“I come to
the end, I am still with you.” These are the words that conclude this morning’s
reading from Psalm 139. “I come to the end, I am still with you,” says the
Psalmist, after a beautiful meditation on God’s presence. Where could I go to
flee from your presence, O God? No matter where I go nor where I could go, you
will always be there, O God.
Now, in
this day of internet hacking scandals and government spying, in this time when
it seems like someone might be watching us at every moment, words that speak of
God’s inescapable presence might be heard the wrong way. Is God looking
constantly looking over our shoulders? Should we want to escape God’s presence,
if we could? No, of course not. The psalmist is not saying that God is the
ultimate Big Brother. The psalmist celebrates God’s presence, the presence of
the living God. O how marvelous is God’s presence and knowledge. He knows us
even before we are born. He does not look down from a distance upon us; he is
involved in our lives before we could be aware of it. He knitted us in our
mother’s wombs. He knows our every step, our every breath. When the psalmist
celebrates God’s inescapable presence, he is really celebrating God’s infinite
love. If I ascend to heaven, I will still find your love. If I sail to the end
of the sea, your love will meet me on the distant shore. If I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, your love will be with me. When I reach the last
of my days and breathe my final breath, your love will sustain me even in death.
“I come to the end, I am still with you.” Or, as the Apostle Paul says in
Romans 8, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Dear
friends, the love of God stretches beyond all human boundaries. There are
oceans too vast for our love to cross over them. There are places of brokenness
too shattered for our love to stitch them together. There are paths too steeped
in darkness for our love to show the way. This is not true for the love of God.
God’s love is so great that in his love God created the cosmos out of nothing
and called forth all that exists. God’s love reaches so far that God breathed
life into human beings, forming us in his image. God’s love is so inescapable
that his response to our sin was to seek us out, again and again, even as we
spurned him over and over. God’s love is so real that God took on human flesh
in his Son Jesus Christ. God’s love is so great that in love God even crossed
from life to death for our sake. God’s love is so powerful that in Jesus Christ
God’s love shattered the chains of sin and death and led the way to our future
hope. No ocean is too vast for God’s love. Every place of brokenness can be
healed by God’s love. No path is so dark that God’s love cannot illumine it.
“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high I cannot attain it.”
Dear friends, we have gathered here
this morning to celebrate the life of our sister, our mother, our grandmother,
our friend, Bertha, and to mourn her death. Jesus himself wept at the death of
his friend Lazarus. We also weep for this loving woman who was so full of life
that her energy and love spilled over into her family, her church, her
community, and her world. A woman orphaned in the first year of her life, her
mother dying shortly after childbirth and her father a few months later. A
woman not expected to live to her first birthday. A woman determined to live,
determined to overcome obstacles and difficulties, determined to help others as
much as she could. Bert’s life was good; her life was a gift from God that
enriched the lives of more people than anyone here will ever know, at least in
this life. We do well by her and by God to set aside time to celebrate the gift
of her life and to mourn our loss.
But
friends, we are also gathered here this morning because of the love of God that
knows no boundaries. Bert knew this love as much as any of us. Members of
Centre church have spoken to me of her Christlike life. She shared God’s love
through acts of service to her neighbors and her church. She cherished God’s
love by spreading it to all she met with a warm hug and a patient, listening
heart. I heard in the last few days that she joined the Discipleship Bible
Study here at Centre and through that study discovered that her love of helping
and serving other people was also God’s gift to her, his special way of working
through her to love other people. What a magnificent thing to discover in a
Bible study—that what you love to do is what God loves to do in you.
While we
mourn her life today, we also celebrate God’s love. Bert, who knew God’s love
so well in this life, now knows God’s love better than any of us can imagine.
God’s love reaches where our love cannot, crosses over the fissure of the
grave, and brings her safely into his bosom. If nothing can separate us from
the love of God, then even death cannot truly separate us from our beloved
mother, sister, and friend. Because God loves her so much, and because God
loves us so much, we have this bond that even death cannot break. Dear friends,
if you do not now know the love of God, seek it out and share this bond of love
with us today.
This is
what we have now; it is not something we just hope to have one day. God’s love
is God’s gift to us at this very moment. God spans the gap between us and Bert
at this very moment. But there is more to come, something greater and still more
wonderful than the love of God we now know: the resurrection of the dead and
the life of the world to come. That is God’s great promise of love to us in
Jesus Christ. Our souls do not just slip away from our bodies into an ethereal
nothingness for an eternity of floating in heaven. In Jesus Christ we will be
raised from the dead, even as Lazarus was raised from his tomb, even as Jesus
Christ was raised from the dead. “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we
will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is
revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
Dear
friends, even in death we hold onto this hope. This morning’s funeral is a
service of death and resurrection. We are united with Bert by God’s love; one
day, by God’s love, we will be reunited with her. Let us celebrate God’s
inescapable love. Let us hold fast to the hope we have in Christ Jesus our
Lord. Amen.
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