Funeral for Barbara Kalisch (27 September 2019)

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: John 14:3
Theme: To Be Where I Am


Dear family, friends and loved ones of Barbara; Graham, Mark, Stephen, and Annette, her children, and especially you, Ralph, her husband of 65 years;

Barbara is no longer transitioning. She has reached the destination. She’s no longer progressing, she has arrived. She is no longer a pilgrim with us trekking through this wilderness, she has reached the promised land. The Saviour said, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am”1 Thanks be to God that promise has now been fulfilled! Barbara has been released from all of the burdens of this mortal existence. She has been crowned with life. She is at peace.

Dear friends, death is the universal human crisis. Death is said to be ‘natural’; and it’s accepted as natural by many because that’s what we’ve been conditioned to believe is the settled consensus of humanity. People grow old and then they die. Sometimes they don’t grow old and that’s when we tend to struggle with the deeper questions of mortality. But death isn’t actually natural at all. It’s a consequence of sin. The Scripture says, “the wages of sin is death.”2 And because all people are sinners nobody can escape it.

Reflecting on mortality should always cause us to reassess our priorities in life. What gets you out of bed each day? What do we value, and why? Are we driven by selfish motives or do we live to serve others? In what, or who do we ultimately trust? Do we see each day as a pure gift that we’ve neither earned nor deserved? Do we recognize that there are no guarantees and that the time to draw near to God is never later, it’s always now? The way these questions are answered goes along way to clarifying whether ours is a biblical, Christian worldview. No power that we have, individually or collectively, can bring us through this valley of sorrow to the heavenly life. Only Christ can do that. He does it only by grace through faith. These truths dwarf all others in the end.

Death was never God’s plan, but He wasn’t remiss in addressing humanity’s transgression. The Son of God left the place of perfection and came to our state of corruption. He left the realm of life and came to the dimension death. He suffered. He died. He bore our sins. He rose from the grave. And He still purposefully, and passionately, and persistently pursues sinners. Remember the words of the apostle from a moment ago, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all- how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?...Christ Jesus-who died-more than that, who was raised to life- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”3

Barbara was a faithful member of this congregation for many years. Here she enjoyed fellowship with God and with His people. Here she heard His words of wisdom, grace, and comfort. Here her sins were forgiven again and again. Here her faith was nourished through His body and blood in Holy Communion. Here she was strengthened to live her faith in all the different vocations to which God had called her.

And she did this faithfully, especially as a wife, a mother, a grand mother and great grandmother. Many people were blessed by her amiable presence and hospitable ways. It didn’t mean she was exempt from challenges or sailed through life without any regrets. She grappled with depression for more than half of her life. But Barbara was perseverant. By the grace of God, she pressed on through thick and thin. Her last days became a struggle and she was ready to be at home with her Lord.

She’s now enjoying the inheritance of her baptism. We heard the words at the beginning of the service, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death?”4 That was true for Barbara, and now the threat of facing anymore melancholy has dissolved like mist in the noonday sun. But we’re still here and life must go on. Grief is clear evidence of our humanity. Grief brings scars, and scars, by definition are something we carry with us for the rest of our lives. Indeed, nobody goes through this life without accumulating scars. We might think we can cover them with cosmetic solutions much like those who chase eternal youth resort to all kinds of cosmetic enhancements to make themselves look younger (and supposedly better) than they really are. But that doesn’t work in the end. Only the Holy Spirit can fill the emptiness when a loved one passes. Barbara is safe in God’s presence and His truths, His warnings, and His promises are now directed at us.

Ralph, you and Barbara celebrated 65 years of marriage together. It’s an impressive feat that’s not likely to be matched by nearly as many couples in the next generation. The Bible compares the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church to a marriage. More accurately, human marriage is just a reflection of the greater union between Jesus and believers. Human marriages have their challenges. They involve two sinners struggling to be faithful in accordance with God’s will. But Christ is the perfect Bridegroom who cherishes His Bride with sublime, eternal, and peerless love. Reflecting on this profound reality the apostle Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church, and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”5

Dear friends, Barbara has been presented to her God radiant, holy, and blameless. She now has her place at the marriage supper of the Lamb. It is the eternal celebration of those who enjoy the presence of the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, saints and angels forever more. Barbara believed her Lord when He said, “I will come back and take you to be with Me”6 Her trust has not been in vain. She also believed “in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”7 And she will not be disappointed. Thanks be to God for His immeasurable love. Amen.

+ In nomine Jesu +

Funeral of Barbara Kalisch
27 September 2019
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt

1 John 14:3 2 Romans 6:23
3 Romans 8:31-32, 34 4 Romans 6:3
5 Ephesians 5:25-27 6 John 14:3
7 The Nicene Creed