is, because of her confident, steadfast faith in Jesus Christ.
Part of who Lois is, is a this being a spiritual person, there is a spiritual dimesion to life, and that is what is fuilfilling; behind all that Lois did, was her spiritual nature. Now I’m not talking religion. Acting the right way, knowing the right stuff, and all that – you know what I’m talking about; People who say they know God, but you would never know it by how they treat you. That’s not what we are looking for, and I don’t think Lois wanted anything to do with that either. Lois knew, that people can be jerks, people can hurt you and cut you deeply and that it can be very confusing to us when we see people who have all the trappings of Christianity and they abuse us. But I know Lois also knew that it is not people who we depend upon for our spiritual walk; We depend upon God. Lois got it. How do so often we seem to miss it?
Here at this moment it is not possible to comprehend why. Why, Lois, this woman who was so full of life and who had so much more life to live, it is not possible to comprehend why she has been taken from us so quickly, weren’t you just talking with her the other day? Aren’t you still expecting her to be the last one out of the building?....At this moment things may appear in a fog, and even at a loss, – for we see the spiritual life with difficulty.
But, through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, there will be a time when we will be with Lois, when we will walk with her again in the presence of God – and we will see so clearly – we will not be disappointed. Of this, there is no doubt.
As we saw in our first from Thes, we are not ignorant, in the name of our Lord Jesus we will rise again, we will continue in life – God doesn’t start us out without a chance and then take things away and poof we are gone – no, he gives us a hope, with the knowledge that this certainly is not the end, this is not our last good bye, but more in the vane of: Lois, until we meet again.
Lois, we know everyone in heaven already recognizes your comforting laugh, and we know you are already living life to the fullest, but please….stay up late, so you can be the first one we meet when we arrive too.
GRAVESIDE COMMITTAL
{casket is in place over open grave}
Rom 14:7-8
For none us lives to himself alone
and none of us dies to himself alone.
If we live, we live to the Lord;
and if we die, we die to the Lord.
So whether we live or die we belong to the Lord.
Message
We may have come here to say our last good byes to our dear sister
Lois. But let me remind you again, this is not the end. We who are Christians know, we know that we will be with Lois again.
We will talk, we will laugh, we will fully know her again. Because of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ
For now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror,
then we shall see face to face.
Now we know in part, then we shall know fully, even as we are fully known
{Flowers are placed on casket by family first, then others}
{Casket is released for slow decent, while decending, if the mechanism is quiet I say the words of committal, otherwise I wait until the decent is finished}
Committal of our Sister
In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ, Lois - we commend you to almighty God and we commit your body to its final resting place, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.
{Earth is placed on the casket by the family first, then others}
Prayer
Lord, thank you once again for the privilege of knowing Lois. Instill in our hearts, the knowledge of the hope that we have in you. Fill us with your love, and grant us your peace.
Amen
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hollowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive those who have debts against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the power the honor and the glory for ever - Amen
Benediction
May the Lord hold you and keep you
May the Lord give you comfort
May the Lord shine his face upon you and give you peace.
Amen
{final instructions given about reception. Last condolances given to family}
