Romans 6

Romans 6:3-8

Funeral Sermon for Grandpa Landis

(my wife’s grandfather),

buried on Good Friday.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The text for our meditation is taken from the book of Romans.

NKJ Romans 6:3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death.  Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.

Today is called Good Friday.  What a strange name for the day on which we commemorate a mans death.  We remember that this is the day on which Jesus was crucified, died and was buried.  We will also now remember that this is the day when R.G. Landis was buried.  Two men buried almost two-thousand years apart, yet they are joined to each other more closely than we are to the breath we breathe.

So what is so good about Good Friday?  Today we celebrate the sacrifice of Jesus’ life for our own.  Without his death, his sacrifice, we would still bear the guilt of all the things that we have done wrong.  We call these things sins.  I sin; you sin; and R.G. Landis sinned.  As a result of our sin, God who is perfect and just, demands that justice be done.  The punishment for sin is death.  

Can we pay such a price.  Certainly death is too high a price for us to pay.  It is;  we cannot pay it.  Our God, our loving God, so loved us and R.G. Landis that He gave His only begotten Son, that if we believe in Him we should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.”  Jesus said these words just before he called a man named Lazarus from his grave, from death.  Do you believe?  R.G. Landis believed and he was Baptized.

Our Scripture reading reminds us that we were Baptized into Christ.  This means many things. Our Baptism joined us to Jesus.  We are joined to the life Jesus lived in the fulfillment of Gods commands.  We are joined to him in his death. And in Baptism we are joined to him in His resurrection.  St. Paul, one of the Apostles (a man appointed by Jesus to teach), wrote to the Christian Church in Rome, saying “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” This is our hope.

Today we feel pain.  We feel sorrow and sadness.  We have been separated from a husband, father, brother and grandfather.  He was a friend to many of us.  To some of us he was more than we are able explain right now.  We will remember him with love.  Most importantly we need to remember that we will see him again.  This is your hope.  This is the hope of those of us that believe in Jesus.

            R.G. Landis was buried with Christ on Good Friday.  Now, we look forward with hope to his resurrection and our own.  Death is swallowed up in victory.  Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

So what is good about Good Friday?  When Jesus died, death was conquered.  The sting of death and sin has been removed.  Now we look with hope and expectation to Easter Sunday.  Soon the gloom of death will be replaced with the joy of life.  It is a good Friday because of what God has done for us in Jesus.