[These words were shared with the family and friends of Zerna, a ninety-three year old member of our congregation who passed away on February 26. Her funeral was held on March 2.]
John 11:17-27
I know that today, Zerna’s family and friends have three prevalent feelings.
One is relief that Zerna’s long siege of suffering is done. It was some five months ago that Zerna fell and began the slow, sometimes tortured descent that ended with her passing early on Thursday morning. Zerna is suffering no more.
Another major feeling you have, of course, is one of loss. In the seventeen months since I first met Zerna, I learned what a good-natured, fun, and giving person she was. I learned of her good humor. I learned too, of her deep reverence for God, a reverence so great that even when I took Holy Communion to her in her home, she wanted to stand during the liturgy of Confession and Forgiveness, the Words of Institution, and the Prayers. She did stand, I'm told, when she listened to Saint Matthew’s Sunday morning worship services on the radio.
A third feeling I know that you can feel today is a sense of gratitude that Zerna was a believer in Jesus Christ. Although a gnawing sense of inadequacy caused her to doubt her worthiness of God’s gracious offer of eternity to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ, Zerna never once doubted the goodness of the God we meet in Jesus. Nor did she ever doubt God’s capacity to give eternity.
In her final weeks and months, the misgivings Zerna felt, from an overabundance of humility, gave way to a full, childlike confidence in Christ. She said goodbye to her children and grandchildren. She even once invited them to join her in singing, Jesus Loves Me.
There were times in recent weeks when Zerna rallied. She was physically strong and in spite of wave upon wave of physical ailments, kept coming back. One day a few months ago, several days after I had conducted the Commendation of the Dead over her bed at the Logan Care Center, Zerna wasn’t in her room. When I asked a staffer about her whereabouts, I was told that Zerna was playing Bingo.
Of course, there comes a time in this life when even the strongest among us doesn’t “come back.” Yet, I’m sure that if you and I were able to ask Zerna whether she would want to be back, she would say, “No.” She was ready to pass, not only to leave a world in which she was consigned to a creaking, deteriorating body, but also because of what the future holds for all who entrust their lives, their pasts, and their futures into the hands of Jesus Christ.
Jesus talked about this future in our Bible lesson from the Gospel of John. Jesus’ friend, Lazarus, has died. When Jesus goes to Lazarus’ hometown of Bethany, the dead man’s two sisters practically bawl Jesus out. “Lord, if you had been here,” they both say, “our brother would not have died.”
Jesus doesn’t argue with them, but says, “Your brother will rise again.” Later, to underscore His power to give life, Jesus will raise Lazarus from the dead. Of course, Lazarus had to die all over again at some later date. But Jesus had made His point, one that would be proven beyond all doubting on the first Easter when He rose from tomb following His own execution on a cross.
It was in this powerful, loving Lord, the God of heaven and earth, of life and death and resurrection, that Zerna placed her trust.
As you bury the earthly remains of this wonderful woman today, I simply remind you of the Savior in Whom she believed and I invite you to trust, as Zerna trusted, the promise Jesus gave to Martha at Bethany:
“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”
May that be your hope, not just for Zerna, but for yourselves. Amen
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