Funeral Sermon for Betty Jean Buchanan
Title: At home with Jesus forever!
Text: 2 Cor. 4:16-18 English Standard Version
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self[a] is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Dear friends, family and loved ones of our beloved Betty.
I’m not sure how I’ll deal with Betty’s passing as I move forward. Granted, I visit and have visited quite a few members who were shut in and required visits to their homes, care facilities, hospitals and nursing homes. With Betty, I think I’ve been to them all to see her.
Most recently I would go and visit her at Pine Tree Place – her home away from home - asking how she was doing … and she would always say with the shrug of her shoulders and a laugh … “As well as to be expected!” Sitting in her recliner which also served as her bed for many years, Betty felt safer in the chair than in the bed which she had fallen out of many times over the years that I visited her.
Betty didn’t see well. She was for all intent and purposes legally blind but when I visited her I just let her know it was Pastor Tkac for a visit and she would light up a smile and we had a great visit.
I learned quite a bit about Betty over the years.
One, she loved Jesus and was always ready for communion.
Two, she loved her family and they were close to her heart daily.
Three, she didn’t like wine … but we got over that! (Betty had been receiving grape juice and I forgot and only had wine with me on one visit. I told her that I could come back another time and she said, “Never mind, I’m sure it won’t kill me!” But she would take the wine and then make such a face, shake her head and yell out … Wow! It was kind of funny.
We both tempered the amount and reaction to the wine as our visits continued.
The Apostle Paul writes:
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
So though we grieve and are sad at Betty’s passing, we can have comfort as well. In all the time I knew Betty and have visited with her I wouldn’t say she was ever what I would call healthy. She was always sitting and in need of help … getting up, walking or walking around.
Ill.
The first time I visited Betty, Pastor Merrell and I went together. She was on his regular schedule at her home on Alhi St. in Waterford. As we pulled up to the house and were walking up, I was pleasantly surprised to see Shirley Penny coming out after visiting Betty. Shirley and I have known each other from my former life in the piano and organ business at Evola Music and also worked together teaching music to seniors at the Dublin Center in White Lake. So it was great to see Shirley and it helped a new Vicar – who is a student pastor – get comfortable with visiting. Because I was the new guy, Betty didn’t want me in the kitchen … stuff in the sink … that Pastor Merrell later told me but she and I fast became friends. Maybe it was that no matter where she ended up, St. Joseph Mercy, Lourdes Nursing Home, Pine Tree Place or even the short lived assisted living home in Ortonville … Betty didn’t like it as I’m sure she made clear to everyone. She said to me, “They have me all the way out in the country and … I’m not a country girl!” Well I assured her that Ortonville was not way out in the country and was actually pretty close and easy for me to get to … so not to worry.
If you knew Betty … then you knew she trusted Christ, desired to receive the gifts Christ gives, prayer and the Lord’s Supper. She wanted to support the work of the church with her gifts and though she could no longer get to Peace for regular worship I assured her that it was the churches pleasure and blessing to send me in service to her.
Betty’s trust was in Christ. Though at times during these last few years I know she questioned Jesus. Why wasn’t Jesus leaving her in her home? The confusion of being unable to take care of her own needs and not being able to get to church – to financially help - or to be with family and friends were a few things that troubled her. Where was she going she wondered … and why?
The Apostle Paul continues:
17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
Betty knew Christ was her strength. I visited with her at Pine Tree Place quite a few times and during her hospice stay. She would say, “I want to go home.” And we all knew that home was with Jesus. We all will probably fight that same fight when we get close to our time of departure for heaven too. The next two visits I made in July and August she was sleeping to soundly it was not my intent to wake her up so I prayed for her and anointed her with the oil of gladness which has a Fragrance of Frankincense and Myrrh. The ladies enjoy that. But, the last time I saw her was on Tuesday, August 16th just before I began my vacation. This time she woke to my voice and was alert. We talked, we prayed, and she received the sacrament for the forgiveness of sins. She had comfort and peace because she was Christ’s.
Betty’s hope was in the blessed hope of her Lord and savior Jesus Christ and the home she knew was waiting her in heaven. She was looking to be with Christ and today heaven is her home and her recliner and hospital bed are left behind because in heaven Betty won’t need them. She has been redeemed and in baptism her sins were washed away … and Christ promises to make all things new. For Betty and for you and me.
She knew her sins were forgiven too on account of Jesus’ death on the cross. She knew that because Jesus rose from the dead, she would too. She knew Heaven was her home and that Jesus had prepared a place for her, so that even with the veil of death lurking at the door and waiting to cover her, She had the blessed hope of reunion forever with Jesus and with all the dearly departed who have gone to their eternal rest in the Lord before her.
I shared these Psalm passages with her and May they bring comfort and hope to you as well:
Psalm 4:8 (ESV)
8 In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
Psalm 27:1 (ESV)
27 The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
Psalm 31:5 (ESV)
5 Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.
Psalm 73:26 (ESV)
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
As I prepared to leave Betty I said,
“Betty it is okay to go and be with Jesus. When he calls … go, and rest in his loving arms.”
The Apostle Paul concludes:
18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Heaven is now Betty’s home.
You too have this wonderful home waiting for you. The blessed Good News that Jesus died for your sins is the wonderful Gospel message you too can believe and trust. Jesus has forgiven your sin and by the power of the Holy Spirit, in you, has given you the faith to believe in His saving work and receive a place prepared for you, forgiven in Christ and forever with our Lord and savior Jesus, and that’s a Heaven and an eternity you can inherit just like Betty.
Our own flesh, the corruption of this broken world and the work of the Devil are going to do everything possible to make sure that we who remain behind see that death is not peaceful, restful or kind. It is the consequence of sin and the fall of Adam and Eve … a fall and sin we all share.
But, you too can know that the path of rescue that our Lord and savior Jesus followed, to the cross, for you. It was not peaceful, restful or kind either. It was a death that shook the very foundation of this world as Satan fought in every way to keep Jesus from standing in Betty’s place and in your place too.
In First Corinthians St. Paul writes:
"Death is swallowed up in victory."
55 "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"
56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(1 Cor. 15:54-58)
Betty received that victory in baptism marked as one redeemed by Christ the crucified and now has the fullness of that reality.
She was prepared, she was forgiven, and she will be … at home … with Jesus forever because Christ has promised:
3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. John 14:3
Praise be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has prepared a place not only for Betty … but for you and me as well.
May the Lord comfort you with this blessed good news now and forever!
Amen
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