"Because I know and love Jesus"

[This message was shared at the funeral for Laura, a member of the congregation I formerly served in the Cincinnati area, this past Friday, August 6.]

John 14:1-4
Dave, Jane, Pat, Amber: Our hearts and prayers are with all of you. There are no words that can make sense of Laura’s passing or of the hard five-years that preceded it. Laura was a vital and ebullient person--even when she was a girl. She had a big heart, a fun spirit, tremendous empathy, and great potential. Already, she had received statewide recognition for her work as a school psychologist. Laura leaves a hole in many hearts. And, even when we remember that we live in a broken world in which suffering and death come even to the most faith-filled people, none of us can make sense of her passing.

But I can point you to what, or more accurately, Who, Laura held onto as she faced her own passing. In a text to her best friend, Katie, she wrote: “So the docs came in and will be stopping treatment. They anticipate me to have passed in three weeks. We are not going to be sad. This will be fine because I know and love Jesus.”

Some may wonder how Laura could have loved Jesus after she’d been through so much and as she faced death. One reason may be that she knew how Jesus loved her even before she was born. The New Testament says, “​​This is love: not that we loved God, but that [God] loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

I suspect Laura also knew that the God we know in Jesus understands and sympathizes with us in our suffering. He doesn’t stand aloof from our suffering; He enters into it. Jesus wept at the tomb of His friend Lazraus. And as He Himself faced death, Jesus asked the Father not to force Him to go to the cross, yet surrendered to whatever the Father willed for Him.

But there was another reason, I’m sure, that Laura could say she loved Jesus as she faced death. In the passage we read a few moments ago from the Gospel of John, Jesus is preparing His first disciples for what was to come in Jerusalem after the first Palm Sunday. He would be arrested, suffer, be executed on a cross, die at a young age--scholars think Jesus was aged between 28 and 33 when He was crucified, and rise again. But despite being people of faith who believed that God could raise the dead, the disciples are inconsolable.

Seeing their turmoil and grief, Jesus tells them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that 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 that you also may be where I am...”

What was Jesus telling the disciples? What is he telling the brokenhearted here today?

That this broken world, with its suffering, shadows and death, is not our final destination. Jesus has a place prepared for all who trust in Jesus, who know and love Him. One day, at a time appointed by the Father, Jesus will return to this world and give places to His people in His Father’s house. And while Laura may have been a bit unfair to expect that her family wouldn’t be sad, there can be no doubt that she knew that Jesus had a place for her. (He has a place for you too!)

At the end of this passage from John, Jesus tells the disciples, “You know the way to the place where I am going.” But in response to this, Thomas told Jesus, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Sometimes, even people who are close to Jesus don’t get Him. But Jesus replies: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Back when I was a young believer in my twenties, coming out of the fog of ten years of atheism, I sometimes found it hard to believe, to trust in Jesus. There was a lot of suffering in the world and so many people died far too young. I remember when a high school classmate of ours died in a tragic accident. Death seemed so final. When these thoughts assaulted me, I felt guilty, questioning whether I believed in Christ at all.

But I came to realize that troubling doubts about God’s goodness, love, or promises aren’t the opposite of faith in Jesus. Doubts assail us as long as we live in this imperfect world. I take comfort from the fact that Jesus answered the prayer of the man who told Jesus, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)

And anger with God isn’t the opposite of faith in Jesus either. Job, one of the notable saints in the Bible, who lost his ten children, his health, and his property, got angry with God. You only get angry with a God you believe is there.

Sorrow isn’t the opposite of faith in Jesus either. Because we were created “with eternity in our hearts,” we know that death isn’t supposed to be part of the lives of human beings created “in the image of God.” It’s only right that, along with Jesus, we should rage at death, especially when it visits a young person who loved and was loved so much!

The Bible teaches in many different places that, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” In the days, months, and even years ahead, there may be moments when doubt, anger, or grief cloud your capacity to believe. But the saints who occupy the house of God in eternity aren’t those who are perfect. The house of God that Laura now occupies belongs to those who keep calling on Jesus, the Lord we can know and love because He loved us first, because He understands and empathizes with our every grief, because He is with us always, because He forgives our sins and makes us new, and because He has conquered sin and death for all who repent and believe in Him.

Many of us learned this promise from Jesus when we were young: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) When, in the fellowship of believers, we receive God’s Word in the Scriptures or in God’s Word embodied for us in the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, God gives us the gift of faith. Sometimes it’s a faith that finds us only able to grunt or groan our words of anguish or cries for help or an explanation. But God, through His Word and the fellowship of believers who gather around that Word, gives us faith in Christ. And through the faith-building message about Jesus’ death and resurrection for us, we learn that we can keep calling on Jesus’ name and be given the power to trust in Jesus even when we face death, grief, or emptiness. Jesus can give us peace beyond all understanding and hope for eternity. We can trust that nothing in all creation, not even death, can separate us from the love of God given to us in Jesus. (Romans 8:31-39)

May God comfort and encourage you all to trust in Jesus so that one day, not only will you see Jesus face to face, you will enjoy an eternal homecoming in the place Jesus has prepared for you. And you can be sure that Laura, who knew and loved Jesus, will be there to welcome you. Amen