Emmanuel Church, Bungay, Suffolk

The Minister's Sermons

"Thanksgiving and Remembrance" by Revd Bruce Waldron - 31st October 2004
(You may wish to read Bruce's October message relating to this service)
We have a special purpose today in our service; to remember and honour the people whom we have loved, that have died. These people have given us unique gifts of their presence, their love, their influence, and those gifts have left us, and others, changed and affected in ways that we will never fully comprehend.
True love is a very powerful influence for good, and that good goes a long way beyond our living. It is passed on in our dealings with others; it is passed on in the strength and joy it gives us; it is passed on in our growth and understanding that we would never have if that other person hadn't lived and shared their life with us.
The sorrow of bereavement is something we can only experience because we have been blessed by the person who has lived. We must always hold these two realities together. If we try to suppress the sorrow and the ache, the loneliness, it can make us quite unwell. If we forget the blessing and the joy, then the sorrow will overwhelm us. Both are necessary and need acknowledging. Both are needed if we are to properly honour a person whose life and love has contributed profoundly to who we are.
There are some very odd things that are said when we talk about bereavement and loss and I want to reflect on a couple of them today, because what we say is very important in how we deal with death and the loss it involves.
Sometimes, I hear people say that God has taken someone. A Christian friend who has been through profound grief in her life, one day commented to me that God doesn't take people ... He receives them.
It is our mortality that takes us. We are always vulnerable. We always live with the possibility that our bodies will cease to function, even if at times we try to forget the possibility. Death of the body isn't an act of God. It is a part of every person's life. We can do a great deal to minimize or maximize the chances of it occurring at any given place or time. We can do a great deal towards affecting our health and safety, but we cannot know or prescribe how or when we will face death.
That is our mortality; the way we are. What Jesus died to tell us is that when that happens, God receives back that which God has given. And what Jesus rose from the grave to let us know is that this does not mean extinction. It means that we move from this way of being into the presence of God. But then, Jesus lived to also show us how to live now in the presence of God. It isn't something that starts when we die.
Sometimes we hear people say that a person "Has gone to be with God." I've said it myself. But in the Christian faith we believe that we are already with God and God is with us. The aim of the Christian's life is to move closer and closer to God as we age, not so we can finally join God in death but so that death is no longer a fearful thing.
Thomas Merton, a Christian writer and mystic, told the story of how when he was a little boy, his mother died. Shattered and bewildered, he heard the preacher at the graveside say that Jesus had taken his mother to himself. For the rest of his childhood, Thomas Merton lived in terror of this Jesus who took his mother away from him, and put her in the cold earth.
God doesn't take people from us. Our mortality does that. God, among us as a man, in Jesus, gave his life to let us know that when our mortality ends our life, God, who gave us this life as gift of love, receives us in love.
God gives us life, and every blessing we give or receive is a result of that life that God has given. Life is our sacred trust and we only have one shot at it. As one wise person said, "Life is not a dress rehearsal." A hit song I used to like back in the sixties used to run "I will pass this way but once, and if there's any kindness I can do, let me do it now. God please show me how. For I'll never pass this way again."
God gives us life and also gives us sovereign rights over how we use it. If you have come here to remember someone you loved and want to honour that person today, then that person has used their gift of life well, and they have been a blessing to you, and you have been a blessing to them. That is a wonderful gift, and it is the purpose that our lives are given for. The only person who can make sure that this life is a blessing, as God meant it to be, is me.
If you light a candle in a few minutes, to remember a person whose life has been a blessing to you, offer a prayer of thanks to God for that person because God will know that the gift of life he gave was used well.
What is faith all about, at a time like this?
It is about knowing that God has given us meaning and purpose for our life.
It is about knowing that God in Jesus and through the Spirit of Christ, is helping us know how to live our life so that it is a blessing to others.
It is about knowing that love of God and love of other people and our world are tied very closely together.
Faith is about trusting that reality and living it out. Faith is about believing that God is with us in this endeavour and receives us in love when that endeavour comes to an end..
It was because of this belief that St Paul wrote that whether there's sickeness or health or opposition or persecution or sufferings or even death, in all these things "we are more than conquerors through Jesus who loved us and gave his life for us. For nothing can separate us from the love of God that is ours through Jesus Christ."
It was in this knowledge that the psalmist wrote, "God you knew me when I was being formed in my mothers womb" and then later concludes "I come to the end. I am still with you."
May you also know this blessing as we give thanks for people whose love God has given to us, and whose love and life we celebrate here today.
As the song says, "God be in my head, in my understanding, in my life, in my beginning, my thinking, my looking, my speaking, and finally, at my departing".