08242016 Funeral Sermon for Stanley Don Martin

August 24, 2016
Funeral for Stanley Don Martin

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!  Heavenly Redeemer, today we gather knowing that the veil of death has been drawn, and that as we mourn Stan’s passing the truth is we still have a connection with him.  For the connection is through You and Your offer of grace in Holy Baptism to Stan and to each of us.  May we be comforted today through the Gospel of Your Son, Jesus Christ that draws us to You.  For the salve of the Gospel is the most powerful medicine not only of the body but especially of and for the soul.  Enable us to receive this medicine to comfort and keep us and help us to remain connected through Your Son Jesus Christ Who gave Himself so Stan would have eternal life and come home to be with You in Your Kingdom.  Enable us to connect these dots and be empowered to believe in the offer of grace offered for all of mankind, but especially each of us gathered here with Stan’s family to say goodbye.  AMEN.

It is claimed that we are connected to anyone in the world through six degrees of separation.  In essence we are only six steps away from any other person via our connection with the people we know.  With the invention and widespread use of Facebook, though some do not use it or even like their pictures shared, the number of steps is cut nearly in half to about 3 or 3 and a half.  What is interesting is that this connectedness with electronics and friends of friends has become mainstream, or everybody does it today.

Well this morning I’m here to tell you, Stan Martin here in Goodland didn’t invent the internet, and didn’t have a Facebook account but Stan was one of the most connected people I have met here in Goodland.  When I would go and visit Stan in both his home and lately in Good Samaritan, he and I would start sometimes talk about his Air Force days, but most of our talking would be about people and Stan not only could tell you who they were, who their parents and grandparents were, where they farmed, because you know he loved to farm.  But Stan even knew who their implement dealer was, but truth be told if it wasn’t Massey Ferguson, well, that’s another story.

This connectedness that Stan had was uncanny.  On Sunday when I was in Hays, I observed that Stan’s own son, Monte follows in his Dad’s footsteps, because he is connected and knows everybody as well.  Yet, we who gather here today are connected as well, not only with Marilyn, Cindy, Monte, Sharon and Marla, but we are connected with Stan to someone even more important.  We are connected through Water and Word to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Through our baptism with Water intimately connected with the Word of God, we are connected to Jesus Christ.  For Jesus Christ when John the Baptist poured the Water over His Holy Head fulfilled God’s plan of our connection to Him and our being intimately connected to not only Jesus Christ, but also the promise of eternal life and salvation.  When Jesus hung on the Cross and died, He completed the circle of our being connected and with our individual baptism into Jesus Christ, we are connected with Stan to Jesus life, His death, but especially His resurrection.

When we believe this free offer of grace for all of mankind, whether democrat or republican, atheist or agnostic, we then are enabled to as our Gospel this morning states, “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in Me.”  The Me is specifically God’s Son Jesus Christ, because the connection made with Stan’s baptism is an intimate connection with His Lord and Savior.  So clear is the connection is why Stan recently had one intent.  He wanted to come to worship here at Emmanuel.  Because Stan knew the importance of his own connection with His Lord and Savior and he would move heaven and earth both for his kids, but also to get back here and worship the same Lord Who died in order that Stan and all of us might have eternal life.

I can see in my own minds eye, Stan and Marilyn sitting in the back pew as good Lutherans, hearing the Word of God and bringing them communion as a couple as husband and wife.  So clear is this image because Jesus Christ offer of eternal life fulfilled Sunday for Stan was what enabled Stan and Marilyn to love one another and their entire family for all of these years.

But what is most poignant is that this love they shared from their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ was never extinguished.  Blown by the wind both of Texas that brought them together, but also the never ending wind like Monday of Western Kansas, the love they had was protected, nurtured and endured triumph and even tragedy even to the very end by Jesus Christ.  I say that, because of a simple yet very poignant picture snapped on Saturday.

In complete tenderness, Stan and Marilyn’s compassion, togetherness and especially their love modelled by their Savior, Jesus Christ was captured when they were caught with their hands clasped while in Hays.  This same picture is on the televisions in the West Narthex and the East Sun Deck.  It simply captures clearly how God’s love for them that they have shared for 63 years was manifest in Christ binding them together as husband and wife and keeping them connected to each other, but especially their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  This one picture perfectly encapsulates their love that they had modelled for them by their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and will connect them across time, space and into eternity.  For this is the belief in Jesus Christ they shared and how Jesus own words, “No Man cometh unto the Father, but by me” were fulfilled Sunday with Stan’s entrance into the eternal physical connection with Jesus Christ.

May we not only celebrate Stan and Marilyn’s connection to one another, the creation of their family unit that did everything together, the many grands, great grands and extended family that always could count on them to be there for any celebration.  But may we especially remember our connection through the offer of grace God offers each and every one of us today.  For the Gospel Stan wanted to come and hear right here at Emmanuel is the same offer of grace and connection with Jesus Christ that Stan has so intimately today as he rests in His Lord and Saviors arms.  AMEN.

Now may the peace of God which surpasses all human understanding comfort us today as we celebrate our connection with Stan, but especially Jesus offer of connection with each and every one of us.  AMEN.

