Hello,
Today I did a funeral for a young man, only 31 years old. I did not know him. I had never met him. One of the members of my church is a
funeral director, and as I rode with him to the cemetery for a funeral that I
did with him this weekend, he asked me if I could do a funeral on Tuesday for
this young man who had no pastor.
“Sure,” I said, “I’d be glad to do it.”
And I was glad to do it, but I was also a bit afraid to do it. It is a frightening enough trek to walk
with people that I know through the valley of the shadow of death, let along
take that journey with people whom I have never met. And to make it even more frightening would be to take that
walk into the dark valley of the death of one so young.
I called the family and arranged to meet with them on the day of the
funeral, today, before the visitation at the funeral home. What does a person say to those whose
grief and pain is as thick and deep as an Amazon rain forest?
When I arrived, the funeral director
introduced me to the family, who when I shook their trembling hands broke into
tears. I tried to express my
sympathies as best I could, and I invited them to have a seat so we could
talk.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
No sooner did the words slip from my mouth that I thought to myself,
“What a obvious question….of course they were doing terribly….their son and
brother had just died.” But what
question could one ask that
wouldn’t seem a bit empty. “Not
well, I am sure,” I answered my own question.
“Not
well,” they responded, and I listened as they spoke of the hurricane of
suffering that had hit them. They
spoke of their love for their son who had struggled trying to settle his feet
amidst the waves of storms that had hit his life; some storms he had walked
into against the words of others, and some storms that hit him out of nowhere
as he was getting close to planting his feet. I listened for fifteen pain-full minutes, had a prayer with
them, and said that I would be back in about an hour to conduct the service.
So, what did I say when I came back for the service? I read Romans 8:31-39, and I said what I say at every funeral,
honing in on this family’s unique grief.
“I didn’t know him,” I started, speaking of the young man, “as you have
known him. But I am here because I
do know someone who also died in his early thirties, someone who got blown
around by the bullying storms of the world. Someone who also walked into storms against the words of
others, and someone who found himself in many a swirl not of his inviting. But also someone for whom his Father’s
love for him, his heavenly Father, was so great that that love demolished the
black hole of death in an explosion of life, everlasting life. God sent his Son, Jesus into this
world, because he holds in his heart the same love for this son (this young
man) as he does for his Son. God
has known the grief that you feel, and just as he did for his Son, he will not
let death have the final word for this son….or for you.”
I know some of you who read the Bungee Cord very well, others I know as
well as the young man that I buried today. Yet, whether we know each other well or not, this I do know:
the valley of the shadow of death (the smaller death we encounter every day,
and the final death we well enter on our last day) is on our maps, and I know
the one who takes hold of our hands as we walk into that valley, having himself
walked through it before, and says, “I’ve got ahold of you. I won’t let go.”
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace,
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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