Text: Luke 2:29-32
29 “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation
31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.”
Dear friends, family and loved ones of our beloved Lucille. As we together morn and grieve her passing and our loss, let us comfort and sustain one another with the blessed hope, that in Christ, death is a parting for a time until the joyful reunion that we who believe will share.
I’m Pastor Russ Tkac and I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Lucille for 14 years and being her pastor over these last few years. While it had been difficult for Lucille to deal with her limited mobility, memory loss and health concerns, Lucille was greatly comforted by her love for Jesus, her loving family, and also those care givers who brought help and care for her daily needs. In this she had true peace.
Ill.
Peace can take on different looks.
It might be a mirror-smooth lake, reflecting green birches under a soft evening sky, or it could be the grassy shore, and flock of sheep grazing undisturbed.
It could also be seen in a raging waterfall crashing over a rocky ledge on a stormy day, where on a spindly tree clinging to the rocks, a little bird had built a nest in a branch. Here, content and undisturbed in her surroundings, she rests on her eggs, with her eyes closed and her wings ready to cover her little ones … showing true peace in the midst of all earthly turmoil.
Berit Kjos, A Wardrobe from the King, pp. 45-46.
From the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger … to the man Christ Jesus hanging on a cross crying out, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34) There is both joy and peace in Christ’s life and in his purifying death that allows all who depart this life, trusting in Christ Jesus as both savior and Lord, to receive that comforting peace!
Lucille knew and received that Peace!
In the Gospel of Luke in Chapter 2:
St. Luke tells us that the firstborn had to be redeemed with a sacrifice.
So Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the temple to make a sacrifice to the Lord and to do as the Law required. And while there they run into a man named Simeon who we are told was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, which is the comfort and peace of God … and we’re told that the Holy Spirit was upon him.
26 [because] it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.
27 And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, 28 he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,
29 “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation
31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.”
The joy of seeing this child - this Jesus - brought to fulfillment for Simeon what the Lord by the Holy Spirit had promised, that he would not die until he had seen the Christ. The joy in Simeon’s song is and will be once again spoken at Lucille’s committal service at Glen Eden, as we also join together with Simeon in joyful praise with what the Lord has given for the forgiveness of the sins of the world.
Lucille, knew that Christ’s purifying death, would allow her to depart in peace!
I had a joyful time visiting Lucille at Wynwood in Grand Blanc where I would try to arrive at 1:00 pm knowing that she would be finishing her lunch and we would sit and talk for a while. She would always greet me with a big smile and ask how the church was doing; then a little while later she would ask me again how the church was doing … and a while later … ask again. Memory loss can be a hard thing but each time Lucille asked, it was for me like the first time I heard it and I always answered her the same way, “Peace is doing just great.”
Ill.
Lucille and I sat together one day as a birthday party was going on at the other three tables in the room. As we talked a lady came up to us and asked if we would like some cake and ice cream? So as we had cake and ice cream together and then Lucille asked, “Who’s birthday is it?” Well, an old lady next to us turned around and said, “For the tenth time … mine!” Lucille smiled at me and rolled her eyes and I wasn’t quite sure if she couldn’t remember or if it was just a little zinger to get back at the not so nice birthday girl!
At times when I would ask her if she had seen her granddaughter Beth she might respond yes but other times she would look and say … “I can’t remember.”
Though Lucille might not have been able to remember … her savior Jesus would never forget her, having marked her as his own at her baptism way back in 1926 and knowing her from before the foundation of the world. The faith she received would be with her all the days of her life assuring her of Christ’s finished work on her behalf and that she would be with him always.
The Pines of Clarkston is where Lucille lived most recently, it’s where people with these kinds of dementia needs are cared for and I enjoyed bringing communion to her as she couldn’t get to church on a regular basis. When I was serving here as Vicar Beth would bring Lucille to church occasionally and she always came up to me and said “Hello Pastor!” I would say hello and then “You know Lucille, I’m not a pastor yet.” She would answer, “I know, but you’re a pastor to me.”
I visited Lucille on June 2nd and we had a great visit. She was sitting in the lobby with a few others and gave me such a big smile when I arrived and we talked and she received the Lord’s Supper. She always remembered the confession of sins and the Lord’s Prayer and would recite them with me during our visit. Lucille … always did it all from memory. Thee and thy, so I had to be on my toes. I let her lead.
She was blessed with a long life and a loving family. And though we can all see the effects of time on our own faces as we look into the mirror each morning. As much as we might all hope to be blessed with a long life like Lucille, the reality of death is real and we don’t know how much time we will be given and sooner or later death knocks and we will all answer that door.
But like Lucille, we can have comfort and peace because:
54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
"Death is swallowed up in victory."
55 "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(1 Cor. 15:54-58)
As we together grieve the loss of Lucille and think about this frail existence we all inhabit here in this world, we can still have peace.
Charles Wesley the great preacher wrote about peace in this way:
I rest beneath the Almighty's shade,
My griefs expire, my troubles cease;
You, Lord, on whom my soul is stayed,
will keep me still in perfect peace.
Charles Wesley.
Comfort and peace is what Lucille knew. That Jesus had come to rescue her and to rescue all who will believe, and it is Christ’s desire that you know this good news too.
Comfort and peace knows the true joy of Christ Jesus in your life by God’s gift of faith through the working of the Holy Spirit.
Comfort and peace is being called to follow Christ and being buried with him in baptism and being raised to newness of life and by God’s Holy Spirit who indwells all believers bringing comfort and peace to the troubled soul.
For Jesus says of himself:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Dear friends, you have the same access to the father Lucille did through Jesus Christ our Lord. By his sinless life, by his death in our place, and by his glorious resurrection we receive his righteousness in exchange for our sin and in that … true peace is found and we believe.
It is found in Christ’s saving arms that were outstretched upon the cross as he gave up his life for you.
So when the trials of life burden you and the storms of life rage and when even death is near, rest in the peace of Christ Jesus our Lord as Lucille did, in the hands of her loving savior Jesus - who reminds us in John’s gospel the wonderful comfort and peace that Lucille knew:
7 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one.” (John 10:27-30)
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
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