In Nomine Jesu

Dear family and friends of Glen, my heart is troubled. Your heart is troubled, though you keep it close to your chest. Though we say everyone has their “time.” Though we say that Glen was ready, to be in the physical and eternal presence of Jesus and his dear bride Marion. Though we say this is how it is in this life. Though we say all kinds of things to try and shield our hearts from breaking, the armor of sentimental and fanciful thoughts are sharply pieced by death. When you think about Glen its hard not to think about what you have lost; a doting uncle, a dear friend, a man of unquenchable love, a jovial and gentle man who embodied in his words and actions the life of Jesus whom He followed along the way, seeking to love and to be loved in return. He was the real deal. He loved the church, her pastors, and the blessed and life-giving gifts that she gives to her grieving, wounded, and dying children. And if you didn’t know him in his weaker moments, you might well think he was carried straight up into heaven apart from Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. But he wouldn’t. He would have revolted at such a thought. He knew the depravity of his sin. He didn’t have overactive tear ducts; those were real penitential tears when He received the Lord’s Body and Blood for the forgiveness of his sins. If he hadn’t know the great depth of his sin, he would have never rejoiced so much at receiving Christ’s gifts that pardon and paid for the debt that he owed. 

Glen, having lived out his final months in a place where death visits frequently, where cries of suffering and brokenness can be heard echoing throughout the halls, he knew that we Christians, we fallen creatures of God don’t live in the abstract. We die real, different, and difficult deaths. We die in the flames of brave martyrdom, and we die cowering in fear. We die as saintly sinners. We die as sinful saints. We die no longer knowing who we are and we die having never made it out of our mother’s womb. We die in West Bend and Milwaukee, WI, Harvey and Richton Park IL,—in places we have lived and loved, and in places where we are strangers and exiles. We die in hospitals and nursing homes, along the highways and in the seas. We die surrounded by those who love us and we die alone.   

And yet, there is a constant greater reality than death, a life that follows us, that seeks after us, that loves us, that says to us, death is not the final word but life is, and ever so shall it be for those who die in Christ. Our life, cast from the green pastures, from quite waters, in the bondage of our sin, is simply a pilgrimage unto death. There is no dignity in death. Dignity is an achievement, a rank of sorts and we are stripped of it ever so slowly in death’s dark vale. We can only live the life which has been given to us. We can’t define life. We can’t bring life about or extend this life beyond the grave.  But Jesus says, “I am the life.” No longer do we need to search for meaning in this life, when we hear and have Him who says, “I am life.” Life is not a concept or a thing, it is a person. And you know this person. You know He was baptized in the Jordan River. You know He healed the lame, comforted the broken hearted, calmed storms, fed thousands, forgave sins, and raised the dead. You know He was crucified, taking upon Himself the sins of the entire world, bearing the burden in His body, this death-ward drifting creation.  You know He was raised by the Father, resurrected in body and soul, displaying the marks of His crucifixion and being confessed by St. Thomas, “My Lord and My God.” Jesus is then not only life, but He is my life, your life, Glen’s life. Your life is from another, from the Friend who is Jesus.

This Friend who is Jesus tenderly says to us: “believe in God and believe also in Me. In the House of my Father are many dwelling places; if it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also will be.” There is nothing that we can say that will make Glen’s death un-troubling, un-hurtful, and un-settling. Death is nothing but trouble, hurtful, disorientating, and it knows well how to bury our heart in the depths of an emotional and physical prison cell. There is only one place where troubled, hurtful, and grieving hearts are put to rest, and that is in God. Only because Jesus, God in the flesh, has traveled this path into death and unto life everlasting are we then able to travel it in Him. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, who has gone before us to prepare us for the grueling jaws of death and the glorious opened gates of Eden. Do you not know that on June 27, 1926, Glen was baptized into Christ, baptized into His death, baptized into His life, baptized that he would walk in newness of life, and that he would dwell in the house of the Lord forever? Nothing can sever, not even death, this dear lamb from his dear and loving Shepherd. 

“When a man is dying the walls of his room enclose a chapel, and it is right to enter it with hushed reverence” [Sherwin Nuland]. This is how I entered Glen’s room the final three days of his earthly life. Reading the crucifixion and resurrection narratives of Christ into his ears, chanting psalms of lament and life into his death ravaged body, confessing the Apostles’ Creed and marking him with the cross upon his forehead and heart as I spoke the Aaronic benediction. His room was a chapel, a baptismal flood of death and of  newborn life even as my eyes only saw death. There in that tiny chapel he was being born from above, into the heavens, dressed in white, pure and ever-holy by the Lamb’s righteousness. So don’t let your eyes fool you. This is sacred human life. And it is to treated as such. Yes it is marred and beset by sin and death. But it is no shell. This is Glen. No bodiless spirit or spiritless body. Yes, death has gasped its final act, separating body from soul and soul from body. But Jesus who is the life of all the living shall do one better. He shall have the last word and work. He will reunite body and soul together in a perfect and glorified body and soul, a baptized saint, a child of God, who has reached by His Shepherd’s spilt blood the verdant pastures and the celestial food of heaven. 

Through Christ we must begin, we must continue, and we must complete our progress to life [Martin Luther]. There is no other way, though the road is narrow and treacherous, beset by grave danger and eventual death. There was no other way for Glen. There is no other way, no other truth, no other life than Jesus Christ Himself. Resurrection is the ultimate declaration of God’s grace. It is no more natural than death is. It is wholly dependent upon the faithfulness and love of God. And for that reason, the only thing you can be confident about when you think of your own death is that Jesus is life and life is Jesus. He resurrects the dead, and He fashions them anew in glory, splendor and eternal life. “Then take comfort and rejoice/ For His members of Christ will cherish. Fear not, they will hear His voice; Dying, they will never perish/ For the very grave is stirred When the trumpet blast is heard. Laugh to scorn the gloomy grave/ And at death no longer tremble/ He the Lord, who came to save Will at last His own assemble/ They will go to their Lord to meet/ Treading death beneath their feet” [LSB 741:6-7]. 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son [+] and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.