Viona de Jong Funeral Sermon – Job 19:23–27 April 25th 2026 / Forever in Christ Jesus

Viona de Jong Funeral Sermon / Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Saturday April 25th 2026: Season of Easter / Job 19:23–27 “Forever in Christ Jesus”

       “Oh that my words were written!

                Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

                Oh that with an iron pen and lead

                        they were engraved in the rock forever!

        For I know that my Redeemer lives,

                and at the last he will stand upon the earth.

        And after my skin has been thus destroyed,

                yet in my flesh I shall see God,

                        whom I shall see for myself,

                        and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

                My heart faints within me!

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 Viona de Jong in today’s sermon we will spend a little bit of time contemplating the words from Job that are recorded in the book of the Bible that bears his name. First he laments, “Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!” Well, the Book of Job is one of the oldest books in the Bible; it is record at a time just before Abraham, and was essentially the same world described in the Book of Genesis. So for someone from that time, way back then, to know that their words were in fact written and inscribed and that they were being read now might feel like forever from where they lived and breathed and face life day to day. For the little child in July who can’t wait for Christmas on December 25th that long of a wait, that much time might feel like forever. And for the one who is deep into their 90’s nearing 100 years of age longing for their heavenly home as they wait for the Lord to come and take them to Himself, each day may begin to feel like forever. For thousands of years the faithful have read and heard Job’s words, the same words we’ve heard today, and unless the Lord returns soon Christians will continue to read and hear Job’s words forever until the Lord Jesus’ return in glory on The Last Day.  

Time is a challenging thing. We all figure we know how best to spend it or how best it should unfold. We want to have our hands guiding the arms of the clock: some days we want that clock to tick faster and then other days we want the clock of time to tick more slowly, or maybe even stop completely so we can savour the moment, or stop some future thing from happening. This is why it is that when a baby dies we are very sad because they haven’t yet had the time to experience life, when someone’s life is cut short in an accident of some kind then we likewise feel sad because they haven’t had as much time living their life as we feel they should, and when someone like Viona—who has lived for nearly 100 years—goes to their rest in the Lord we feel a little different, we may feel that they’ve had a long life, that they have not been short changed on time through their life. But all of the days and years and decades that Viona saw were only a drop in the bucket of what makes up forever.

And this is where the next part of what Job says is important to us all on a day like today:

       For I know that my Redeemer lives,

              and at the last He will stand upon the earth.

       And after my skin has been thus destroyed,

              yet in my flesh I shall see God,

                     whom I shall see for myself,

                     and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

Job was looking forward to someone, he was not to himself. He was looking forward to his Redeemer. Job was looking forward to seeing God with his own two eyes. And Job was looking forward to doing this in a resurrected body.

While now might feel like forever from when Job was born and lived and died we ourselves have no sure knowledge of what year or day or hour Job’s Resurrection from the dead might eventually happen, for all we know it could be long enough from now to fell like forever all over again. For many people the events of the first Easter and Jesus’ life and death and resurrection feel like forever ago from now. Not as long ago as the life of Job but nevertheless it all happened thousands of years ago from where we sit today. And we heard another helpful passage from the Gospel of Saint John where Jesus has an enlightening conversation with Martha the sister of Lazarus whom Jesus was about to raise from the dead.

Saint John tells us that “when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met Him, but Mary [their sister] remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to [Jesus], “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on The Last Day.” Jesus said to her, “I Am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to [Jesus], “Yes, Lord; I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”[1] Dear ones Jesus is the Redeemer that Job was looking forward to and Jesus is the one we look forward to as well. For Job this Jesus was long yet to come and for us we watch for His second coming, and we like Job do not know the day or the hour or the year of Jesus’ coming on The Last Day, so we pray ‘come Lord Jesus and come quickly.’ There are times when waiting for His revealing feels like it’s taking forever and yet we are encouraged to remember that He will arrive in an instant at the sound of the trumpet. And on That Day the wait will be over, those of us alive to see it will be transformed in the twinkling of an eye as Saint Paul describes, the rest of us like Viona will be raised from our resting places, from our graves along with Job and all people.[2]  

