8/22/2014
Sanctuary, 11:00am
- Call to Service, 1st song
- Opening prayer
- Message, Part 1
We, friends and family Kathleen Cooke, are here today to lay her remains to rest. Born April 4th 1923, deceased August 17th 2014, she was preceded in death by her husband William. Raising a family of six – Ted, Jackie, Joe, Sue, Penny and Danny – her family now numbers 66 people. The family thanks you for showing your love by attending today.
Myself, I have known Kathleen for several years as a minister at Colonial Nursing Home in Crown Point. Some of the family I met at the home as they visited with her, and most everyone else last year at her 90th birthday party.
Kathleen is an interesting soul, a person willing to talk about her relationship with God. About a year ago as I visited, we talked about her life at Colonial, and about the end of her life here on earth that would one day come.
In times like this, we stop to look back and consider the person we knew, the person we mourn. For us here today, I believe there is an assortment of thoughts about Kathleen and the person she was. Who do you picture in your mind when you think about Kathleen? What attributes do you see?
- Eulogy, open mic invitation
- Message, Part 2
Matthew 11: 28-30
Jesus said: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Our hopes for our loved ones. Anyone who has ever loved somebody knows of the hopes we have for them. We want what is best for them, for their care, for their comfort, for their protection, for their happiness. Most any parent cannot help but to have hopes for their children. Standing by a person we love who is ill, suffering, about to cross the threshold of death – we naturally have hopes for the ease of their suffering, hopes for what awaits them once they pass away.
Kathleen had hopes for what would be heard in this service today. Often times, we might think about what will be said of us at our own funeral – kind words, cherished memories, affirmations of our character. Stories even circulate about a man who faked his own death, only to listen with eyes closed to the comments of the passersby.
Kathleen’s hope was that her friends and family would hear about the reason for her hope, the reason she clung to when life was difficult, the reason she pursued as the focus of her life. I believe Kathleen knew the value of hope in things true, and avoided hope in things false. What good is it to hope in something that is false? Kathleen sought, pursued, and rested in the hope promised by Jesus – she rested in Biblical Hope. Biblical Hope is a strong and confident expectation, a trust that a certain thing will happen, a trust in the words of God to us through the Bible.
Kathleen hoped for us today to hear the truth about the Jesus she trusted. She wanted the reason for her hope to be explained, proclaimed, as an act of love to the ones she loved.
The Hope promised. Many of us here may not yet realize it, but we need what Jesus has to offer. Why? Because Father God is pure and loving, He’s without sin, He’s without fault, and He cannot wink at our refusals to acknowledge Him as the Supreme Center of all things. God is pure and loving. That is not the case with us. If we’re honest with ourselves and accept His loving diagnosis, we have no choice but to see that we need Him.
This is important! Jesus said He did not come here to condemn us, but to save us from the Judgment that Father God has every right to pursue. Father wants all of us to stand clean before Him, He does not want anyone to be removed from His Heaven. But, for this to happen, we each must see our sin, our need for Him, our need for the complete Forgiveness offered through Jesus alone.
Listen! Father is not a prudish tyrant who wants to catch and punish us at every opportunity. Father wants to see us – you and me – come back to Him and begin an endless, joyful, priceless relationship with Him. This lavish, loving, grace-filled relationship begins with recognizing that Jesus is the Answer, and then asking Him to restore us to the Family of God. Jesus is not simply the Way to avoid Hell; He is the only Way to be reconciled with God. Avoiding Hell is simply a consequence of reconciliation with God. Reconciliation with God is the whole point.
Jesus taught a prevailing theme: He did teach on Hell and removal from God’s presence, but He had much more to say on the offer of incredible, complete, and forever Forgiveness for all of the things we do against God. It is true that there are preachers who tend to focus on the rightful warning about Hell, but try to use it to someone scare people towards Jesus. But if we do that, we ignore the main theme of Jesus’ announcement – that we can be relieved of guilt and have the Spirit of God in us right now – just by simply asking. Right now, new believer by new believer, God’s Kingdom advances!
The Hope lived. Even as Christians, we are not without fault. Remnants of sin remain, but, sin no longer commands us. Once we are Saved by Jesus, we are progressively changed from the inside out, expressing more and more the miracle of God in us. As He patiently corrects our self-centered layers, He breaks out and expresses His personality through us. Throughout their lives, followers of Christ will increasingly show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is The Hope lived.
