Meditation for Annie Kleywegt Memorial Service
Notes
Transcript
A song of ascents. 1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? 2 My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber; 4 indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The Lord watches over you— the Lord is your shade at your right hand; 6 the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The Lord will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life; 8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.
Many years ago at the wedding of Jan and Annie Kleywegt Psalm 121 was read as the wedding text…particularly verse 1.... and so the family has asked me to preach on this passage this afternoon, which, of course, I am very happy to do.
As they began their life together, the Word of God as found in Psalm 121 became a great source of encouragement, strength, and peace for them and this remained true for Annie throughout her life.
I was not able to get to know Annie real well. I began serving here at New West in the fall of 2009 and if my recollection is correct it was later in 2011 when she moved into the Emerald at Elim, that I started noticing her repeating herself quite a bit. The very early stages of dementia was already underway. And one of the stories that she had told me in some of my first visits with her, which she then repeated several times in 2011 and beyond was the story of God’s providential care over her and the Breedveld siblings during her late childhood, early teenage years. She told me about how her father died when she 9 and how soon after her mother was not really able to care for the kids any longer. In fact she died several years after her husband. She talked about how she and her siblings lived together in an orphanage and later were taken in as foster children with the Voerman family. She said that some of the things she experienced and saw during those years were quite difficult. Her sister Lena, also shared some of these same difficult experiences with me. They saw things that young children should never have to witness.
“But God always watched over us,” she said to me. “God took good care of me and my brothers and sisters. We grew up being very close to each other, and the Lord preserved our faith! In spite of the difficulties, God held us close and we all continued walking with the Lord throughout out lives.”
Annie shared that story with me numerous times…in fact it is probably one of my most vivid memories of things that she share with me and I think it is a powerful testimony to the promise of God that we encounter in Psalm 121, “The Lord watches over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”
My sense is that the kind of life one saw lived in Annie, was a life that was lived with a centered trust in God who, as Psalm 121 says, always watches over us.
She lived with a strong trust in the Lord. She rarely complained. She faithfully cared for her children, selflessly in fact, and always tried to live her life with hopefulness and trust.
One notices in Psalm 121 that God is an everywhere present God, one who is active mostly behind the scenes, always watching, always caring, always concerned, always protecting those who look to Him.
First, don't be fooled into thinking that this psalm promises that once you become a Christian life is stress free. The psalm certainly doesn't promise a life free from trouble. We know that because the testimony of so many people of God that we read about in the Bible tells us that life can be hard. God's people experience, suffering, disappointment, despair, setback, disease, just like anybody else.. .and we don't need the people in the Bible to tell us that, we know it full well from our own experiences.
Our marriages experience tensions, even brokenness, chronic pain cripples us, dementia afflicts our minds and slowly takes away our abilities, cancer invades our bodies and destroys them-pain, suffering, persecution---all find their way into the lives of people who belong to God. And sometimes in our world someone who is young, healthy, with a full life ahead of them, can be here today and then gone tomorrow due to some unforseeable tragedy.
At various times in her life, Annie experienced very difficult and challenging seasons. And it’s not lost on me that the same is true for a number of you. I’m thinking of Magda’s illness and eventual death. Of Erik’s tragic accident. And I’m sure there are likely other incidences that I’m not aware of.
What the psalm does promise is this: "My only help in life, comes from the Lord. My one certainty in life that everything will be ok in the end, is the Lord. WHY. Because the Maker of Heaven and Earth will keep us from all harm and watch over our coming and going forever more."
We can lift our eyes to the hills, but will we find help in the hills? To understand that question, we need to know something about the hills or the mountains in ancient Israel. In ancient Israel the tops of the hills were where the worshippers of pagan gods built their shrines and their temples and their altars. The gods of Baal, Ashtoreth, and a host of other Canaanite deities made their homes on the hilltops. Should I lift my eyes up to them and find help in them, the psalmist asks.. . a resounding NO is the answer, "The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid." (Psalm 118:6-7).
