Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, the fifteenth chapter:
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain... And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Thus far the text.
Dear Dan, Chris, Marlea, Patricia, Thomas, Michal, Janell, all of Trudy’s family, and my dear friends in Christ,
Today, our hearts are full of grief and sorrow over the loss of Trudy from our midst. Of course, it is no easy thing to lose the presence of a Christian brother or sister. It brings to light all those things that are wrong in this world. After all, we are not meant to die. We are meant to be creatures who live from our very conceptions unto eternity.
But that’s not the way this world has gone. Instead, our ancestors, Adam and Eve, plunged all of humanity, even this whole world into sin and chaos. And because of that, because of their choice to disobey and not trust God, we bear the burden of the dreadful curse of sin, and we shall all die.
This was not a surprise to Trudy. She had seen the chaos of this world as she took care of this world. She had seen the destruction and disorder that can occur at any time here, but she also knew, for she has been hearing of this curse for a long while, that the same chaos and destruction she saw could happen to her. And, of course, Trudy saw, even as she grew older, the curse of sin in her own flesh, especially as the cancer took over. We all know this. We are sinners. And the wages of our sin is death.
Yet, this is not all that Trudy knew. The faith that she had also told her of a greater Savior than her sin, and His name is Jesus Christ. This Savior has gone to the cross of Calvary for her, He was resurrected from the dead for her, and He has ascended into heaven for her. From there, all His enemies sit under His feet, including death. From there, He is able to be in all places for He has the power of God the Father and can do all things. For the Father has given Him all that He has, and none who come to Jesus will be cast out, none shall be set loose, none shall be lost into the ground of this earth.
Trudy lies before us today, but do not lose heart. For even as we put Trudy in the ground, her body will be preserved by the Holy Spirit, and He shall watch over her until that Final Day, the day when our Risen and Ascended Lord returns from His heavenly place to make His dwelling with us here. And when He does that, He shall come to Trudy, and He shall raise her out of the ground, incorruptible, perfect, whole, beautiful, just as He promised.
And this was Trudy’s true hope. She had the hope of the Resurrection. For this is the central piece of all Christian hope. If the Resurrection from the dead isn’t going to happen, then you might as well not believe in anything. The Resurrection must happen, just as Jesus said, for if it doesn’t, then no one is resurrected, not even Jesus, and we shall all just die in our sins, as Paul says. We, and Trudy, do not have hope only in this life, this sinful existence. We have hope that our bodies will be raised to meet Jesus when He returns.
That is our hope, and it was and is Trudy’s. For do not think that because Trudy’s body is here with us today that she is gone. Instead, the angels of God have come to take her soul to be with her Jesus, and she is resting in Him, where He is. And soon, because our Lord always promised to return soon, He shall bring her soul back and reunite it with her body and she shall live as was intended; she shall live forever, that time having begun in her new birth, her baptism.
For indeed, if we are baptized into Christ’s death, as Paul tells us elsewhere, then we are also baptized into His resurrected life. And if we are baptized into His resurrected life, then though we die in a death like His, we shall be raised into a life like His. For in Christ, we are made alive, and so is Trudy, and yet so shall she be. Trudy is not dead as you suppose, but only sleeping for a little while. She was put to death in her baptism. This sleep that she has today has not conquered her, for the death that is apparent today has been put under Christ’s feet as His footstool.
Christ laughs at Death, He mocks Death, and He has defeated Death by Christ’s own death on the cross. And this is the faith of Trudy and all Christian believers, for where else do we look, to whom shall we go, when all else is failing and falling? We look to the Christ who is raised from the dead and reigning. We look to Jesus always and forever, for He is the one who shall deliver us and who has delivered us.
We are made alive in Christ, for the Spirit of God who is in us, who washes us, who cleanses us, Christ has sent that Spirit also to preserve us in the true faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ. For indeed, this death of Trudy, this sleep, it is sad for us, but it is not the end. In the Spirit of God, we shall have joy, we who mourn. We shall have praise, we who grow faint. We shall be strong, we who are weak. We shall glorify the Lord, we who are sick.
Our Lord promises to do this for all who believe in Him as Trudy did. And so He shall, for we have the promise of the Gospel that He shall raise up all who look on the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and we shall have the eternal life we seek so badly. Take heart, my friends, for this, today begins only a brief time of separation from Trudy, but we shall see her again, when we are joined in rest with Jesus and heaven, and when our Lord comes again to raise the living from the dead. We shall then have no sorrow or tears, no grief or pain, for we shall be in Christ. And in His name, in Jesus’ name, we say amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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