The Hope promised, The Hope lived, The Hope delivered. We each have one life, and while alive, have the opportunity to turn to faith in Jesus. That’s one reason why we’re here. The result of Hope delivered is at least three-fold: We are relieved of guilt and experience the reality of God’s Spirit in us; We are changed into new people with a new outlook, and finally; We will cross over from bodily life, into death, but with the promise of being received by Jesus Himself. The Apostle Paul wrote “while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.” Therefore, to die, to be absent from the body, followers of Jesus are instantly present with Him. This is an exclusive gift to followers of Jesus. Those who reject Him will not have any of these things. Every human being will stand before God one day, but only those who have yielded to Him will be treated as friends, and as members of His family.
What this Hope is not. In God’s presence, we find Heaven. God has clearly and rightfully stated that He must be acknowledged as first and supreme in every aspect of our lives, our fabric. The hope of every Christian who passes on is to gaze upon Jesus, to dwell with Him, to Worship Him.
God has explained Heaven through His Words in the Bible. It’s His realm, it’s His to explain. Heaven is not the ultimate retirement, nor our personal playground, nor anything other than what the Bible tells us it is. As soon as God brought Kathleen’s life here to a close, as a follower of Christ she immediately was ushered into Jesus’ presence to begin complete adoration and worship of Him. Being in the presence of God is not about our earthly desires fulfilled, but about the desires of God in us being fulfilled.
Kathleen’s Hope. Kathleen had two hopes as this day approached. She had the hope of meeting her Lord face to face, beginning a deeper and endless relationship with Jesus. She also had hope that this service would be a powerful opportunity for her family and friends to hear the truth about Jesus and the Hope He offers to us, if we would only consider our need and His Solution. She wanted everyone to understand what is essentially involved with knowing, trusting and hoping in Jesus. She has gone to embrace the reality she rightly hoped for.
Can you recognize your need?
Can you see Jesus’ offer?
Will you believe and rest your Hope in Him?
Let us pray.
- Closing prayer
- 2nd song
- Dismissal to Graveside; Reception announcement
Graveside
God is Good
Psalm 27.13-14
I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord!
God is our Protector
Isaiah 41.10
Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.
God is our Provider
Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Assurance of the Resurrection
2 Corinthians Chapter 5, Verses 1 – 8
For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
Burial Rite
In peace, let us pray to the Lord.
Almighty God, who has knit together Your elect in one
communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of Your Son
Christ our Lord: Grant, we beseech You, to Your whole
Church in paradise and on earth, Your light and Your peace.
Amen.
Grant that all who have been baptized into Christ’s death and
resurrection may die to sin and rise to newness of life, and
that through the grave and gate of death we may pass with
Him to our joyful resurrection. Amen.
Grant to us who are still in our pilgrimage, and who walk as
yet by faith, that Your Holy Spirit may lead us in holiness and
righteousness all our days. Amen.
Grant to Your faithful people pardon and peace, that we may
be cleansed from all our sins, and serve You with a quiet
mind. Amen.
Grant to all who mourn a sure confidence in Your fatherly
care, that, casting all their grief on You, they may know the
consolation of Your love. Amen.
Give courage and faith to those who are bereaved, that they
may have strength to meet the days ahead in the comfort of a
reasonable and holy hope, in the joyful expectation of eternal
life with those they love. Amen.
Help us, we pray, in the midst of things we cannot understand,
to believe and trust in the communion of saints, the forgiveness
of sins, and the resurrection to life everlasting. Amen.
Grant us grace to entrust Kathleen to Your never-failing love; receive
her into the arms of Your mercy, and remember her according
to the favor which You pour out to Your people. Amen.
Grant that, increasing in knowledge and love of You, she may
go from strength to strength in the life of perfect service in
Your heavenly kingdom. Amen.
Grant us, with all who have died in the hope of the
resurrection, to have our consummation and bliss in Your
eternal and everlasting glory, and, with Kathleen and
all Your saints, to receive the crown of life which You
promise to all who share in the victory of Your Son Jesus
Christ; who lives and reigns with You and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Please, All Stand to Pray
In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life
through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty
God our sister Kathleen; and we commit her body to the ground;
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless
her and keep her, the Lord make His face to shine upon her
and be gracious to her, the Lord lift up His countenance
upon her and give her peace. Amen.
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Your Name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.