Funeral of Olga Mayores

After Adam and Eve plunged the world into darkness by eating the forbidden fruit, God placed an angel with a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life. This was not a punishment. It was mercy. Adam and Eve now lived in a broken and sinful world. Their lives would be filled with sorrow and suffering. Given the hunger of the human race for perpetual youth and immortality, God had no choice but to guard the way to the Tree of Life, lest we extend the days of our broken and miserable lives forever.

Even so, Adam’s body would stubbornly cling to life for almost 1000 years after the fall into sin. We were not made to die, and creation itself seems to know this and rebel against the sad reality in which we now live. The 103 years of Olga’s life are quite short in comparison to the 930 years of Adam, but long indeed by any current human standards. Like Adam, Olga was made for eternal life. Her body, perhaps in tune with some inherited memory of life before the fall, seemed to refuse to die. (Slovaks, I’ve been told, can be stubborn in life and also stubborn in death.) Yet God, in his mercy, saw fit to limit Olga’s days in this broken world of suffering and sorrow. Out of love for His children, He has removed the tree of life from beyond the grasp of humanity. All the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve will die, for all are sinners, and sinners must die. But death is not the end.

The lost tree of life appears once more in the Revelation, the last book of the Bible. After these things, the angel showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads (Rev 22:1–4).

The tree of life stands in the midst of heaven, but the way is guarded, and how can we find it? Thomas said to Jesus, “Lord, how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn 14:5–6). One-hundred and three years ago this month, April 3rd, 1921, the way of life was opened to Olga. The sign of the holy cross was first traced upon her tiny heart and forehead, and she was baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And on that day, long before anyone in this room was born, Jesus promised Olga, “I go now to prepare a place for you, but I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know” (Jn 14:2b–4).

The wise men of this world are still searching in vain for the way to the tree of life, but if they were truly wise, they would have asked Olga. For she has known the Way for the last 103 years. That Way is not a medical secret, not a diet, not an eastern meditation technique, nor a miracle drug. The Way to eternal life is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who guided Olga’s path for all the 103 years of her long life—from baptism until death. And now His promise to her has been fulfilled: “I go now to prepare a place for you, but I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Now Olga, who walked with her Lord through this vale of tears for 103 years, has been delivered from all sin, sorrow, and suffering. She has come at last to the presence of Jesus who stretched out His arms open the tree of life to receive her. For Olga and all believers in Christ, death is not the end. It has been refashioned into the portal of paradise, and now, even 103 long years of earthly life has become but a fading in the joys of eternity that Jesus has prepared for her and for all who love Him. Amen.