On That Day what we thought was a short life, on That Day what we thought was a life cut short, on That Day what we thought was a long life will be shown to be but drips in the ocean of what forever really is. From the moment that Viona came to faith in Jesus, — who turned out to be that same God,  that same Redeemer that Job yearned to see with his own two eyes — from that very moment in 1927 Viona had eternal life, she had forever promised to her and that forever in Christ belonged to her. For each of you who hold onto the gift of faith granted to you, you too have that promise and guarantee of forever.  But forever is a bit of a two way street. For those who have no faith in Jesus or who had it but then rejected it and tossed away the gift and guarantee[3] for such as these then following the resurrection on The Last Day there will be a second death and eternal damnation that will forever separate them from the faithful and from God.[4]

This brings us to a question. What do we do with the time we are given? We do not want to waste this particular patch of forever that has been granted to us. Take Viona as an example[5] she approached each day with a very good attitude, she was a positive soul and while things came her way that were hard and sad like the deaths of her husband William and her daughter Karen, and her grandson Christopher, and her daughter-in-law Laura, overall — due to her faith — she maintained a positive attitude. She was the last of her brothers and sisters to face death and while her cancer diagnosis was not desirable she understood that each person has something come into their life to bring it to and earthly end. This was evident even a couple years ago in hospital when she was first receiving her diagnosis when she expressed to me that she was ready to go to her rest. Her faith gave her a way of looking at the end of this part of her life and she trusted that she was in the lord’s hands.   

Now if you live long enough you also grow in repentance and the ability to forgive, (repentance is turning away from yourselves for the good of others to God and we have some idea how forgiveness works) the lessons of forgiveness and repentance are lessons you can learn either in ‘the school of hard knocks’ through rough relationships, hardships, or they can be skills that you gain more quickly by embracing the Christian faith and holding fast to what Jesus teaches. Funerals provide an opportunity to take stock and ask ‘Is there anything unresolved with the person who has died?’ ‘Are there any hard feelings between family members that need forgiving,’ or even outside of family you may ask ‘In my life are there people I need to sort things out with?’ ‘Is there anything that you need to ask forgiveness for?’ ‘Is there anything you need to clear up with people?’ Today we will pray the Lord’s Prayer and in it we will pray “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” While each of our days are counted as part of what makes up ‘forever’ there is still no time like the present. You’ve heard the expression, “don’t put off till tomorrow what you could do today,” this is true whether you’ve had 98 years or 20 year of 70 years, and it’s also true for forgiveness.

I leave you with some thoughts about what resurrection will look like. We heard today from Saint Paul that the resurrection will involve us being changed. Death is swallowed up in victory, and the perishable will put on the imperishable. Basically there will be no ‘best before date on’ the resurrected. Mortality stays in the grave and the new body that Viona and all the faithful will enjoy will be immortal in nature. Jesus in the Book of Revelation says that on That Day He will make “all things new,”[6] that “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”[7] The former things that will pass away will include all our infirmities, all our illnesses, things like bladder cancer, all our hurt feelings; every sin that was sinned against us along with every heartbreaking sadness. Jesus’ shed blood upon the cross spells the end for all of these things and His resurrection from the dead that first Easter Sunday paves the way for our body to be transformed to be like His glorious body.[8] We will still be who we are, and we will be able to recognise each other, and we’ll have our personalities and everything that make us who we are, and yet it will all be made new in the Blood of Christ Jesus our Redeemer. The very Redeemer and God that both Job and Viona desired to see face to face with their own two eyes. The very one who went to prepare a place for them and for you in His Father’s House.[9]

Today we lay Viona to her rest but she has been at rest in her Lord from the moment she took her last breath, and more than that she has truly been at rest in her Lord from the moment that she was baptised into Him back in 1927, from then to now Viona has been forever in Christ Jesus. And she will now — moving forward — likewise remain forever in Christ Jesus, not by her own efforts, but by His redemption of her life unto Himself. If you have this faith be encouraged, if the Holy Spirit is providing this faith to you now on this day do not let go of what He is giving you today: there is no better place to be than to be forever in Christ Jesus.[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] John 11:20–27
[2] 1 Corinthians 15:51-57
[3] Mark 16:16 “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
[4] Revelation 2:11; 20:14; 21:8
[5] Hebrews 13:7 “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”
[6] Revelation 21:5
[7] Revelation 21:4
[8] Philippians 3:21
[9] John 14:2
[10] Ephesians 1:3–10 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth in Him.

Photo Credit: Main Photo supplied by Mount Olive Lutheran Church and the family of Viona de Jong.