From a funeral sermon:
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Elsie and her husband Ray lived in many places, did many different things, and endured many challenges together. In the early 1940’s Elsie worked for Boeing as a riveter; like “Rosie the Riveter” in the World War II posters. She was small, so her job was to crawl inside the wings of B-47’s. The constant, loud riveting noise in that small space destroyed her hearing before she was thirty years old. Over the years following the war, Elsie and Ray managed a trucking business, a restaurant, and an airport.
Adding to the challenge of all of this was Ray’s plane accident in 1954. His doctors said he would never walk again, but Ray developed his own physical therapy program and learned to walk again with braces and a cane. With grit and determination, the two of them continued to move forward in life together. Not long after Ray died in 1992, Elsie’s daughter was diagnosed with MS, and Elsie moved back to this area to help with her care. Elsie’s life of determination, service, and faith was an inspiration to all who knew her.
Elsie had a few favorite sayings. For example, she’d like to say, “There is no shame in falling down, but it is shameful to lie there and moan about it.” That is a good line and a good approach to life. That attitude kept her going for almost 96 years. Elsie kept on getting up and moving on, without complaining. Even though she wasn’t feeling very well, she was here for worship one last time just three weeks ago.
The other line was brief, but also said a lot about her. When you asked Elsie how she was doing, if she needed anything, or if there was something you could help her with, she would always reply firmly, “I’m just fine.” Or in other words, “I’m only 95 years old; I can take care of myself.” She would always say, “I’m just fine.”
I like that. These days we hear about some college students who are called ‘snowflakes’ because they are so emotionally fragile that they are offended by everything, and cannot put up with anything. And there are other people we refer to as ‘high maintenance’ because they are always needing something done for them that they could be doing for themselves. And there are those who just whine and moan about everything. But Elsie was not like any of that. She would always assure you that she was ‘just fine.’
In John 14:1-3 Jesus says to his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that you also may be where I am.”
The tone of that passage is positive, comforting, reassuring, and peaceful. It is such a pleasant picture that we might even forget what Jesus is talking about. But what he is talking about is death; death, a word that usually fills our mind not with pleasant images and positive feelings, but with negative images, with bad feelings and memories, and with fear of the future.
And for good reason. Death ends relationships and brings grief. Death leaves loose ends– words not said, dreams not fulfilled, hopes not met. And death, one by one, diminishes the family circle– and that hurts. Just the word death can send a chill through us, reminding us of those we have already lost, and also reminding us that death threatens everyone we know and love, every day. But these words of Jesus about death in John 14 are pleasant, positive, and hopeful. How can that be?
Jesus is talking about how death looks from an entirely different place— from heaven. Believe in me, Jesus said, and then, when you die, I will be there, and I will take you to myself. I am already preparing the place for you, he said, and there is room for everyone. Believe in me, Jesus says, and you’ll be all right.
We see death as the end of everything here. But Jesus is describing what death looks like from his home on the other side of the grave. From that perspective, death is not the end of anything, but a new beginning in a new place. Implied in the John 14 description of a mansion with so many rooms, is that there will be a reunion there with our loved ones who have died in the Lord and gone on ahead of us to that heavenly home. Thus, as the family circle here is diminished by each death, the family circle in that other home is increased.
This is all put rather nicely in this little reading:
Death is God carrying us in one arm while the other arm flings aside heaven’s door; to welcome us to the warm hearth of our eternal home; while those inside, having arrived before us, rush to the door like glad children, shouting, ‘She’s here! She’s here!’ Death has a bad name here on earth, but in heaven, it is a homecoming party every time the door opens. And, God does not forget those earthbound children, all sad and left behind. God leaves the party in heaven early to enter into their despair, and encourage and comfort them, and to get them ready for their own parties someday.
That is a wonderful description of what happens when we die. It is true to the spirit of God’s promises in the Bible. From one perspective, we can say Elsie is gone from us. But that doesn’t begin to tell the whole story. It is merely a description of what we see from our limited, earthbound perspective. But from God’s bigger and all-seeing perspective, what happened last Thursday night is that Jesus came to North Memorial Hospital and took Elsie home.
Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Elsie did believe that in her heart, and did, with her mouth, confess that faith here in worship each week. Therefore, today we can take comfort in that promise, knowing that she is indeed saved. Or, as Elsie might put it: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be just fine.”
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Lord Jesus Christ, you have overcome death and brought life and immortality to light. Give us grace so to believe in you, the Resurrection and the life, that we may not fear death nor dread the grave. Help us joyfully to await the time when, by your almighty power, our frail bodies will be fashioned like your glorified body; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
—Lutheran Book of Worship, Occasional Services, (#474 ), 1978, Augsburg Publishing House
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