Barbara Mae Ohly Funeral Sermon – John 3:16–18 July 9th 2026 / whoever believes in Him

Barbara Ohly Funeral Sermon Speers Funeral Chapel / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Thursday July 9th 2026: Season of Pentecost / John 3:16–18 “Whoever Believes in Him”

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends and family of Barbara Ohly, a death that comes suddenly can shake you to your bones. Barbara’s death came unexpectedly last weekend: Where does her death leave you standing? Barbara believed in Jesus, who we heard in our Gospel Reading was given to the whole world as a gift from His Heavenly Father. The promises found in those words are for you as much as they are for Barbara: and the promise is this 1) the one who believes in Jesus has eternal life 2) the one who believes in Him has forgiveness and not condemnation ... so if death is terminal and takes time or if it’s sudden and unexpected either way the one with faith in Christ Jesus can face their death trusting their life into God the Father’s Hands. We are not free to choose the moment of our death, as some believe this day, such a choice is not God pleasing because it shows a lack of trust in the Lord, Barbara did not lack trust in the Lord, she believed in Him and He has come to take her to Himself in His time, by His will.[1] 

The Devil would love for a death that comes suddenly to cause you to fear, to cause you to lose faith, to falter in your belief in Christ, to be a roadblock to those who are on the threshold of coming to believe in Jesus. These words from the Gospel of Saint John were first spoken to a man who was coming to faith in Jesus, a learned man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus who came to see the Lord under cover of night to avoid being seen by other,[2] Jesus was teaching him what it means to be born again from above, to have a new life, not one where you a physically born again from your mother’s womb, but one in which you are born again by the workings of the Holy Spirit. The sort of birth that happens when you hear God’s word regarding Jesus and believe it, the sort of birth that happens when you are baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the sort of birth where you receive your faith and where your heart begins to believe in this Jesus the Son of God. You might be a Nicodemus seeking to understand what it means to truly believe in the Lord or you may be the other Nicodemus.

Let me explain. After that night when the familiar words of John 3:16 were first spoken to Nicodemus life carried on. Nicodemus went away to His work and Jesus went away to His work and three years later a very different Nicodemus found himself helping a man named Joseph of Arimathea to take the lifeless, bloodied and beaten body of Jesus down from the cross of Jesus’ Good Friday crucifixion. Nicodemus had carried about 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes with him to prepare Jesus’ body for burial, “they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews,”[3] and they laid the dead body of Jesus in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea that was near to where Jesus had died. This Nicodemus was no longer afraid of faith, or of believing in Jesus, or what anyone thought about him, this Nicodemus was unlike his old self, he no longer feared anything, he no longer feared death (which might have happened – the ones who plotted and orchestrated Jesus’ death were bent on stamping out faith in Jesus, they didn’t want anyone to believe in Jesus and weren’t above using death as a tool to blot out Jesus and His followers) so it was very dangerous for Nicodemus to join Joseph of Arimathea at the foot of the cross. The two of them had to face their fear of death and trust entirely in the promises of the Lord in order to bury the dead body of Jesus.

The mature Christian is free to live their life without the fear of death, to live each day as if it were their last believing in Jesus and His promise of salvation, forgiveness and eternal life. You might be saying ‘I’m not a very mature Christian right now, I’m bothered by the idea of sudden death and I’m worried about the prospects of a long drawn out death.” Dear ones, you have something the courageous and brave Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea didn’t have when they ventured to the foot of the cross to bury Jesus, they didn’t know what was about to happen on that first Easter Sunday. This same Jesus who had in the grand scheme of things died rather suddenly was risen from the dead, never to die again. They learned to face their fears trusting in the promises of the Lord unsure of the future; you have the promise of eternal life in Christ Jesus alongside the wonderful news of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and the promise of His glorious return on The Last Day, the promise of the resurrection of all flesh on That Day.  

We heard at the beginning of our Service how Christian baptism is being buried with Jesus and risen to new life in Him. In his letter to the Colossians Saint Paul describes it like this “having been buried with [Jesus] in baptism, in which you were also raised with [Jesus] through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”[4] And in 1 Corinthians Saint Paul likewise explains that “Christ [Jesus] has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep ... in Christ,” Saint Paul teaches, “all shall be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ.”[5] Jesus promises to do this for men like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, for women like Barbara Ohly and for each of you, yes “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life,” this is why God the Father gave His Son Jesus to the World so that you like Barbara can believe on Him and be saved from sin, death, the devil, the world and even from yourself. Embracing this prepares you for the day the Lord calls you home to Himself.

In this way the Christian can celebrate the life of the one who believed on Jesus, who stood each day on His promises, because the life of the one who died in Christ continues in Him, Barbara has not passed away, she has not perished eternally, she continues to live in Christ Jesus and when The Last Day comes she will be reunited with her body made new to walk into eternal life where no sudden and evil death will ever befall her body ever again. This Christian faith is not all spiritual, it’s not only ideas to live by, it is also physical and concrete: God loves the body as much as He loves the mind and the soul and so Jesus was sent to us in the flesh so that our flesh would be redeemed. Live in that hope; hold onto that love of God for Barbara because it is the love of God for you and your body, and your mind and your soul unto eternal life. Yes, believe in Jesus and this life is yours, believe in this only begotten Son of God the Father and you will spend eternity with Barbara and all the faithfully departed, and she will continue to be fun and generous —and by the grace of God less stubborn—but she will be Barbara and her body will be made new by Jesus who will “transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subdue all things to Himself.”[6] You cannot do this for yourself, your help in the moment of death will not be found in your own power, or in anything you have done, and so you can hold these parting words of Scripture so dear to Barbara in your hearts today and for each day your Lord gives you:

        “I lift up my eyes to the hills.

               From where does my help come?

        My help comes from the LORD,

               who made heaven and earth.”[7]

Today Jesus says to you “Be still, and know that I am God.”[8] He is Barbara’s God, believe in Him as she believed in Him. Amen.    

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] John 14:3
[2] John 3:1
[3] John 19:39–40
[4] Colossians 2:12
[5] 1 Corinthians 15:20–23
[6] Philippians 3:21
[7] Psalm 121:1-2
[8] Psalm 46:10

Photo Credit: Main Photo suplied by Mount Olive Lutheran Church and family.