Service of Christian Burial for John A. Lewis
It's not right. And it's not fair. John should still be here. He should have many more years with Barb, with his family and friends. More time to live and love. And we should have had more time with him--time to enjoy his booming laugh and zany antics; his generous heart, his outgoing nature, his unfailing support of this community. The place where, in 2006, John said, “I belong here.” The place where he and Barb would make their home. The place where we were blessed to know them. We wanted more time with John in this place, and among these people.
I, personally, want John to pull up in his golf cart one more time at the end of Vacation Bible School, with a case of beer, and drink it with me and the teachers, sitting on the front steps of the church. I’d like to drive by his house and hear a hearty shout of “Hey, neighbor!” I’d give a lot to see him standing with the Legion guys one more time, shivering at the cemetery, but never shirking his proud duty to a brother in arms.
Instead we are at his funeral. It’s not right and it’s not fair. So many things are just not right, and the sorrow has left many of you exhausted. And if this were all we could look forward to, a day like today would be unbearably cruel.
But this is not all there is. Death is not final. We are not left with the bleak news that John is gone forever. He is not. Because nothing—and I mean nothing-- in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Not hardship or distress, not tears that seem to never quit, not anger, not our doubts and questions about why, not complicated relationships with God. Not cancer--that stupid, sneaky disease. Nothing takes us away from God, who is forever opposing death and disease.
So I think it is important to say that God did not do this. God did not cause John’s death, or make it happen or “take him because he wanted an angel in heaven” or whatever you’ve heard like that. Bad things happen in this world, cancer is a terrible disease, and we simply don’t have any answers as to why some people live longer with it and others die quickly. But if I don’t know why this happened, I surely know who to go. Because without God, the sorrow of this wonderful man’s death is too much to bear.
Death is our enemy—but it is an enemy that God has conquered for us. Even though we die, even though death is still with us in this flawed and sinful world, we will live. Even though you grieve, you do not grieve as people who have no hope. In the midst of the badness of this death, God is busy working for the good in your lives, you who are left living, even if you can’t see that right now.
Death has no permanent hold over those who have been claimed by God. God called John’s name at his baptism, promised to be with him always, promised to sustain him in this life and raise him up for the next. And even if John, who grew up in the church, who trusted in Christ in his early life, later wandered away? Well, I trust that God is merciful. Because if God is for us, who can be against us? The one who formed John in the womb, will he forget him? The God who made John—will he abandon him? Will that God leave John, and desert you in your weakness and weariness? No, never. Not ever.
This is not founded on a wish, but on a certain hope. On Jesus, who died and rose again, and promised to bring us home. One great day, the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised, and death will be destroyed. Those who wait for the Lord will mount up with wings like eagles', take to the sky with joy, renewed in strength and unwearied.
But that is not now, is it? It is Christ’s promise that these great things will come to pass. For now, though, we are left with an early death, and an enemy that seems to have had the final say in John’s life, and has cut us off from him. But not forever. Never forever.
John will be raised from the grave, called out of the tomb by Jesus. And when you and I die, we die in this same hope--that the God who claimed John in his baptism, and claimed us in our baptisms, will fulfill his promises to us. And he will bring us to the forever place that is home, even as John was brought here to Belview, a temporary home that he loved so much and that loved him in return. But that could not possibly love him as much as Jesus did.
For now, the veteran lays down his arms at the feet of the Prince of Peace. The man who could fix just about anything rests in the scarred hands of the One who knew what it was to work with his hands, the One who made the mechanics of the whole universe. For now, the pilot is borne aloft by the wings of the One who hovered over the face of the deep at creation, and who rides the winds of the morning. For now. But one day there will be another homecoming, a gentle landing, and no more parting forever. God says so. So we take him at his word and wait for that day and for the wings of eagles. Amen.