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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Dear Linda and Ruth Ann, the rest of the extended Eilers Family, Members of our Pilgrim Lutheran Church, and other gathered friends,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
Your beloved Lee became a member of our Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Kilgore on April 5th, 19-98, after Christ Lutheran Church here in Jacksonville closed. Lee remained a member of Pilgrim even as he moved from Jacksonville to Houston, three years before I came to Kilgore. In my 18 months in Kilgore, I never had the privilege and pleasure of meeting Lee, but he was served on our congregation’s behalf by a friend of mine, The Rev. Henry Wied, who pastors a congregation near Tomball in Waller, Texas. Pastor Wied would have liked to have been here today but could not due to a prior family commitment. Still, he regularly told me of his visits with Lee, and he told me all I needed to know about him in order for me to comfort all of you here today.
The death of a loved one or friend, like Lee, often raises questions in our minds. Some of those questions we cannot answer easily or, in other cases, at all. But nevertheless, there is comfort and hope for you this day, especially as we consider the Epistle Reading for this Memorial Service, chosen in part because it includes the verse Lee was given at his confirmation. The Epistle Reading as a whole includes a series of rhetorical questions increasing in intensity. One of those questions, the one included in Lee’s verse, essentially is “How will God, Who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, not also with Him graciously give us all things?” That verse gives us the theme: “Given God’s Son and All Things”.
The Epistle Reading comes as the divinely‑inspired St. Paul, for more than seven chapters, has been talking about righteousness: how we need righteousness, how we are given righteousness, and how we live out righteousness. In regards to our living out that righteousness, in the Epistle Reading St. Paul summarizes and concludes his argument in the entire letter to the Romans so far by speaking of God’s helping us in our weakness, with the knowledge of both His plan for us in Christ and the strength of His love for us in Christ. As St. Paul wrote of the things that threaten to come between us and God’s love for us in Christ, St. Paul to some extent drew on his own personal experiences—experiences that in some ways were not all that different from Lee’s, Lee’s experiences such as serving in the U-S Navy during World War II, enduring three bouts of malaria, and later living at times with difficult economic circumstances.
First as a maintenance laborer for Sheffield Steel and finally as a journeyman electrician for Armco Steel (now A-K Steel), Lee no doubt appreciated the value of his wages. He even worked a second job as a repairman for T-Vs and other appliances to supplement his income, the extra wages going to help pay his and his wife Inez’s 65-dollar per month mortgage! Lee surely knew the difference that St. Paul describes earlier in his letter to the Romans (Romans 4:4)—the difference between a free gift and earned wages. And, St. Paul uses that idea of pay or support given in place of pay to talk about what we deserve on account of our sin.
By nature, St. Paul and Lee were—and each one of us are—sinners. They and we inherited original sin from our parents, and so then they sinned, as we sin, in all sorts of ways: by thought, word, and deed; by things we do and things we leave undone. The wages of such sin, as St. Paul puts it, is death (Romans 6:23). On account of sin, St. Paul died, Lee died, and each one of us will die if Jesus does not first return to judge us. God uses that looming judgment to call us to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to want to do better. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin.
Pastor Wied told me that he and Lee at times talked about Lee’s great love for his wife Inez and his daughters Linda and Ruth Ann. Lee also knew what it was like to lose children—his daughter Catherine, who was stillborn, and his only son Robert, who died before Lee did. Such love for and losses of children even may have helped Lee appreciate God’s love for him. The Epistle Reading three times mentions God’s love for all of us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Prefigured by Abraham’s willingness to not spare his only son Isaac, God did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all. Through Judas, through the chief priests and elders of the Jews, through the people of Jerusalem, and through Pilate, God gave His own Son up to death on the cross—for St. Paul’s sin, for Lee’s sin, for your sin, and for my sin. Christ Jesus, the one who died and, more than that, was raised, is at the right hand of God and interceding for us. With God for us in this way of the Gospel, no one who matters can be against us who believe in Him. No one can bring any charge against us whom God graciously chose from eternity. No one can condemn us whom God justifies, or forgives of our sins.
The first time that we know for sure God forgave Lee his sins was in his baptism by Pastor Huber on Christmas Day back in 19-19. We have no doubt that Lee’s Baptism took place, even though Ruth Ann told me that his baptismal certificate oddly enough does not name either the church or town where that Baptism took place. (Ruth Ann thinks it might have been in Minonk, Illinois, and the current pastor at Immanuel, the only Lutheran church in Minonk, said he would check the congregation’s records, but the records were locked away in a bank vault.) In Holy Baptism, God not only forgave and adopted Lee, but God also forgives and adopts all of us who are baptized. He makes us co-heirs with Christ Jesus and conforms us to His image through the suffering He permits us to face. And, in the Sacrament of the Altar, God strengthens us to endure that suffering, through bread that is the body of Christ and wine that is the blood of Christ—at the table prepared before us in the presence of our enemies.
Table-fellowship with God, as forgiven sinners with anointed heads and overflowing cups, is such a beautiful and comforting image from Psalm 23, no wonder that Psalm was a favorite of Lee’s as he received care from Pastor Wied. To Pastor Wied Lee confessed faith in the Lord, his Shepherd, and by God’s mercy and grace we can confess such faith, too. God, Who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will also with Him graciously give us all things. Out of His grace He gives us all things necessary for our salvation. Nothing St. Paul lists in the Epistle Reading—not even death—can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Death did not separate St. Paul from the love of God; death has not separated Lee from the love of God, and death need not separate you or me from God’s love.
Already now, with his soul in heaven, Lee has been “Given God’s Son and All Things”, though we can say one thing is still to be given to Lee. On the last day, God will resurrect Lee’s body, even from these cremated remains, and God will reunite Lee’s resurrected body with his soul, and then Lee, soul and body, will enjoy eternity in God’s presence in heaven. You, too, can have a blessed reunion with Lee there, in soul and body, if you believe.
For now, some of our questions about the death of our loved one or friend Lee may well remain, even after considering the rhetorical questions in the Epistle Reading. But, we return to the Reading’s initial question, “What then shall we say to these things?” What then shall we say to Lee’s being given God’s son and all things? What then shall we say to God’s graciously giving us all things? As St. Paul essentially suggests elsewhere in his letter to the Romans (1:25; 9:5; 11:36; 15:33; 16:27), what else is there to say but Amen!
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +