May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be
pleasing in Your sight O Lord, our rock and our redeemer!! AMEN!!
Let us pray! Gracious heavenly
Father we gather here to celebrate the life of our sister in Christ Diana. The saying is extremely true that we are all
children of our heavenly Father. This is
especially true for Diana as well as all of us.
May our hearts be enabled to hear Your Word spoken to our hearts and
comfort us as we mourn. For, though the
veil of death separates us today from Diana, we are sure of the certain promise
You made to us in our baptism that in being baptized into Your life, death and
resurrection we are certainly raised with You in Your resurrection. Comfort us with this thought and let the
salve of Your Gospel message surround us so we may hear clearly the Gospel
message of our salvation and celebrate Diana’s entrance into eternal glory and
resting in Your loving arms. For this is
the baptismal promise made to Diana and all of us especially the saints of her
family and those gathered here at Emmanuel to say goodbye. AMEN.
One of the joys
of being a pastor is to teach confirmation class for 7th and 8th
graders here at Emmanuel. For our class
this year, I am using a computer and data projector to help display the
information I am teaching the kids. We
are covering the Catechism and this past week we talked about sin in our
lives. One of the illustrations used was
of a man who was all hunched over with what appeared to be a ‘big stone’ that
he was carrying. This illustration showed the stone as sin in our lives and how
we ‘carry sins’ with us and can choose when and if we want to ‘put them
down’. All of us, including me as Pastor
carry the burden of sin in our lives and Diana was no different.
In the Gospel of
John (Jn. 9), Jesus is asked by His own disciples, ‘who sinned, this man’s
parents, or the man who was born blind’, and Jesus very profoundly states that
the parents did not sin, nor did the man.
This is also especially true for Diana and her parents, Dan and Laura. Sickness of body, mind and spirit all occur
for a single sole purpose. Just as Paul
says that “no one comes short of the grace of God”, the sin manifest for
the man was in order that God’s glory may be revealed and that God can and does
deal with sin in our world through Jesus Christ.. God’s glory was revealed for the man by Jesus
Christ, Son of the Virgin Mary healing him and making him whole. Now we might ask, why could this have not
happened in Diana’s life? But we need to
understand, we are finite creatures and in our sinfulness we want instant immediate
action or results. And Jesus Christ is
sinless and an infinite. Therefore, God
with infinite possibilities and potential may not clearly reveal to us His
ultimate plan or fulfillment of His Glory in our life time. Hence, as is clearly the case with Diana, the
glory of God was not revealed for us tangibly, nor is it very clear how God
made her whole, but intangibly or very hidden from most people she lived with in
one simple act Diana has been healed by God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
You see, God in
His wisdom made a promise to Diana that Dan and Laura made a reality when they
brought Diana to the font for baptism.
In, through and by the Word of God connected with the Water of Baptism,
Diana was baptized into Jesus Christ life, death and resurrection. Diana was washed clean by the blood of the
lamb. When the pastor washed her in the
name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, God reached down from
heaven and secured the greatest mystery for all of mankind for Diana. God in this one action insured Diana would
today be fully healed in mind, body and spirit while basking in her Savior’s
arms for all eternity.
Thus as Diana
journeyed through this life with all the burdens she encountered, God gave
Diana strength and courage to face the tests of this world and of all time to
live a loving life to and for her brothers, her parents and as a model for each
of us here who mourn her passing today.
God promised in and by Diana’s baptism in the name of the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit that He would “strengthen the hands that are weak”. God promised Diana when the water, intimately
connected with the word was poured over her head, that He would strengthen her,
and would “make straight paths for her [your] feet, so that she ….would be healed”. Yet the promise of healing did not occur in
this life, but now as she is cared for in the loving arms of her Lord and
Savior, God has perfected her weakness and made it a strength where she has a
resurrected and perfect body.
Though Diana
still in this life walked in the “ “the valley of the shadow of death”. She no
longer feared, because of the promise made for her by her parents, fulfilled in
her baptism by Jesus sacrifice on Calvary for her sins and made ultimately
complete when she took her final breathe here on earth. Jesus Christ has now healed her and cares for
her in His Kingdom in which He has prepared a place for Diana, Laura her mother
and one day for each of us.
We all know the
burden that she carried so gracefully throughout life of the challenges she
faced mentally, emotionally and physically.
But it is very clear that Diana knew Who her Lord and Savior was Who
gave her wisdom beyond her abilities and strength to face each passing
day. This faith she exhibited clearly
even while facing death when she sang, the song we will process out with this
afternoon. This song, “You are my
sunshine”, though simple in verse, clearly relates to us today the Gospel of
Jesus Christ in her life and for all of us today. God is our sunshine and even to Diana’s last
hours, Jesus Christ was her rock and her shelter. And now I confidently proclaim that Diana
rests in her Lord and Savior’s arms, because of what Jesus Christ did for Diana
on the Cross of Calvary and which she has been baptized into, His life, death
and now her resurrection with Him. That
is the baptismal promise God made to Diana and the comfort that all of us
saints gathered here at Emmanuel can take away this afternoon from Jesus Christ
for all of us saints. AMEN.
Now may the peace
of God which surpasses all human understanding guard our hearts and minds and
comfort us today, because of what Jesus Christ did in Diana’s life and
ours! AMEN!
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