Scripture readings: Isaiah 25:6-9, Revelation 21:1-6, John 14:1-6
Sometimes life just goes wrong.
Consider Donald for instance. I’ve known Donald Tyson now for three years. I’ve been his pastor, visited him at the hospital numerous times. The impression I always have of him is this giant.
I’m not a small guy, but it always seemed to me that Don just towered over me. That strong body served him well in life. He was a man who worked with those strong hands and strong legs. Yesterday at the viewing, I heard again sort of a quintessential Don story, of a time when there was an accident at work. A big heavy piece of steel came down and landed on a worker and Don, in a burst of adrenaline, pulled it off of him. Hundreds of pounds tossed aside. Don probably saved that man’s life.
But that’s who he was. He was a giant, but also embodied that old phrase of the “gentle giant.” He was a man of kindness and loyalty and love. He was loyal to his church; it seemed every Sunday there he was in the choir, ready to sing. Loved his family, especially his wife. Loved his country. Served for a number of years in 101st Airborne, one of the most storied and prestigious unit in our armed forces.
Don was a good man. But sometimes life just goes wrong.
Those strong hands stopped working. Those strong feet began to stumble. The giant of a man that he was was laid low by neuropathy and sickness. Suddenly, he couldn’t do anything anymore. A nightmare come to life for him. He couldn’t sing in the choir. Couldn’t work. Couldn’t drive. Couldn’t walk. Couldn’t even feed himself even. It was awful for him. He hated every minute of it.
Life just goes wrong sometimes.
I know the conversation over the past few days has been to the effect of “Donald is in a better place now. He’s not suffering.” I know that sentence has been said more than once and it is true. But if you want to talk about life going wrong, there’s the best example of them all. When death is best of all possible options, something truly has gone very wrong.
We have come here today to bid our farewells to Donald and to hear a word of hope. But to understand that word of hope, we must be honest about the nature of things. This world has gone wrong and our proof is in front of us. A beloved husband and father and friend and a good man lies before us, his life taken away by age and disease. And one day, likely under different circumstances, that’ll be each of us in that place. Death will come calling and life will go wrong that worst way it can.
But this is also what our faith is about. God giving answer to what we see before us today. This is not how it is supposed to be. Our God is a god of life and when he created us he created us to be creatures of life, ones who live with him and thrive in his goodness and grace. But that’s not the world we live in; things went wrong.
But God has refused to leave that as it is; he’s been working, from the dawn of humanity up until now and beyond, to fix what has gone wrong with the world. To set right what sin and death has done.
It was a long plan, put into place at the very beginning of civilization. It involved a promise to a man named Abraham that he would be the father of a great people, that from which would come a blessing that would set right all that was wrong in the world. Untold generations passed through time from Abraham to a little village of Nazareth, but from one of his descendents, a girl named Mary, came Jesus Christ. The Messiah, the Savior, the Son of the Living God, God incarnate in the world.
He came among us and shows how things are meant to be. Showed us how to be kind to one another, revealed a kingdom where the things wrong in this world are set right. And Jesus, as if that were not enough, made the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the world, dying on a cross and then rising again on the third day.
All this he did for Donald and for you and for me. All this he did for the whole world. And Donald believed that, trusted in it. Even as his body broke down and things began to fall apart, he trusted in the one who had said to him, “One day, I will put it all right again.”
Donald died in that hope and it has not disappointed him. Those promises have been fulfilled in ways we left here behind can scarcely imagine.
Sometimes life goes wrong. Well, that’s the price we pay for living on this side of the veil, in a broken world marred by sin and death. But we have the same hope as Donald that there will be a day when it will all be set right. Scripture gives us vision of that day, with stories of feasts and tears being wiped away at last. Scripture also tells us of the promise that will make that all come to pass. “Where I am, you shall be also.” A promise beyond time, made in love and compassion for people God believes should something better than a world gone wrong. They should have life with him, as it was meant to be. Amen.
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