Funeral Message for Nancy Rothstein
Message for Nancy Rothstein’s Funeral – 7/10/08 @ Kinder-Dennis Funeral Home in Waseca, MN
Everybody with a little life experience knows that in many cases parting is sweet sorrow. The experience is so common that we have proverbs to express it. One comes from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:
Good night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
that I shall say good night till it be morrow.
That experience is not new. With that experience frequently come tears. Tears are often a response to grief, to loss, to pain. Tears can also come from joy and celebration. Today we meet at the crossroads where the tears of loss and grief meet the tears of celebration.
Death is one of those things in life that almost certainly causes us to think. It forces us to be introspective, to examine how we have lived. It forces us to consider our relationships, and what is truly important to us. When I spoke with the family earlier this week about where to go with my message today, it was clear that while there will be loss and grief, today will also be a day of celebrating a life lived. A life that impacted many others, in ways that are often difficult to fully express in words.
We see examples of this in both the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. In the Old Testament we are told of a man by the name of Job. By all worldly measures Job was a successful man, a man of means and wealth with land and a family. Unknown to Job, he became the central figure in a disagreement between God and Satan. The result of this was that Job lost everything, his land, his possessions, his wealth, his health, his family, and even his friends offered him bad advice. But even in his darkest hour, when the pain was so great that most would have thrown in the towel, Job chose to worship God. "Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God, but rather he worshiped God. We see in this the first step to help us celebrate Nancy’s life – we need to look to God for comfort, and praise Him for her time here with us and the impact she had on all she had met.
The New Testament also speaks to finding joy in our times of pain and sorrow. In John 14 we find Jesus speaking to his disciples about this. There he says: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And 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. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going."
JN 14:5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
JN 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life.
Jesus says this to his disciples just before he is to be crucified. Christ knew what was coming, yet he told his followers “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me.” His reason for saying and believing this is because Christ knew there was something better in store for those who knew him, for those who believed and followed him in faith. Through Christ the bonds of death have been broken. Through Christ we can be set free! That indeed is another example of where both tears of grief and joy were appropriate.
That brings us to today. Each one of you is here with a story about how Nancy affected your lives. For some it might be in smaller ways, for others it was in great ways as she was a mother and a sister. While it is appropriate for us to grieve, and for that grief to take time to heal, it is also appropriate for us to draw on the good. We can draw on those memories, the ways we were impacted by a life lived to help us process our grief. We can look back on times where Nancy was a servant to others, caring for them, brightening their lives. We can see in her love, through her love for others, through her love for animals. And we can draw from that, and find in it joy and opportunities to praise the Lord.
A wise man once said that the true test of what someone believes is how they live their life and how it impacts others. Today we all still have the opportunity to choose how we are going to move forward, how we will choose to live our lives. We all still have the chance to make a difference. To make a difference in this world so that when we pass from this life, others will reflect on our time here with joy and grief, and not just sorrow.
Because of the goodness of Nancy, we can look back on the days of her life with deep gratitude and fond memories.
Because of the goodness of God through Christ, we can experience the forgiveness of sins, we need not fear death, and we can look forward to eternal life in the presence of God.
This hope in the face of death is only found by a personal faith in Jesus Christ. It is my prayer that each person here today will come to experience this hope as you personally accept the gift of God's salvation through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, who died for your sins and who was raised so that you might be set free.
Let us pray:
God of second chances
Revelation 21:4: And God 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.