Nathan Hoarau Funeral Homily

Welcome

Welcome, friends and family, to the funeral gathering to honor Nathan Emmanuel Hoarau. Today is a day for grieving. I want to begin today by giving you permission to grieve however you want. There will be days ahead where you have to do all that stiff upper lip and faking till you make it stuff. But not today. Today, your grief can be loud or quite. It can be stoic or demonstrative. It can be soft or tearful. It can be angry or sorrowful.

All I ask is that you let yourself be honest.

Because here’s what’s true about grief: it hurts. Well, more accurate to say it’s a response to pain. We’re all hurting right now. Which means you’re not alone in your grief. Grieving binds us together. It reminds us that we’re not alone.

Grief is a good and natural human response to tragedy. When we grieve, it’s because there’s been a disruption in the world. We’re here to bury Nathan, a 21 year old who was full of joy and life.

Do I need to tell you that God did not create a world in which parents bury their children? A world where such a bright light was extinguished so soon? Of course not. You know the truth deep in your bones. And the disjuncture between those two things - the deep knowledge we have of the way the world should be and the crushing experience of loss that we have - this pain is what creates our grief.

So grieve today. Tell the truth about our loss. Nathan deserves at least that much. And here’s the good news about our grief:

God agrees with us. That means God grieves with us. There’s a reason Scripture calls Death ‘the Final Enemy’.

So let’s begin today with a prayer:

Eternal God, grant to your servant Nathan and to us who surround him with our prayers your peace beyond understanding. Give us faith, the comfort of your presence, and the words to say to one another and to you, as we gather in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

OBIT

Brian Itotia

Slideshow

Hymn

“It is Well With My Soul” by Horatio G Spafford, written after the loss of his four daughters. This is not a song that ignores or trivializes grief. It is a prayer, an insistence that the worst thing is not the last thing.

Viewing

Scriptures

You’re here because you love Nathan, because his life left an impact on you in some way. He was your son, your brother. Your cousin or your nephew or your dear friend.

Death is always a tragedy, but in cases like this, when the one we love dies so young, we can’t help but ask, “Why?!” Why would God let this happen?

It’s the most basic question in the world.

Here’s the thing though: so many of us feel guilty for asking the question. Even in the depths of our pain, we hear those voices telling us, “Don’t question! Just believe! Everything happens for a reason! God just needed another flower for his garden!” and all the other awful things you hear in spaces like this.

But you just heard the story of Lazarus. Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha were Jesus’ friends. They didn’t follow him around the country like the disciples did. No, they lived in Bethany, just outside Jerusalem, and Jesus stayed with them any time he came to visit the capitol. They were his friends.

Now, I want you to imagine what sort of perks might come with being friends with the actual son of God. At the very least, wouldn’t you think that the guy who went around curing diseases, the guy who made miraculous healings a centerpiece of his ministry, would spare some healing for his buds?

Maybe not seasonal allergies, but surely something serious - a broken limb? And wouldn’t it go without question that if you got a fatal disease, you could count on him?

Apparently not. Because when Lazarus got sick, Jesus didn’t come. And when Lazarus died, Jesus didn’t come. In fact, Jesus didn’t show up until his good friend Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days.

No wonder his sisters were angry. I love that Martha didn’t even wait for Jesus to get to their house. She marched out to meet him and said, “What’s the actual deal, Jesus?! If you’d bothered to show up, my brother would still be alive!”

Now, I want to pause to observe that this is exactly how many of us were taught not to speak to God. But Martha doesn’t care. This is her friend, her Lord, and she’s going to tell him exactly what she thinks.

(Actually, I know a few of you here who are just like Martha. I’m willing to bet you’ve already let God have a piece of your mind.)

And how did Jesus respond to Martha? He didn’t condemn her. He offered a promise: Martha, this isn’t the end.

Then Mary found Jesus, heading for the tomb. And she said the same thing - why didn’t you show up sooner?

And then something truly miraculous happens: Jesus weeps. He grieves with Martha and Mary and all Lazarus’ other friends.

Jesus knows how this story ends. He knows he’s about to go and raise Lazarus from the tomb. And yet that doesn’t stop his grief. Even though he knows what is to come, he also knows what is happening now. NOW, his good friends are devastated. NOW, it seems as though nothing will ever be good or right or true again.

So Jesus weeps.

Do you hear that, friends? Jesus is with us, weeping over the death of his good friend, Nathan.

We want to rage. We want to kick and scream and ask, “Where were you, Lord?! If you’d been here, wouldn’t he still be alive?”

In the face of our grief, Jesus does not punish us for questioning. He doesn’t hide from us. he doesn’t ignore us.

In the face of our deep pain, Jesus grieves with us.

Here’s the honest truth friends: what we want to know in this moment is, “Why?” Why did Nathan have to die so young?

But even if we had the answer, we would still hurt. Answers don’t help our pain. You know what does help?

Having each other. Grieving together. Allowing the love we all felt for Nathan pulling us all together, binding us to one another.

Nathan is leaving a legacy for us, a legacy of being bound together.

I hope too, we can take some comfort from Jesus’ own life. He knows not only the pain we suffer, the pain of losing a loved one, but the pain Nathan has felt, the pain of death itself.

This is why Jesus’ resurrection matters - it is a promise that Death has been defeated. That’s why Paul’s words to the Thessalonians are so important - they too wondered what was next, how to endure the loss of their loved ones. And Paul assured them that, because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too can have confidence that this end is not The End. That, in the words of Frederick Buchner, who also recently died, the worst thing is not the last thing.

I want to invite you now to sing together again a song that celebrates the goodness of a God who does not leave us alone in our grief, a God who does not condemn us for our anger, but rather agrees with us and grieves with us.

Song

Goodness of God

Eulogies

Eulogy by Jonathan Hoarau

Eulogy by Beverly Itotia

Eulogy by Karla Arenas-Itotia

Eulogy by Lillie Anne Zanotti

Tributes (2 minutes each - JR. MC’s/moderates)

Acknowledgments by Gerorge Itotia

Song

God Be With You Till We Meet Again

Recessional to Graveside

We have arrived to commit the mortal remains of Nathan Emmanuel Hoarau to the earth.

As Paul wrote to the church in Corinth,

The New Revised Standard Version The Resurrection Body

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

55 “Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Nathan, rest well, good and faithful servant. We commit your body to the earth, planting you as a seed that will one day be raised. Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. Rest in peace until the day when you are raised in glory.

Let us pray:

"O God, whose mercies cannot be numbered: you are ever more ready to hear than we are to pray. You know our needs before we ask, and our ignorance in asking. Accept our prayers on behalf of your servant Nathan and grant him an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the community of your saints.

O God, who gave us birth, give to us now your grace, that as we shrink before the mystery of death, we may see the light of eternity. Help us to live as those who are prepared to die. And when our days here are accomplished, enable us to die as those who go forth to live, so that living or dying, our life may be in you.

We pray through Jesus Christ your son, our Lord, who lives and rules with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”