A Life Laid Down

Dear friends in Christ, today we lay to rest a dear woman, a sister in Christ, a grandmother, mother, and friend: Janice Wagner. And this is a day marked by a number of mixed emotions. There are remembrances about her life: her time as a teacher, her love of her family, and her deep Christian faith. And with all of this is a grief, a sense of loss, that, as St. Paul notes, is characterized for us Christians as one with hope.

Janice led a hard life and had more than her share of hardships. Toward the end she struggled with her declining health and the loss of her beloved daughter, Terra. And this great suffering might tempt us to dismiss our loss of her as a good thing, since it brought to a close her grief and pain. But a woman like Janice also leaves a hole in our lives because she is a great gift to us from God our Creator. And for this reason it is good and right for us to grieve her, to miss her, and to soothe our loss with memory and recollection.

But if this is all we have, then we do not have any real hope in all of this. Memory fades. Recollections only give us what was, they do not give us what is or will be. And, despite all the good intentions of well-meaning people, those who have departed before us do not live in us, our hearts, or any other such thing except in the form of memories. But these are not the person, no matter how much we might wish them to be.

This all seems very hopeless. Death is not something that we have the power or ability to roll back or do something about. And yet, St. Paul tells us that we Christians do not grieve as those without hope. And how can he say something so bold, so seemingly foolish in the face of a great enemy like death? Because of Christ Jesus, the Lord, the One who has overcome death and defeated sin and overthrown the rule of the Devil.

To find our more, listen to this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!