Funeral Sermon
Sylvia Mae Hybl
July 23, 2015
Grace, mercy and peace be unto
you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ!
If you were to travel to the
desert southwest, it is clear that not only is it dry and a desert, but
everything, from the vegetation, the animals and even the people have struggled
being controlled. From trying to
establish a life, a home and even a living, it is clear that everyone living
there struggles, whether with making a living or even being controlled by the situations
they encounter. Sylvia loved the
Southwest. When travelling there to help
her friends, Sylvia felt at home. But
there was a reason why the Southwest was her favorite place. Sylvia like a lot of us gathered here today
struggled throughout her life. We who
gather struggle with health, jobs, relationships, school or a reality or a past
that we had no control over. But in the
desert, the struggle that Sylvia personally felt was diminished. Sylvia felt free to be the person that God
had made her to be.
Today, we gather, not in a desert,
but as family and friends who have encountered death very clearly and closely
with our loss of Sylvia. Sylvia no longer
struggles. She is accepted and she has
been welcomed. For today we gather to
celebrate the fulfillment by God of the promise made to Sylvia in her Holy
Baptism. Though life seemed to
continuously knock her down, Sylvia was promised by God very clearly an offer
of grace that could not be duplicated, nor equaled by any here on earth. For when God by the hands of a Shepherd He
chose washed Sylvia with Water and the Word of God in Holy Baptism, God offered
Sylvia eternal life and salvation by her baptism into Jesus Christ life, death
and resurrection.
With Water intimately connected to
Word, God offered to Sylvia the gift of eternal life. When we spoke only a few short weeks ago, we
both knew that Sylvia’s time here on earth was short. We laughed, we cried, we talked of the times
at Spillville and the fireworks, our summer visits by all of her family,
siblings, nieces and nephews, and all of the people she held dear. We also talked about the truth she had heard
from her birth of what Jesus Christ offered her in Holy Baptism. And that when the time came God would fulfill
His promise to her with her entrance into eternity, her entrance into the
church triumphant, her entrance into the place prepared for her by her Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ.
For Jesus words found in the
Gospel of St. John I just read are true.
God has prepared a place for Sylvia.
But God prepared it, not because she deserved it, but clearly and specifically
because of His great love for Sylvia and for all of mankind. You see, Jesus Christ prepared a place for
Sylvia, because He wants to relieve the struggles we carry today. We struggle with relationship with our
brothers and sisters in Christ, we struggle with our weight, we struggle with
how we are treated by friends, family and especially our society, but God in
preparing a place for us makes good on the promise made to each of us in our
baptism into Jesus Christ life, death and resurrection.
You see, Jesus said it plainly, “if I
go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself”. And God has received Sylvia into His Holy
Hands. God clearly and firmly now has
lifted all the struggles from Sylvia and now she rests with her Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. For the struggles she
dealt with have been paid and atoned for by Jesus Christ innocent death on
Calvary. No longer does Sylvia have the
pain associated with her body, nor the weight of the world she carried for all the
cats that she loved throughout the years.
Sylvia no longer bears the burdens of sin, because Jesus Christ lifted
all of that from her shoulders and offered her eternal life with the
forgiveness He won for her and for each of us on Calvary.
So now Sylvia today clearly rests
in the place prepared for her and one day for each of us, by our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ. Yet, this only occurs,
because of something Sylvia firmly believed.
You see when Sylvia lived in Arizona, she enjoyed singing in the choir. One Easter her choir sang a song that clearly
proclaimed not only the preparation of a place for each of us in God’s Kingdom,
but a clear truth we who gather here today need to hear and sing from the roof
tops.
On that Easter Sunday, the choir
sang, “I Know That My Redeemer Lives”.
That Easter Ballad clearly states our belief in Jesus Christ and what He
did in His rising from the grave. He was
triumphant and conquered even death for each of us. But especially stanza 7 states, “He Lives my
mansion to prepare; He lives to bring me safely there.”
Today God fulfills this for Sylvia
and one day for each of us. May we not
only believe Jesus Christ lives, but He offers us the greatest gift of grace
for all of mankind with His life that He lived, His death where He conquered
that which confronts us today, but especially His resurrection that we have
been baptized into. For God’s gift of
grace is freely given for each of us and may God’s Gospel comfort each of us,
but especially Virginia, Dick, Chuck and Gloria and all the family who come to
say goodbye to Sylvia as she now rests from her labors in her Lord and Saviors
arms. AMEN.
Now may the peace of God which
surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds and may we find
comfort and peace from our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ Who holds Sylvia in His
Holy Arms. AMEN.
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