Myra Van Someren Funeral Meditation

 Scripture: 1 John 5:1-5, 11-12

Myra Van Someren Funeral Meditation

           This is one of those passages I think most Christians know what John is trying to say, but we might be thinking, “Couldn’t he have said it a bit simpler?” On one hand it seems like he’s just making a big circle of ideas, and yet on the other hand it seems like he’s created a tangled mess. If you look over the entire short book of 1 John, you’d see that captures the whole book as he repeats some of these ideas in multiple places. We have faith in Jesus. We have Jesus’ identity as Christ and the Son of God. There’s every believers’ identity as a child of God. There’s the relationship of love between children of God. There’s obedience. Then there’s the world. That’s just the opening five verses. Verses 11 and 12 bring in eternal life, having that and not having that.

           On Monday, I told Jerry and Bonnie and Duane and Diane that I was going to try and keep this service to a certain brevity; I’m trying to keep my word as close as possible, so I won’t dig into all those concepts. But as we meditate on what is most important when we consider the situation of our lives and one day our own deaths, there are three keys ideas we might take away.

First, our relationship with God. If we go back to Genesis 1 and 2, a literal reading, God created man and woman by intentionally forming them “from the dust of the ground and breathed into [their] nostrils the breath of life.” Our relationship as created human beings with our Creator God is we were made in his image and likeness. Everything, including humanity, was good and without sin; Adam and Eve’s relationship with God was what he intended to be, not just for a little while—until they grew up—but he intended it to be forever.

Yet I’m guessing we all know that with the Fall of Adam and Eve into sin that changed. They disturbed and broke the relationship. From that point forward, all of us—every person, Myra included—experienced an inherited separation from God. She and we were born in sin. But the apostle John said that believers are “born of God,” and exist in this category of “the children of God,” who “overcome the world.” How do we go from being separated, which by our sin we are at fault for, back to being sons and daughters of the one, holy, Almighty God? We’ll cover that in our next point, but for now let it be enough to say that our being “born of God” comes by adoption. In adopting us, God made a way for and chose the process of redemption. God chose who he would mercifully save to salvation by showing his grace. God guarantees our salvation and gives us his unfailing Spirit to accomplish the changing of our identity. What God does in calling us out of separation to be his sons and daughter is establish a relationship bond that can never be severed.

That’s the first key idea for our lives and one day our deaths. The second is our redemption through Jesus. As I said earlier, when I visited with Myra, it was clear that her convictions in God’s word and the gospel stayed with her no matter what else she lost. She knew and believed and trusted Jesus to be the only way to salvation. The only way to redeem her from her sin is that he, the Son of God, the sinless one, gave himself in her place, to rescue her from eternal punishment. She knew that to be true for anyone, including her children. The only way her sons and daughters could be saved and enter into right relationship with God was through the sacrifice of Jesus, and she taught them accordingly. Jesus didn’t just give good teachings and perform awesome miracles; he was the sacrifice God willingly accepted on our behalf. In 1 John 2:2, John writes, “If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” He is the only one anybody can look to for salvation. Our confidence is in him.

Going back to 1 John 5, we heard our redemption through Jesus changes how we live—being called to love, we answer in intentional acts of love, service, and obedience to God and to others. That is linked together; we can’t separate it. Myra lived a life in which she showed her love in acts of service. Whether in the work at home and on the farm growing up, or in the programs of the church or being sure that those who couldn’t come to church were still included in the ministry, as well as in her family and in the community, she was a servant. I have no doubt that her cleaning was an act of love, keeping things neat not only for presentation but for use. She took on the nature of a servant because that is what God calls all of us who believe to do.

Our relationship, our redemption, finally, our future. Our future matters for our present. Verses 11 and 12, “…God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” All of us likely have had things in our lives, there’s probably something right now for some of you that’s coming up that you’re looking forward to and preparing for. There’s an event that sometimes we say, “Our lives revolve around it.” Maybe it’s a wedding, a birth, a retirement, a vacation, something big happening in our work or community. Whatever it is, your present looks different because you’re waiting for that.

If that’s the case for things that we’re hoping for, that we long for the day on the calendar to arrive, our excitement is constantly growing, shouldn’t the same be true to a far greater extent when it comes to God’s promise of eternal life for those who believe? One of the greatest parts in pastoral ministry is talking to usually older believers who can say with a smile on their face, “I’m ready to go whenever God takes me.” They mean it. Sure, it’s helpful that they’ve seen a lot—as Myra did—they’ve experienced most of life’s big celebrations in their life and the lives of their loved ones; but usually they’ve also experienced pain and limitations and loss. They have reached the point where they trust God, though, and they know what he has in store in the future is far greater than any of us have experienced in any single moment or day on this earth.

That is what eternal life holds and why the believer’s hope for the future should fill us with joy for the present. That’s not to say we completely forget about everything and everyone around us, but we live our lives knowing that nothing can take that future away. This was Myra’s hope and longing. There was nothing that could take God’s love from her. Her comfort was the certainty that she belonged and always will belong to her faithful Savior Jesus Christ.