Assorted Funeral Components: David Owens (Liverpool, New York)
As we think about _________, her life and all that she has meant to us, I want us to think about some things that are true about every person, including _________.
1) Every person is made in the image of God.
2) Every person has some special gifts or abilities from God.
3) Every person is known and loved by somebody.
4) Every person is greatly loved by God.
5) Every person is imperfect, and therefore, every person is in need of God’s mercy and grace.
I want to encourage us to think about the word “terminal.”
A. It’s not a word we like to hear when it comes to our health.
1. We don’t like to hear the doctor say, “Your condition is terminal” or “You have terminal cancer.”
2. This is the use of one of the dictionary definitions of the word “terminal” which means: leading ultimately to death : FATAL, terminal cancer; approaching or close to death: being in the final stages of a fatal disease, a terminal patient.
B. But there is a different definition and use of the same word “terminal” and it has to do with a transfer station or point.
1. And so we speak of airplane terminals, or train terminals.
2. This dictionary definition means: a freight or passenger station that is central to a considerable area or serves as a junction at any point with other lines.
3. And so, an airplane terminal may be the place we begin our journey, or may be a transfer place in the middle of our journey, or may be the ending place of our journey.
C. When we apply the word “terminal” to our lives, we come to realize that life is a journey with many terminal points in the journey.
1. Life begins with conception and we grow in our mother’s womb, but then we come to a terminal point – a transition from one place to another – and although we like it in our mother’s womb, we have to transition to a different place, a different existence.
2. So out we come, kicking and screaming, but we soon learn that although our new life is different from life in the womb, it is a good life and we adjust.
3. As our lives continue, we reach many of these “terminal” points – entering kindergarten and then eventually graduating from high school.
4. But there are many others along the way:
a. The single life very likely transitions to the married life, and then perhaps, back to the single life.
b. The unemployed life transitions to the employed life, and then perhaps, to the retired life.
D. All of these transitions, these terminal points, have pros and cons, and good and bad things about them.
1. And the same is true of our final transition, our final terminal point, when we transition from earthly life to eternal life.
2. Although it might seem as scary, and we might resist it as much as we resisted our first transition from the womb to life outside the womb, we need not be afraid or resist it – it is a part of life and it can’t be avoided.
Allow me to share with you what two famous people wrote as their death approached.
A. Dwight L. Moody the famous evangelist wrote: Someday you will read in the papers that D.L. Moody of Northfield is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I shall have gone higher, that is all — out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal, a body that sin cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body fashioned into His glorious body. I was born in the flesh in 1837; I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die; that which is born of the Spirit will live forever.
A few hours before entering the ‘Homeland,’ Dwight L. Moody caught a glimpse of the glory awaiting him. Awakening from sleep, he said “Earth recedes. Heaven opens before me. If this is death, it is sweet! There is no valley here. God is calling me, and I must go.” His son was standing by his bedside and said, “No, no, father, you are dreaming.” “No,” said Mr. Moody, “I am not dreaming. I have been within the gates. I have seen the children’s faces.” A short time elapsed…and he spoke again, “This is my triumph; this is my coronation day! It is glorious!”
B. The famous British statesman, Winston Churchill, had planned his funeral, which took place in Saint Paul’s Cathedral. He included many of the great hymns of the church, and used the eloquent Anglican liturgy. At his direction, a bugler positioned high in the dome of Saint Paul’s, intoned, after the benediction, the sound of “Taps,” the universal signal that says the day is over. But then came the most dramatic turn: As Churchill instructed, as soon as “Taps” was finished, another bugler, placed on the other side of the great dome, played the notes of “Reville” – “It’s time to get up. It’s time to get up. It’s time to get up in the morning.” That was Churchill’s testimony that at the end of history, the last note will not be “Taps,” it will be “Reville.” The worst things are never the last thing.
Losing a loved one is a normal part of life, and yet it is such a hard thing to experience and go through. Please allow me to offer a few suggestions for the days and weeks and months ahead.
A. First, Keep in mind that grief is a process that takes time.
1. Although there are similarities to what people experience, grief is unique to each individual.
2. Please allow each other the room and freedom to grieve in your own ways and don’t place any time tables on anyone’s grief.
3. And I would encourage you to be patient with yourself and your own grief.
B. Second, I want to encourage you to treasure your memories
1. I like something that the actor Christopher Walken said about grief and loss, he said: “Someday you will be faced with the reality of loss. And as life goes on, days rolling into nights, it will become clear that you never really stop missing someone special who’s gone, you just learn to live around the gaping hole of their absence. When you lose someone you can’t imagine living without, your heart breaks wide open, and the bad news is you never completely get over the loss. You will never forget them. However, in a backwards way, this is also the good news. They will live on in the warmth of your broken heart that doesn’t fully heal back up, and you will continue to grow and experience life, even with your wound. It’s like badly breaking an ankle that never heals perfectly, and that still hurts when you dance, but you dance anyway with a slight limp, and this limp just adds to the depth of your performance and the authenticity of your character. The people you lose remain a part of you. Remember them and always cherish the good moments spent with them.”
