Dolores Pelzer Funeral Sermon – John 14:1–7 April 17th 2024 / The Past, the Present and the Future

Dolores Pelzer funeral Sermon / Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Wednesday April 17th 2024: Season of Easter / John 14:1–7 “The Past, the Present and the Future”

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s House are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”

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 Dolores Pelzer, especially Delores’ sisters and sister-in-laws and their families and her children Cameron and Barbara and their families. A line in the words provided by the family that we heard earlier this morning stood out in preparation for today: “Hard memories are difficult to overcome sometimes,” memories belong to the past and the past is something very present around the death of someone we love; and sometimes the past can be a rather foreign country to us, as much as the future can be an undiscovered one, just as the present can be a complex and uncertain place.

Our Scripture readings today deal with the past and the present and the future for each of us as much as they did, and do, for Dolores. As we lay her to rest today, in a very significant and tangible way, Dolores has traveled from our present into our future, to that far and seemingly distant undiscovered country of the promised Eternal Life beyond death. In our Gospel Jesus makes a promise to His disciples, and to you, about our future. He speaks these things as He heads to His own death upon the cross of His crucifixion, when He says, “I go to prepare a place for you … and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.” We are called to trust these words about the future not only for Dolores but for ourselves as well.

Our Epistle Reading from Saint Paul’s letter to Saint Timothy calls us to remember certain things from our past when Paul says, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”[1] This is not about the hard and difficult memories we need to overcome regarding the past when it comes to our faith but rather those good and helpful things which are there from our past which are intended to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

The ever inquisitive and eager to learn Dolores was even in her last days applying what she learned in her childhood to her present situation with an eye for the future. Cam recounted to me that in the last days before his mother’s death while he was visiting her in the background a movie was playing on TV, the movie was “Deep Impact” a fictional film about a catastrophic asteroid threatening to end all life on earth. With her poor eyesight and her vascular dementia Dolores thought the events of the movie were actually happening in the here and the now and wasn’t grasping that it was a work of fiction. To be fair many of the things we see on TV or on the internet today sound like the end of the world, Jesus Himself described The End saying, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven,”[2] so all these things along with eclipses, and comets and even asteroids in fictional films threatening impending doom have a way of weaving together with everything else prompting thoughts of an imminent End of all things right around the corner. Maybe you’ve experienced some anxiety induced by the events of our days. Getting back to our ever inquisitive and eager to learn Dolores, with concern over The End as presented in the film Dolores began to apply what she’d learned in her childhood to her present perceived situation with an eye for the future when she asked Cam, “but what about my sins?”  Cam proceeded to remind her of what she’d learned over the years and comforted her with the Good News that her sins were removed from her by Jesus, that He died for her in her place and that her sins died there with Him at the cross and that she didn’t need to worry about them, they were forgiven sins and they were gone. Dear ones this is true for you today too. In the hymn we sang at the beginning of our time together this morning we sang “today Your mercy calls us to wash away our sin. However great our trespass, whatever we have been, however long from mercy our hearts have turned away Your precious blood can wash us and make us clean today.”[3] That precious blood is Jesus’ blood, which He’d shed on His Good Friday cross, and it’s His mercy that calls us not to dwell on the sins of the past long forgiven and forgotten but on the New Life He provides each of us. As it turns out the harder you hold onto the hard and difficult memories from your past the harder and more difficult it becomes to live a peaceful quiet life in the present.

There is wisdom hidden away in this: The more you focus on the future the more you short change your present and your past; the more you live in the past the more you short change your present and your future; the more you live only for today the more you short change the good things of the past and the promises of future joy. The art of balancing the past and the present and the future is called contentment. Not everyone has this. Dolores had a generous measure of contentment in her life. She rested her heart and mind on Christ Jesus even in the face of hardships and challenges, the One she knew to be “the same yesterday and today and forever.”[4] She understood and trusted that Jesus was and is and ever shall be Lord of the past and the present and the future.[5] We all need to be reminded of this, from time to time to time.

If John 14 points us to the future in Christ and 2 Timothy 3 encourages us to hold on to, and continue in, the good things given to us regarding faith from our past than the passage you heard from Isaiah 40 is one that provides comfort in our present moment. Isaiah begins with a question, it may as well be a question put to you this day, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might He increases strength.” Notice this is all in the present tense, this is not ‘He will give power to the faint,’ no this is “He gives power to the faint,” this is not ‘to him who has no might He will increases strength,” no this is “to him who has no might He increases strength.” These are all in the present tense.

Keeping this in mind while remember the help we often receive in the moments when we need it most, you heard a bit about the day recently when Barb went to visit her mother and Dolores was belting out the hymn “Blessed Assurance,” in the care home. No one was playing the piano, no one was prompting Dolores to sing; she just started singing spontaneously in the moment a song she’d long known. The workers in the care home were pleasantly surprised and Barb recalled hearing one of them exclaim, “Someone’s singing! Someone’s singing!” before they discovered it was Dolores. The first verse of the hymn digs into that present joy of trusting in Jesus, it goes:    

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God

Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood:

This is my story, this is my song

Praising my Saviour, all the day long

This is my story, this is my song

Praising my Saviour, all the day long.

Yes it talks of “a foretaste of glory divine,” but it doesn’t says, ‘Jesus will be mine’ it says “Jesus is mine” the rest of the language is about life in Christ in the moment, right now, all the day long. So Jesus says to you today just as He said to His disciples all those yesterdays ago, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me.” If you need to eat some crow to stand up and continue in this faith today then today is a perfectly good day to crack out the knife and fork, trusting that Jesus will take that dead dark bird from in front of you and in return He feeds you with the Bread of Life. Yes, when all things seem against you, to drive you to despair remember one gate is open and one ear will hear your prayer.[6] Jesus is that gate;[7] it is His ear that listens.

We are here to remember Dolores and all that the LORD has accomplished in her life, she has been for you a leader—as her dearly departed husband Walter likewise had been—so as your present daily passes from the past into the future consider and meditate on these words from the Book of Hebrews as you wait for the Lord, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”[8] Lastly remember what this same Jesus Christ taught about contentment and peace in this life, He very honestly says to His disciples and to each of you, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart;” [Jesus says] “I have overcome the world.”[9] The one who waits for the LORD shall renew their strength, Isaiah says, “they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”[10] 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] 2 Timothy 3:14-15
[2] Luke 21:10–11
[3] “Today Your Mercy Calls Us,” Lutheran Service Book, Concordia Publishing House, 915 stanza 1.
[4] Hebrews 13:18
[5] Revelation 1:8
[6] “Today Your Mercy Calls Us” LSB 915 stanza 4.
[7] John 10:9
[8] Hebrews 13:7–8
[9] John 16:33
[10] Isaiah 40:31