Marguerite Funeral
Notes
Transcript
I was listening to this song in the car by The Smith Street Band and it had the line “no one gets lost anymore”. The band actually named their whole album this line, “no one gets lost anymore”. I thought this was an interesting reflection as today we have access to a map of the entire world in our pockets.
However, this might not be entirely true, that no one gets lost anymore. In November 2009 Eric Steward age 81, went out to get the morning newspaper in Yass and ended up driving to Geelong. After taking the wrong turn on the highway he just kept on driving till after nine hours he stopped and asked for directions. Eric said he didn’t need satellite navigation as he has only been lost once before.
Gone are the days when you had to drive with a street directory in one hand, trying to trace were you are, and count how many lefts before your turn. Our phones now can tell us the way to go.
While geographically we might have solve our problem of not getting lost, but existentially we may still encounter the feeling of being lost. Do you ever have that feeling, there is something out there, but I am just not sure what? Do you have the feeling that there must be something more to life than what we see? They say, in the end you can’t take anything with you, but where are you in the end? What’s out there? Where are we going?
With the passing of Marguerite you may have had you had conversations with people and not really known what to say. We can be lost for words. Sometimes I wish there was a script and we both knew it so that we wouldn’t feel like we didn’t know what we were doing. What words do we say in this moment? What are we meant to be feeling?
In our short passage from John’s Gospel, Jesus is talking to his followers the night before He is about to die. Jesus knows this is going to happen, He has mentioned it at least three times before, but His followers didn’t understand that these next 24 hours are going to be hard. So Jesus tells them
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.
Jesus seeks to settle His followers hearts. He wants to give them a bearing to help in their troubles. Jesus says if you believe there is a God, also believe He is God.
Up to this point in Jesus’ life He has said and done some things that hints or points to the fact that He was unique. He forgave people of their sins, He heals a bunch of people, and even raise His friend Lazarus from the dead. Jesus was doing this to show that He is God.
And, He says to his followers, He is going away, to a place, where He will make preparation for them. This place is His Fathers house, which has enough room and space for all of them. This place is where His Father is - and for some reason Jesus thinks they know the way. But that is a bit tough right? You can’t really type “Jesus Father’s place” into Google Maps and get an answer. How could one know the way to get to this place? And with the cross coming up, the subtext of all of this is that Jesus is going die. Is that the way?
But good old Thomas speaks up and says what everyone else is thinking, he says
John 14:5 (NIV)
“Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
This is a great question, if you don’t know where Jesus is talking about how can you know how to get there?
But Jesus then replies with a strange answer to a place. He doesn’t give directions, He doesn’t mention what towns are nearby or how far you have to travel or how many right turns there are to this place. His directions are answered in a person: Himself.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus says, the only way to the Father and to His place, is through Him. Though Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t say you have to be a good person to get to God. Or that you have to give a certain amount of money to charity, you don’t have to visit certain Holy Places, or look within or and perform special rituals to get to God. Jesus says the only way to get to God is through Him. We just have to do what He said in verse one: to believe in Him.
I live in a cul-de-sac, the only way to get to my house is to go up that street. So this means if anyone was to come to my house, they have to exclusively go up my street. Jesus says He is the only way to get to His Fathers place. He is the directions, and directions by nature are exclusive. If you want to get to a particular place you have to take some particular directions to get there.
So, at this point it come down to trusting Jesus and what He says. It is worth asking, is He telling the truth or not? What would He know about any of this anyway?
I think we can trust Jesus in this, for the day after He spoke these words He was dead in the tomb. The one who said He was life, was dead.
But after three days, He rose again. That first Easter, He walked out of the tomb, never to die again. He had tasted and swallowed death. He had pass through and conquered death and has now made a way for us to get to God. For all those who trust in Jesus, they can follow His path and Jesus says He will bring them to His Fathers place. He is preparing the place for us. Jesus is the Way.
Only those who think they are lost, only those who will put aside their own ways of earning favor with God, only those who know they need directions and ask Jesus for help will find the Way, and the truth is we are all in need of being found.
And the good news is, Jesus came to save those who are lost, he came for those who haven’t made it. He came for people lie Marguerite. He came for the ones who needed help, and He made a way for us, by dying and rising again, in our place. So we can live with His Father forever.
The Arctic Tern is a bird that is famous for it migration path. Every year this small bird travels from the Arctic to the Antarctic. It lays it eggs in the North and then flys 50-90 thousand kilometers to the South to breed. They do this every year. Somehow when the eggs hatch in the Arctic these birds know to fly to the Antarctic. It is insane. They somehow know, where and how to travel these impossibly long distance.
Jesus came for us who was lost, to bridge the impossibly long distance that we had with God. We were separated from God and no long distance travel would mean we could get near God. It wasn’t a geographical problem, but a spiritual one. We couldn’t just try harder and work our way up to heaven, we couldn’t just think about things and be smart enough to work out some Golden Path, or we can’t even behave in a way good enough to see God on our own merit.
Jesus came to show us the way. He is the Good shepherd who guides us along the right paths. Even if we walk through the darkest valley, we don’t have to fear, for our shepherd, our guide, knows the way.
Jesus is the way. He is the truth and He offers us Life. Jesus has prepared a place for all those who believe in Him. And we can trust Him, for He has tasted death for us and has overcome the grave. Jesus came so that we can go back to God.
As one person said:
Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 4364 On His Way Home
A fugitive is one who is running from home,
A vagabond is one who has no home;
A stranger is one away from home,
And a PILGRIM is on his way home.
Laurie and Marguerite very recently downsized and moved into Goodwin Village. Downsizing and moving can be hard. I visit people in nursing homes who have had packed all their stuff and sort it out to just fit in one room. On the other hand last week I visited someone who planed on dying in the own home. But know that however moves you make, wherever you may end up in this life, nursing home or otherwise, that is not going to be your final home. There is another place.
Jesus promised His followers
John 14:3 (NIV)
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
The Christian hope is that Jesus offers Life to all, and a way for us to come back to our Creator. And so at the end of our days, we can with David and Marguerite say the last line of Psalm 23, that
Psalm 23:6 (NIV)
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