C. Third, I want to encourage you to be there for each other.
1. Life really is about relationships – it is about loving others and bringing out the best in each other.
2. Life is too short to allow things to stand between people – so I encourage you to ask for and offer forgiveness quickly and readily.
3. During though times like the death of a loved one, keep in mind how important your presence is.
4. We often feel like we have to say something and we often don’t know what to say.
5. But keep in mind that what is needed most is you, and not necessarily your words.
D. Finally, I want to encourage you to be sure you have discovered life’s real purpose and have begun to build your own legacy.
1. The question we should ask ourselves is a simple one: How do I want people to remember me some day when I am gone?
2. One day all of us are going to die, and how would we want people to remember us?
3. We must ask ourselves what kind of lasting legacy we want to leave.
4. And we must ask ourselves if we have discovered the real meaning of life.
5. King Solomon, the wise man we quoted earlier, searched for life’s meaning and came to this conclusion: After all this, there is only one thing to say: Have reverence for God, and obey his commands, because this is all that we were created for. (Eccl. 12:13, Good News Translation)
________ faith in Jesus our Savior was important to her and I hope it is important to each one of us.
A. As we come to the close of this service, allow me to quickly share with you four wonderful spiritual promises and truths that Alvina discovered and trusted in and tried to practice.
1. The first spiritual promise is that God loves you and wants you to go to heaven when you die.
a. Jesus said: “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. (Jn. 3:16)
2. The second spiritual promise is that sinners are saved by the grace of God offered through faith in Jesus.
a. Paul wrote: But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift - not from works, so that no one can boast. (Eph. 2:4-5, 8-9)
3. The third spiritual promise is that those who choose to follow Jesus not only have eternal life but abundant life.
a. Believing in God and walking with God isn’t just about what happens after we die, it is about experiencing joy, and peace, and purpose right now.
b. Jesus said, “I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” (Jn. 10:10)
4. The final spiritual truth is that we must give our life to the Lord in order to find it.
a. Jesus said: “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.” (Luke 9:23-24)
B. I hope that all of us here today will come to believe in those promises, trust in them, and put them into practice.
Graveside Service:
A. Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 says: There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die…
B. We gather here to lay to rest the body of _____________, a precious wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, family member and friend.
1. The place where we’ve gathered is more than a place of sadness - It is a place of love.
2. Because of their love, many other people have chosen to inter their loved one’s bodies here.
3. And because of that, this is a special, sacred place.
4. But I would remind us that even so, this is not Alvina’s final resting place.
C. What we do in this place, as difficult as it may be, brings an important recognition to each of us that life is brief and the grave is real.
1. Listen to how the Bible describes our lives.
2. James 4:13-14, “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
3. Psalm 90:10, “The length of our days is seventy years— or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.”
D. And now, at this time, we commit to the earth only that which is of the earth.
1. The Scriptures teach us that our bodies are made of the dust of the ground and to the dust of the ground we will return.
2. God said to Adam, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Gen. 3:19)
3. But thankfully, we are more than dust, for when God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, man became a living being.
4. God breathed a spirit into these temporary bodies, and that is what lives on today.
5. Although the body of _________ has died, her spirit is very much alive and is in God’s hands for eternity.
6. These bodies of ours serve us only as the temporary dwelling place for our eternal spirits.
E. And so, ________ has laid aside her temporary, earthly house.
1. Her body was made of this earth and to the earth it shall return.
a. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
2. We, therefore, commit _________ body to the ground and her soul to the Lord.
3. The Bible promises that one day death will be no more – and how we long for that day!
4. Until then, may we live in anticipation of the time when we, too, shall lay aside the cares of this life, as Alvina has, and take up the joys of eternal life.
Prayer: Almighty God, Our Heavenly Father, we gather beside this grave today to lay to rest the body of our loved one, _________. We do so remembering another grave in another place—the tomb that received the body of our Lord Jesus. As Jesus came from the grave to live again, we know that all who die in Him never truly die. Thank you, Father, that __________ has finished her life course, and that she now has rest from her labors. As we commit her body to the ground, we do so in perfect trust, remembering Jesus’ victory over death and knowing, that because He lives, so too, shall we. Comfort our hearts through Your words today; strengthen us now with Your presence; and may Your grace and peace be ours both now and forever. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.
