"How Great Thou Art" - Homily for funeral of a Believer - John 3:13-17
Laurie found room in her life for faith and like for every person, faith is a journey. Spirituality is a journey. There are things in our lives that happen that focus and refine our faith so that it is strengthened.
There are things that can happen in our lives that have the potential to diminish our faith.
But I do want to speak today for just a few moments about This passage that was just read, that reflects something of the gist within the hymn, “How Great thou Art“, which Laurie wanted to have as a part of her funeral.
This may appear to be an odd passage: why is the Jewish leader Moses lifting up a snake in the wilderness somehow equated with Jesus, here identifying himself as the Son of Man.
But there is a very good reason for this. Briefly, the reference to the snake in the wilderness is a reference to a time when the people of God were facing a very serious dilemma.
After some significant success in battle, the people, who were nomadically traveling in the wilderness, grew impatient on the way. They griped and complained about what appeared to be lack in their experience. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, venomous snakes showed up who bit the people causing many to die.
Moses was instructed to create a bronze snake and put it up on a pole, and to let the people know that when they looked at the bronze snake, even if they were bitten, they would survive. They would be fine.
The thing they were fearing the most, they discovered they needed to face head on. They needed to look at a representation of their greatest fear in order to be saved.
Rather than what we expect which is to run away from that which we fear, they needed to find the courage to face their fears head on.
They needed not to concentrate on the threat at their feet so much as they needed to look up in order to be saved. And Jesus here says that the same thing needs to happen for us.
We need to look up, we need to not shy away. And Jesus indicates that somehow, with hearts tilted toward him, with hearts that find room, that make space to believe, such faith places within us eternal life.
And just in case anyone present when Jesus said these words was confused, Jesus unpacks in this rather familiar phrase spoken 2000 years ago, John 3:16: 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
What does he mean by this: It strikes me that He means that we are loved. He means that we are in a world that God loves. He means that God expresses his love in giving, in self-giving.
He means that God expresses his love in giving that which is most precious to him, His dearest and best, which is his only Son.
And then when that which God has given is accepted, is received, is believed in, this self-giving of God results in life that does not end in death. Rather it results in eternal life.
And Jesus also highlights that his own purpose in coming was not about judgment. Sadly many have gotten this terribly wrong. God was not sending his Son in order to condemn the world; the Son himself did not come to condemn anyone.
He came for the purpose of rescuing, of reconciling, of saving the object of God's love. And that is you. That is me. That is Laurie.
And so Laurie wants this to be known. She wants the hymn that we listened to earlier to impact our thinking about her existence now that she is no longer with us. Laurie had hope. She had faith.
She looked up. With a heart open to possibilities, she chose to trust that she was loved by her Maker. She chose to say yes to His goodness and grace.
Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest and friend to the Yonge Street Mission until he passed in 1996, said that our life is a short opportunity to say yes to God’s love.
Despite some very real and painful losses in Laurie’s life, in the end she chose not to blame God for that pain. Instead, she held her faith as a precious thing. She placed her faith in the One who had never harmed her but rather had consoled her, had given a glimmer of hope in the midst of her suffering.
For the family who remains, there is genuine consolation available even in the midst of this loss, the loss to us of Laurie. And that consolation is that for the Christian who dies, death is to fall asleep in the arms of Jesus and to wake up and find out that you’re home.
All death can do to those who place their faith in Jesus is to make their lives infinitely better. And that is Laurie reality right now. Death isn’t about destruction or separation or nothingness; it’s a moment of holy transformation that takes us even deeper into life.
We trade our heartbeat here for a deeper place in the heart of God who is love, a heart that remains active and involved in our world. A Heart that still reaches out to all who will listen.
A heart that simply says ”Follow me”. Jesus said that to Laurie, and through her life journey she simply said yes.
For those who grieve here today, know that grief is the last act of love we have to give those we have loved.
Where there is deep grief, that was great love. But know this: there is hope in the self-giving of God.
There is on that hill far away from where we are today a cross, an image that still speaks across the millennium, to hungry human hearts.
Laurie, in her own unique way, clung to that old rugged cross. And she did in fact on January 29, exchange it for a crown given to her by the One Who called her to follow him, Jesus Christ her Lord.
On that day she crossed over from the garden of this world into the garden of God. She awoke in that garden to joy.
Amen.