As was true in Israel’s day, it remains true in our day as well. There are a variety of gods that people look to for security and hope. Technology, the human spirit, medicine, pleasure, wealth.. . but in the end none of these are able to "watch over our coming and going now and forevermore." Only God, through Jesus Christ, is able to do that. Jesus says in Matthew 11 :27, "All things have been committed or handed over to me by my Father." The Bible teaches that all things, heaven and earth, and all people, have been handed over to Christ, and that he will come again to judge all people.
With that in mind, it is important for us to know how we can find relationship with the only true God of heaven and earth that the psalm talks about. How do we find our way to this God? How did our sister Annie find her way to this God?
It turns out, that is actually the wrong question. Our sinfulness prevents us from finding our way to God. But, becasue of His great love for us, God, in the person of Jesus Christ, made his way to us. Jesus came to us and said in John 10, "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:9-10, NIV)
And picking up on the theme found in Psalm 121 of the Lord always watching over his people the Apostle Paul says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35-39, NIV)
In one of his books, Eugene Peterson reminds us of a truth that is particularly applicable to understanding this Psalm. The truth is this: all the water in all the oceans of the world cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside. It's also true that all the trouble in the world cannot bring ultimate harm to us unless it gets within us. And here is the good news of this psalm.. . . "God Himself guards his people from every evil." Again, Eugene Peterson puts it this way, "Not the demon in the loose stone, not the fierce attack of the sun god, not the malign influence of the moon goddess," we might add, not the debilitating consequences of dementia, or Alzheimers, or disease, or tragedy "not any of these can separate you from God's call or purpose." "God guards you from every evil."
The particular “evil” that we face together this afternoon is death. Increasingly in our culture we are made to think that death is simply a natural part of life. Death, our culture suggests, is not to be grieved rather it is simply an occasion for us to celebrate life. Though today we do come to give thanks to God for the life of Annie, we also gather particularly because she has died. Though Annie’s body is not here in the sanctuary with us this afternoon, a number of us stood very close to it on Thursday and it is her death that has brought us together. The Bible teaches us that death is not a natural part of life. Death is an intruder, an enemy, a destroyer. God’s intent for humanity from the very beginning was that they would live. The Bible teaches us that because of humanity’s rebellion and disobedience towards God, sin and death entered God’s good world, corrupting and infecting it with disease, injustice, malnutrition, broken relationships, drive-by shootings, gang-warfare, terrorism, fatal accidents, all in themselves an expression of brokenness and death.
But thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, the one who lived and died, and rose again, God has done something about sin and death. By dying on the cross, Jesus took on himself all the consequences of sin. He bore the punishment for sin that we deserved. He died so that we might live. And by rising from the dead, he defeated the power of sin and death. The Bible says, that death has lost its sting for those who know Christ and have placed their trust in him.
We gather today to be encouraged and strengthened in our faith, in the face of death. We gather to hear the announcement from Jesus, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die. Whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” You see when we gather today in the face of death, it is Annie’s death of course, but some of us here today, feel ourselves coming very close to the death of someone dear in our own life. Tomorrow would be my father’s 100th birthday. We buried him 20 years ago…but there are days when I miss him deeply. I’ve wished I could talk to him, share stories with him. I wish he could be an Opa to my children. See my firstborn daughter get married, see where I live, see my church.
Death is an intruder. It’s not the way its supposed to be.
God in Jesus Christ has done something about death and he promises us that a day is coming when God will make everything new. We read that a few moments again in Rev. 21. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place in now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death….. or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. I am making everything new.”
Elsewhere in that same book of the Bible, Rev. 7, we are giving this glorious vision, “a great multitude of people dressed in white robes "are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat.". . . . do you hear the language of Psalm 121 in this vision?. . . . Now who's at the center of the throne?. . . "For the Lamb," that's Jesus Christ, "is at the center of the throne and he will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."" (Revelation 7:15-17, NIV)
Friends, this is the glorious vision that God gives to all people who find their help in the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. This is the vision God gives to all people who put their deepest trust in our LORD Jesus Christ.. . the one whom the Father has given all things.
May that be true for each one of us, now and always, In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, AMEN.