Above photo: Reverend Robert A. “Rob” Kemppainen
November 28, 1951 – April 27, 2024
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When my good friend Rob died, his wife Marilyn asked me to say a few words at the end of the funeral service. In today’s meditation you can read what I said. I am posting it now, the day after Christmas, because I am including a Christmas Cantata that Rob wrote and produced. I am sorry this was not in time for Christmas. I do have a good excuse, but Ben Franklin once said, “Those who are good at making excuses are seldom good at anything else;” so I will just leave it at ‘sorry it’s late.’ But Rob’s arrangement of these songs is a joy to listen to any day of the year.
Rob was a talented musician. He even taught church music at a Christian college for a few years. He composed new songs, wrote new arrangements of old songs, and wrote hilarious (and profound) parodies of popular current songs. At the link below you will find his Christmas Cantata. In tomorrow’s EmailMeditation I will post some of his other lively, spiritual, and really fun songs.
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I first met Rob four years ago right here at our church. Since then, I have been enjoying our growing friendship, and with you all, I grieve the loss of this good man.
Rob and I had much in common. We were about the same age, went to the same seminary, had similar careers in the ministry (much of it in small town churches), and we were now both enjoying retirement. We never ran out of things to talk about, and our conversations always covered a lot of ground. So, as I wondered what I would say here today, many things came to mind. As I was sorting through my initial ideas, I asked myself, “What would Rob want me to say?” My first thought was, ‘How should I know?’ We talked about many things, but what we wanted said at our funerals never came up. But then my second thought was, ‘I think I do know just what Rob would want me to say.’ I’ll get back to that.
But first, something a little off-the-wall, if you don’t mind. Rob, as you recall, had an appreciation for the off-the-wall, the quirky, and the odd take on things. I think he would have appreciated this story.
Several years ago, in a neighboring Lutheran church, I got to know a Pastor Schmidt. As you might have guessed, Pastor Schmidt was of German descent. He was German through and through, and proud of it. And, he was old school German, strict and severe, and not the type who would be too concerned about hurting anyone’s feelings if he had something that needed to be said. He once told a group of us pastors that when he does a funeral sermon, he always makes it a point to say something bad about the deceased. Well, the rest of us thought that was an outrageous thing to do, but of course, he did not care what we thought.
Pastor Schmidt did not care much about other people’s feelings, but he cared a great deal about theology, and he had a good theological reason for this unusual approach to funeral sermons. “After all,” he said, “don’t we believe that we are all sinners, and that Jesus died to save us from our sins? Why then, when someone dies, should we pretend that they were without sin, and go on and on about how what a great person they were? Just when the person needs Jesus the most, we try to make it sound like they were so good they did not need Him at all.” He was right about that, of course; but none of the rest of us agreed with him that it was necessary to get into anything specific in a funeral sermon or eulogy. So, I never did that, and I’m not going to today.
So, what does that story have to do with what Rob would want me to say? First of all, I think Rob would have agreed with Pastor Schmidt’s understanding of sin and grace. And secondly, I think Rob would want me to keep the focus not so much on what a good guy he was, but on how much Jesus meant to him, or to use the words of John the Baptist when he was pointing to Jesus: “He must become greater, and I must become less” (John 3:30). I could talk about Rob and his gentle spirit, his strong faith, his cheerful sense of humor, his clever wit, his ready supply of jokes, quips, stories, and insights on any given subject at any time; his Biblical knowledge and down-to-earth way of applying it, his wonderful musical talent and creativity; and also, his humility. Rob was a humble man, and I think at this point he would say, “Okay, okay, that’s enough about me; now tell them about Jesus, and most important of all, that I was a forgiven sinner.”
But then it occurred to me, this is not the sermon, it is a eulogy; it is supposed to be about Rob. So, now what? This is what I decided to do. I will tell you what Rob said about Jesus, in two of the last conversations we had. The same story, twice told. Old guys like us do that, you know. We’re always telling the same stories to the same people more than once. We forget they’ve heard it all before.
As I said, Rob had a way of always putting an interesting twist on things. He referred to that story in Acts chapter five about Ananias and Sapphira, who were struck dead on the spot for telling a lie to the apostle Peter. That has never been one of my favorite Bible stories, and I don’t understand why those two received such a swift and severe punishment. So, I have always just left it alone, as one of those difficult Bible passages. I don’t have to figure out all the reasons for everything God does.
But Rob took that story off into a completely different direction, with an insight that had never occurred to me. He said, “Think about it. Ananias and Sapphira were members of that early Christian community, so they were believers. They believed in Jesus and in the forgiveness of sins. The Bible says they died suddenly, but it does not say they were eternally condemned. They just died, that’s all. And then, as believers, even that last sin was forgiven, so they went right to heaven into the presence of Jesus. And what is the downside of that?” Right! For the rest of my life, whenever I hear that story, I will think about my friend Rob.
You see, Rob saw not only the sin and punishment in that unpleasant story. He saw most of all the grace of God and the promise of eternal life, and both were central to Rob’s faith and life. Ananias and Sapphira were suddenly taken by death. Rob was suddenly taken from us. But what a comfort it is to know he is now with Jesus, who he loved and served throughout his life. He is with Jesus, in that wonderful place Jesus said he was preparing for us.
So, what would Rob want me to say today? I think he would want me to say to you, “Believe in Jesus, and you’ll be all right.” And he would tell us to not be sad for him. He would not tell us to not be sad at all. He knew what it is like for family and friends at a time like this. You are sad, and I am too. But we’re not sad for Rob.
Jesus said, “Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” (John 16:22)
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Rob Kemppainen’s Old Wine in New Wineskins, is a Christmas cantata with a four-part choir. The cantata is 27 minutes long, and it is followed by a 20 minute printed narration of the fascinating stories behind each of the ten carols, told in Rob’s creative and winsome style.
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