.....and Jesus came”

Sara Rose Deckert Funeral

July 15, 2012

 

Dear mother, father, sisters, and friends of Sara Deckert. We are gathered here to remember and give thanks for the life of Sara Deckert; the life she lived among us and the life she lives even now in Jesus.

I was asked to do this today because I was the pastor that gave her her confirmation instruction. For those who are not acquainted with our Lutheran practice, one of our requirements for those who would be adult members is that they take some formal instruction in who god is, what he wants from us, how we talk to him and so forth. And she did under my care some 13 years ago. I couldn’t really recall what she looked like at first. I asked for a picture, and remembered her instantly. She was the small, blond, quiet kid. Who often smiled nervously.

Since that time, of course, many things have changed. She who used to be the shy girl would now be known as a girl who could make and keep many friends, and a girl who continually reached out to help people and a girl who would immerse herself in learning Spanish and achieving fluency in that language. She went to live with a family in Nicaragua toward that end. So much for the shy girl!

I’ve seen this sort of thing happen with the shy ones. In their youth they are just a bud, tightly closed, green and imperceptible among the many stalks and stems of the more boisterous flowers, but if they conquer their shyness, they blossom and people can at last see how cool they actually are inside. That’s what was happening with Sara at this point in her life. The shy girl was really beginning to bloom and become a greater blessing to the world. You who saw her at a recent family reunion would concur. And you, childhood friends, with whom she recently reunited, could see it as well. Sara was something special and was going to be something even more special. How exciting it was to see that in her.

We are here today because this opening flower was cut off before she could fully bloom by a thoughtless criminal whose own life was ended as well.

This is the kind of thing that happens in this broken world. People, seeking to make something of their lives, trying to be constructive and meaningful in what they do, are sometimes taken from us all too soon; other times it’s our babies who never get to grow up; still other times it’s our parents whose presence we still crave, And still other times its the loss of husband or wife. There’s enough pain and grief for everyone it would seem, and it’s just not right. Something is afoot. We feel it.

I keep hearing and reading that Sara was absolutely crazy about Smashing Pumpkins, the band, not the Halloween prank. I’m somewhat acquainted with them, I’ve seen them perform a few times on TV and found them intriguing. But to get a better understanding of Sara, I decided to go online and and actually started reading the lyrics of their songs One of their albums, “Mellon Collie and the infinite Sadness” has a track called “Jellybelly” which struck me. Listen to the opening lines:

“Welcome to nowhere fast. Nothing here ever lasts, nothing but memories of what never was.”

 

Pretty dark, and yet a view of the world which none of us can refute. Oh we can pretend it is not so, but nothing does ever last. The pumpkins get it. Like us, they are disturbed by the way things are in this dark world and in their songs they rage against it. I think that perhaps people who like the Pumpkins are an honest bunch. They like their truth straight up and without any sugar coating. Just a theory. Could be some don’t even listen to the lyrics and simply enjoy the music... but they’re missing the point.

Here’s some more lyrics:

 

“My heart despairs over all I do....For a man can do his work with knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone else. This is meaningless .” (Ecc. 2:21)

 

Smashing Pumpkins? Nope King Solomon, author of Ecclesiastes, over 3000 years ago. It would seem that he gets it too. And Solomon wrote as a mouthpiece for God, which means God get’s it. As a matter of fact he’s always has got it. He knows how we despair. He knows the emptiness we feel. He knows how we sorrow at the waste of a good life like Sara’s, he knows because he grieves about it even as we do. He didn’t make us to die. He made us to live.

While it’s a good first step to rage against the darkness, label it, and call it out, the next step is to actually do something about it. And we can make a start. We try to live positively, we can try to contribute to society rather than take from it; we leave things better than how we found them. We can be kind to one another and concerned for our neighbors as Sara was. There are many good and commendable things that we can and should do, but there’s the rub, we cannot truly overcome the darkness; we can never do enough to escape its inevitable hold on us. Something more than what we have is needed.

Something more is given. It is given in Jesus. As the text says “since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself partook of the same things.” (Heb 2:14) We make a big deal out of Christmas because it was really the beginning of a cosmic event: In Jesus, God became a human being so that he could represent us all in the epic struggle against the darkness that we rage against. He would confront the darkness. It would meet him there on the cross. It would bring him bitter suffering and death; misery beyond belief, but not forever. For you see, he would rise from the grave in glory come Easter. The long and short of the whole Christmas and Easter thing and why we build our year around it is because Jesus came to punch through the darkness!

This is why he is able to say so authoritatively: “I am the way the truth and the life.” (John 14:7) He has made a way! We follow in his way by believing that he did this for us. For he himself said “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” (Mark 16:16)

Sara believed in Jesus. She told me she did on the day she was confirmed 13 years ago. Sara was also baptized. So she has left this world so aptly described by smashing pumpkins, and she has gone to dwell in the light of the Lord. And on the last day, we and all who believe on Jesus will see her again...in the resurrection...in a world made new. Right now, we find it most frustrating that we never got to see her life in full bloom. But we will. In Jesus we will. For at the last not only will the world be as it was meant to be but so will all the people who believe in Jesus. AMEN