Annual Memorial Service

Annual Memorial Service
Forbes Road Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
November 8, 2009

I Thessalonians 4: 13-18; Revelation 21: 1-4

Dear friends: Grace and peace to you, this afternoon, from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. In this fall season, as we are just a few weeks from the observance of Thanksgiving and from the seasons of Advent and Christmas, we would open our hearts and our lives to receive and know the blessing and peace and comfort of our Heavenly Father.

I know we come from many different backgrounds and traditions of faith and life. But we would stand in the mystery of God’s deep and generous love today. To know that above and beyond all our differences, all the limitations of our human efforts to see and know and understand his way, the God who creates us and sustains us will seek us out to meet us where we are today, as we seek his pardon and his love and as we commend those whom we have loved but see no longer in this earthly life to his gracious and abundant and eternal love. May this time of remembrance and memorial indeed be a time of the opening of our hearts to him, as we commend as friends and members of this community here at Forbes, as our mothers and grandmothers, fathers and grandfathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, to the arms of his mercy, and with a sure confidence in his care, and with a reasonable and holy hope of eternal life shared with those whom we have loved.

Last Sunday in our church as we observed and celebrated All Saints Day we sang as our opening hymn one that begins, “For all the saints, who from their labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed, thy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed. Alleluia.” And my favorite stanza of that hymn: “But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day; the saints triumphant rise in bright array; the King of glory passes on his way. Alleluia, alleluia.” And we would have that word in our thoughts this afternoon: triumph—the “saints triumphant.” And we would know and trust that in all that we bring to time of memory, all the memories, feelings, experiences of the past—that what we are most to be about today is the celebration of a great victory. A victory that was accomplished at the Cross of our Savior and that moves out like the ripples when a stone is dropped in a pond, in wider and wider circles into every corner of the world and into every faithful life.

In the 14th chapter of St. John’s gospel Jesus tells his disciples, “In my Father’s House are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again, and bring you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.”

And what a great word that is—assurance and promise. You know, in some more contemporary translation of the Bible this passage has Jesus say, “in my Father’s house are many rooms.” And maybe for a translator that makes some sense. But for me, and in the imagination of our hearts together this afternoon, let us choose the old word, and to hear the truth in that.

“In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Because I know deep down that that is what he has in mind for us. What he has had in mind for us from the moment he first knew us, each one of us, even before we were in our mother’s womb. A mansion is something more than ordinary. A residence of elegance and abundance and spaciousness, rich in every appointment. A place of wonder and grandeur. And that is what he has in mind for us. Certainly our resurrection life in God’s coming kingdom is beyond our imagining right now. But if we can picture this, we won’t be far wrong: that he has prepared for us a home above and beyond any home we have ever seen. More wonderful than anything we can imagine.

The readings from scripture are certainly rich in words of expectation for us today. “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together”—picture this!—“shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.”

This great reunion, with one another, with Christ. Not just for an hour or a day, but for an eternity. When sorrow and tears will have come to an end. Pain and suffering. The brokenness of illness and age. I don’t know how to picture it exactly, but this is all about joy and laughter, health and abundance. Think of how Adam and Eve must have felt in their first hours in the Garden, before the great tragedy of sin entered the picture. The world and all life an eternity of delight. That’s what God has in mind for us: that we will live with him in mansions of glory.

And one of my favorite images and passages in all of the Bible, in the Revelation to St. John, the 21st chapter: “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”

We come here this afternoon I know with many feelings, thoughts, and memories. Some warm and tender—and I know some that might not always be so much in those categories. Remembering also the hardness of life in this world. The challenges. Dreams unrealized. Remembering all the ways, and this is so true for each one of us—all the ways we have fallen short of what we would hope for in ourselves. Things we wish we had said and done. Things we wish we hadn’t said, hadn’t done. Remembering is not any easy task.

But to remember here, for our loved ones and for us, the great concluding line, “the former things have passed away.” All is forgiven. All is understood. No recrimination. No hurt. The Shepherd has gone out to find the sheep, and to return again rejoicing.

Would you bow your heads with me in prayer.

Dear Friends: It was our Lord Jesus himself who said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Let us pray then for those whom we remember today, that they may rest from their labors, and enter into the light of God’s eternal Sabbath rest.

The golden evening brightens in the west; soon, soon to faithful warriors cometh rest; sweet is the calm of paradise the blest. Alleluia. Alleluia.

O Almighty God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, who by a voice from heaven didst proclaim, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: Multiply, we beseech thee, to those who rest in Jesus the manifold blessings of thy love, that the good work which thou didst begin in them may be made perfect unto the day of Jesus Christ. And of thy mercy, O heavenly Father, grant that we, who now serve thee on earth, may at last, together with them, be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; for the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Bruce Robison