Tommy's Funeral

Prelude/Processional

Opening Prayer

Our heavenly Father, we are glad that we can pause at the beginning of Tommy’s memorial service to breathe to you a prayer for strength and guidance. We consider our acts today to be acts of worship, for in them we express our simple faith and trust in you. We ask for strength where we are weak, courage where we are afraid, light where there is darkness, and faith where there is uncertainty. May your Spirit be with us each moment and make of this a triumphand experience. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Opening Scripture - 2 Cor 1:3-4

2 Corinthians 1:3–4 CSB

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

Reading (Carla)

Song

Scripture - Psalm 23

Psalm 23 CSB

A psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I have what I need. He lets me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside quiet waters. He renews my life; he leads me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me; your rod and your staff—they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.

Eulogy (Josie)

Song

Prayer (Extemporanious)

Sermon

Life is a beautiful thing. And when everything is going well and according to plan we can fool ourselves into thinking that things will be like they are forever. Yet it is in moments like these that we remember that all is not perfect in this world. As King David wrote in Psalm 23 that we read together earlier, we walk in the valley of the shadow of death. Like any good poetry this puts a vivid picture in our head. We walk in the shadow of death. Try as we might to forget it, moments like these when we lose the one’s we love serve as harsh reminders.

Uncle Tommy like the rest of us lived in this shadow as well. Having lost his wife Gloria Tommy faced that shadow head on and many of us here saw first hand how deeply broken his heart was in the face of that loss.

Yet in the face of that darkness we don’t need to live in despair or in fear. The Bible calls us to hope in the midst of these losses. In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, he says to them in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

1 Thessalonians 4:13–14 CSB

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Tommy believed whole heartedly that the last time he saw Gloria on earth would not be the last time that he saw Gloria.

You see the Bible teaches that death came as a result of mankind’s rebellion against God. Every time we feel the sting of evil and death it reminds us that this world is not how it should be. But God didn’t want to leave it that way. When He created it, the world was beautiful and full of life and without evil. He called it very good. His heart is for the world and people He loves to get back a very good world. So that He can do what the Bible describes in Revelation 21:1-4

Revelation 21:1–4 CSB

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.

We see in movies and tv shows this picture of us going to heaven where there are big white fluffly clouds and we all play harps all day in togas for some reason. The Biblical picture is the one above. A New Earth, but a perfect one. One without this shadow of death hanging over our heads.

Yet we know that we aren’t perfect. That we don’t always do the right things, and some of the things we’ve done are downright wrong and evil. So how can we inherit a perfect world and eternal life without bringing all of our baggage with us and spoiling the new one like the last one?

God made a way for us by sending Jesus into the world. By showing us His love on the cross. We are less than a week away from Good Friday, a celebration of the fact that the Son of God came and died for us. The only perfectly good person died on our behalf, basically trading places with us. Taking the punishment evil people have earned and giving us a chance to live again in the eternally perfect world to come.

But He didn’t just die, He also rose again. Easter is a celebration of new life. A new and better life. Jesus and His disciples after Him called us to symbolically participate in His death and resurrection. To die to our old selves, our selfeshness, our pride, our out of control desires, and be born again into a life of love and sharing everything with one another.

It’s in this way that God prepares us to join Him and each other in the New Earth, where I am convinced that we won’t spend all our time floating on the clouds and singing songs in a falsetto voice. But where perhaps we can all sit down around a table together. Where we can grab a coffee together and chat. Where we can all play cards together and no one will ever cheat.

This then is the hope that we can all have if we turn to Jesus and follow after Him. I would encourage us all to take this moment of the tragic loss of Thomas Elliott, or as I know him Uncle Tommy, as a stark reminder of the reality of death, and an inspiration to ask ourselves if we mourn as those who have no hope, or if we put our hope in Jesus Christ.

I know that at different times in my own life I have struggled with the thought of death. Of long nights spent staring toward a dark ceiling wondering what it would be like to die, and fearing what would come after. In my own life I have come to know Jesus in a deep way and it has given me hope and confidence in knowing that although death will one day come for me, that as the Bible says in John 3:16-17

John 3:16–17 CSB

For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Prayer

Our Father, we give thanks today for the hope of the resurrection which is ours through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The darkest hour of the individual life is the experience of death, but the glorious gospel has reached even to this and made it instead the most beautiful and hopeful of all. We pray for these who feel this separation most deeply. Grant to them your strengthening presence day by day. When the hours grow dark and lonely, and fears attack, overshadow them and give them light and joy and peace. Help all of us to walk more closely to your truth and to serve you more dilligently. We shall give you the praise in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Benediction - 2 Thess 3:16

2 Thessalonians 3:16 CSB

May the Lord of peace himself give you peace always in every way. The Lord be with all of you.

Recessional