Follow the Good Shepherd

[This sermon was shared on Thursday at the funeral of Arthur, a ninety-five year old member of the congregation I serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]

Psalm 23
John 10:11-15
From my brief acquaintance with Arthur, I’ve learned that he knew a thing or two about what it meant to be a good shepherd. In fact, I’m told that that was at least one person’s nickname for him. Of course, that moniker was given to him more for the kind of man he was than the sort of shepherd he was, though I have no doubt that he did his work well.

I met Arthur on November 21, little more than a month ago. But in the short time since, I’ve learned that he was a gentleman, in the fullest sense of that term. He was also a person who loved his family. Before I left his house that day in November, he had his daughter-in-law Sheila take me into his living room, so that he could show pictures of his family to me. Like the good shepherd in Jesus’ parable in Luke 15, Arthur cared about and counted all his sheep. Each member of his family was irreplaceably important to him!

Arthur was also a fun man, with a quick smile and a sense of humor that was with him until the end. He enjoyed cards. He liked to dance. He relished having get-togethers with family and friends. And, of course, he loved the farm life.

But there was something besides all this that made Arthur both memorable and special. My son met Arthur once. After he did so, I asked him, “What did you think?” “I don’t know how to put this, Dad,” he told me. “But the only thing I could think when I met him was, ‘Here is a man who surely is going to heaven.’”

Arthur, I’m told, was not the sort of man to talk much about his faith. But if anyone was heaven-bound, it was Arthur. And, I’m sure that he would tell you, it wasn’t because he was better than others. It was because Arthur knew and followed the Shepherd, the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.

There was an earnestness in Arthur’s praying, in the way he received the Sacrament, and in the warmth with which he thanked you for prayers or for the Bread and Wine that told you who his Good Shepherd was.

As he endured the pain and trials of his final illness, you could see that here was a man who was depending on the God we know in Jesus Christ to be the shepherd who would lead him through the darkest valleys of life and death, on to the everlasting light of life with God!

Arthur was ninety-five years old, just two months shy of ninety-six. You members of his family know that this is an extraordinary age and that the past two years, in particular, have been a gift. But it would be unnatural for you not to grieve. And you will grieve. Death, at least as it relates to our lives on earth, breaks ties of love and cherished habits. The longer a loved one has been in our lives, the stronger the love and the habits are. So, don’t feel that your grief is on a clock or that it’s illegitimate. Your grief is understandable.

But I know that Arthur would tell you that the way through your grief and beyond is Jesus Christ. Jesus describes Himself as the Good Shepherd and tells us, “The sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” That was what the Lord Jesus did with Arthur on Saturday. He called and led Arthur through death to everlasting life with God. Arthur, I believe, is in green pastures with all who have trusted in Jesus as their Lord.

But, as Psalm 23 points out, Jesus isn’t just the shepherd of the ends of our days. He can be our shepherd now. I used to think that when the Psalm spoke of “the darkest valley” or, in older translations of “the valley of the shadow of death,” it was only speaking of death itself. Or, of our encounters with death at the ends of our days.

Yet, in many ways, death shadows us all through our entire lives. But no matter what valley we walk through, our Shepherd, the One Who died and rose for us, is with us, giving us strength and hope and the courage and joy to live each day to the full, knowing that we are among His sheep for all eternity!

We’ve just celebrated Christmas, the day when the Light of the world crashed through our darkness to give us a hope that never dies. The Bible says of Jesus that “the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” As you face your earthly futures without the gentle presence of Arthur in your lives, keep following the Good Shepherd. He will light your way and fill you with the same strength you saw in Arthur. And the same future with our loving God he’s enjoying now.

Amen