The Last Laugh
Sermon
Day Full Of Grace
Twenty-Five Funeral Messages
Death of a happy person
Some people make it easy for us to grieve differently from those who have no hope. Filled with wit, and sometimes "wisdom," ___________ made every occasion with her a happy occasion. This occasion should be no different. She would not want us crying our eyes out now. If she could be here, in this pulpit, to preach her own funeral meditation, I suspect she'd have a couple of stories to tell. She would make us happy. She would laugh that deep and hearty laugh that made you smile, whether you thought her joke was funny or not. You never left her home without something; at the very least, you knew that she had not lost her sense of humor, and didn't take life too seriously.
We are directed by Holy Scripture, now, not to grieve as those who have no hope. Of course, we grieve. It would be nonsense to pretend otherwise. We do not have to pretend thai we will not miss _____________. Yet, we have a certain confidence, based upon God's holy history, that all we are doing today is saying "Goodnight, sleep well." Based upon God's holy work on our behalf, we can more easily believe God's word written in 1 Thessalonians: "But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep."
It is not just ______________'s humor that makes it easy for us to do a special Christian kind of grieving, although it helps. Her humor reminds us of our Lord's humor. So often we depict Christ as forever solemn and sad, a tragic figure who ended up dead on the cross. We forget that he teased his listeners with things like: "Did you know fat camels can crawl through the eyes of needles easier than rich people enter heaven?" Certainly, Jesus smiled when he gave us that graphic illustration.
Jesus also said something like this with a twinkle in his eye: "Take the log out of your own eye before you look for splinters in your neighbor's eye." He got the last laugh, too, after that Friday we call "Good." Remember some of things that happened? The soldier standing by the cross said, "Truly, this was the son of God." The thief said, "Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom." The veil of the temple was torn, from top to bottom, as though God the Father reached out of the heavens and ripped apart that sacred cloth separating him from us. He was saying, "No more do you have to be chief priest to know me. Look at my son, and know me."
The last laugh for Christ came sometime between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Not a lot of Christians know why. We confess in the Apostles' Creed that "Christ descended to hell," or "to the realm of the dead." For years I thought that that must have been a terrible experience, worse than death itself. It wasn't. It was the very first step of Christ's exaltation (not his humiliation). He descended to hell like a conquering general descends to the valley to accept the surrender of his enemy. Christ showed up in Satan's home court alive, well, and victorious over death. He was saying to Lucifer: "You goofed. You never should have taken me, because you can't keep me here. Come Sunday morning, all of earth's history will be divided from B.C. to A.D. I'm going back to earth alive and let everyone know how stupid you were, Satan. My people will laugh in your face, because I will resurrect them all. And, Lucifer, my people will no longer grieve as those who have no hope. They know that death is merely a sleep. The next time I come back here, Lucifer, you're finished."
Our Lord is going to have his hands full with _____, isn't he? Nevertheless, she'll be glad that Christ got the last laugh, the day of resurrection, for she'll join in with our Lord's message to Satan: "The joke's on you, Lucifer. God Almighty wakes us from our sleep, and when he does, we're not finished - you are!"
Too often we end our funeral celebrations with tears on our cheeks. For Christ who got the last laugh on Satan, and for ___________, this one should end with smiles on our faces. Listen. You can almost hear that hearty laugh in the corridors of heaven, ____________ is with her Lord.
Some people make it easy for us to grieve differently from those who have no hope. Filled with wit, and sometimes "wisdom," ___________ made every occasion with her a happy occasion. This occasion should be no different. She would not want us crying our eyes out now. If she could be here, in this pulpit, to preach her own funeral meditation, I suspect she'd have a couple of stories to tell. She would make us happy. She would laugh that deep and hearty laugh that made you smile, whether you thought her joke was funny or not. You never left her home without something; at the very least, you knew that she had not lost her sense of humor, and didn't take life too seriously.
We are directed by Holy Scripture, now, not to grieve as those who have no hope. Of course, we grieve. It would be nonsense to pretend otherwise. We do not have to pretend thai we will not miss _____________. Yet, we have a certain confidence, based upon God's holy history, that all we are doing today is saying "Goodnight, sleep well." Based upon God's holy work on our behalf, we can more easily believe God's word written in 1 Thessalonians: "But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep."
It is not just ______________'s humor that makes it easy for us to do a special Christian kind of grieving, although it helps. Her humor reminds us of our Lord's humor. So often we depict Christ as forever solemn and sad, a tragic figure who ended up dead on the cross. We forget that he teased his listeners with things like: "Did you know fat camels can crawl through the eyes of needles easier than rich people enter heaven?" Certainly, Jesus smiled when he gave us that graphic illustration.
Jesus also said something like this with a twinkle in his eye: "Take the log out of your own eye before you look for splinters in your neighbor's eye." He got the last laugh, too, after that Friday we call "Good." Remember some of things that happened? The soldier standing by the cross said, "Truly, this was the son of God." The thief said, "Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom." The veil of the temple was torn, from top to bottom, as though God the Father reached out of the heavens and ripped apart that sacred cloth separating him from us. He was saying, "No more do you have to be chief priest to know me. Look at my son, and know me."
The last laugh for Christ came sometime between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Not a lot of Christians know why. We confess in the Apostles' Creed that "Christ descended to hell," or "to the realm of the dead." For years I thought that that must have been a terrible experience, worse than death itself. It wasn't. It was the very first step of Christ's exaltation (not his humiliation). He descended to hell like a conquering general descends to the valley to accept the surrender of his enemy. Christ showed up in Satan's home court alive, well, and victorious over death. He was saying to Lucifer: "You goofed. You never should have taken me, because you can't keep me here. Come Sunday morning, all of earth's history will be divided from B.C. to A.D. I'm going back to earth alive and let everyone know how stupid you were, Satan. My people will laugh in your face, because I will resurrect them all. And, Lucifer, my people will no longer grieve as those who have no hope. They know that death is merely a sleep. The next time I come back here, Lucifer, you're finished."
Our Lord is going to have his hands full with _____, isn't he? Nevertheless, she'll be glad that Christ got the last laugh, the day of resurrection, for she'll join in with our Lord's message to Satan: "The joke's on you, Lucifer. God Almighty wakes us from our sleep, and when he does, we're not finished - you are!"
Too often we end our funeral celebrations with tears on our cheeks. For Christ who got the last laugh on Satan, and for ___________, this one should end with smiles on our faces. Listen. You can almost hear that hearty laugh in the corridors of heaven, ____________ is with her Lord.