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02272016 Daniel Jacob Dorn Sr Funeral

Let us pray!  Gracious Heavenly Father, this afternoon we gather to mourn, but also celebrate Your gathering into Your Holy Arms Your redeemed child Daniel Jacob Dorn, Sr..  As we gather, we ask You to comfort us and give us a special measure of Your Holy Spirit in order that Your Gospel message he heard and believed may be the salve for our hearts.  For Your Gospel of salvation offered him in the font of Holy Baptism is the same faith he used to pray the prayer that Your Son taught us.  Enable us to lay claim to the promises offered, and remember how You offered him forgiveness, life and salvation, not by his merit, but because of Your love shown through Your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

The passages we have heard today from Holy Scripture not only make promises to us, but remind us that with Solomon, David, Jude and Mark, God not only inspired them, but used them and their words to minister unto the needs of the people of God for centuries.  These passages speak of time, a shepherd, a promise of mercy and not knowing the day nor the hour of Jesus return, but their message is rooted in the bed rock of a faith that not only points to Jesus Christ, but clearly and emphatically finds its roots in the offer of grace from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  So clear and profound is this connection it hits pay dirt not in dirt but in water.

We know here on the high plains, whether in Colorado where Dan first lived as a married man with his betrothed Laura or in Western Kansas, without the water we pump from the ground we would not have a crop or feed our cattle.  But water in and of itself can give life to plants.  Yet when water is connected to God’s Word in Holy Baptism, the promise of eternity and eternal life is made.  And this is the promise that we lay claim to today.  A promise of mercy, a promise of eternal life, a promise that is laid claim to in a prayer taught to Jesus disciples that I prayed with Dan every time I would visit Dan at Good Samaritan.

Yes it is the Lord’s Prayer.  That simple prayer that Jesus taught His disciples speaks volumes to us today of the faith of Dan.  But it wasn’t that Dan was perfect, because we know different.  He felt trapped with his condition.  Dan wasn’t able to do what he thought he should be able to for many years.  He could be heard down the hall at Good Sam with his booming voice, his television blaring or what was just a man trapped by circumstance and inability to move or do what he wanted.  But the resolve he felt that was clear was he was here for his kids to take care of them.  Daily he would go visit Danny and sit with him.  Sometimes talking, sometimes watching television, but ever vigilant of being there.  A ministry of presence that spoke volumes.  This same presence he beamed of as he proudly showed the pictures in his room of the apple of his eye, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  Yet, no matter what happened, through it all, including the loss of his wife and daughter one thing remained true.  Dan believed in the power of God and that God loved him unconditionally and this is why he wanted to pray with me the Lord’s Prayer with every visit.  The Lord’s Prayer was a salve and a personal confession of his heart.

For the Lord’s Prayer that I would pray with every visit with Dan, is a prayer of love, trust and seeking for God’s Will to be done.  It is a prayer of thanks and praise for God’s gifts.  It is a prayer asking for those who pray it to be forgiven and to forgive others.  For us to not be led into temptation, but to be delivered from evil.  And today Dan is being delivered from the physical bondage that has held him for so many years.  Today God in fulfillment of God’s promise in Holy Baptism sets free Dan and fulfills the promise of eternal life made to him in his Holy Baptism.  It is this promise that we hold onto, lay claim to and believe with a faith given to us by our Lord and Savior in simple water connected with God’s Word.

You see the Lord’s Prayer looked to the fulfillment that we find today as we gather.  Yes, we gather with our hearts broken with loss.  But today we gather, some would believe in a valley with the shadow of death looming over us.  But we are not in a shadow, because death no longer has dominion.  Death has been overcome.  Death was overcome by Dan’s Savior, His Lord, His God, none other than Jesus Christ.

You see the same Man Who taught His disciples the Lord’s Prayer is the same Lord Who in, with, through and by the Water of Holy Baptism washed Dan clean and spotless in the font.  Jesus Christ promised Dan on that faithful day he would be with Him in paradise and today that day has come.  Our grief that the devil wants us to hold onto should be joy, for the devil has not won.  The victory is God’s because on the Cross of Calvary, Jesus Christ bled and died in order that Dan would be set free and have eternal life.  Jesus Christ offered Himself, took on the sins of the entire world including Dan and each and every one of us and fulfills in our hearing and sight God’s promise of grace and mercy for Dan today.

Oswald Chambers once said, “Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the one who is leading”.  Today we celebrate Dan’s being led home and his entrance into eternity where he was led by none other than our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  For the Great Shepherd visits us today not only to lead Dan home, but welcome him into His Kingdom.  The Great Shepherd comes to pray with us as He taught us in the Lord’s Prayer, but also enable us to lay claim to the grace and mercy we find in the Water and Word of God that promised Dan eternal life.  Today, we gather to join together as a family of God and partake of Jesus gift of His precious Body and Blood, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sin, life and salvation.  Today we bridge the gap with eternity through Holy Communion with Dan, Laura and Diana and all the Saints who have gone before us.  Today we lay claim to the promises of God not only in the Lord’s Prayer, but especially in the gift of God’s grace and mercy offered to Dan with his baptism into Jesus Christ life, death, but especially His resurrection on the third day.

May this promise of grace and every blessing not only enable us to embrace God’s gift of Grace and mercy, but may we know that today Dan has been reunited with his wife Laura, daughter Diana and entered into eternity to be with His Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  For this reunion is a celebration, a fulfillment of what Dan was certainly waiting for, but a clear reminder that when we prayed the Lord’s Prayer the ending was the exclamation point.  “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.”  And Jesus makes this true for Dan today and one day for each of us.  AMEN.

Now may the peace of God that surpasses all human understanding guard, protect and comfort our hearts, minds and spirits as we celebrate Dan’s entrance into eternity because of the love of God through His Son, and Dan’s and our Savior, Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

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