Ruby Kintzinger was a long-time member of Shepherd of the Hills. She passed away on August 20, 2015 and her funeral was on August 24. This was her funeral sermon.
Listen, I tell you a secret. We will not all die as Ruby has died. But all of us, those who have died and those who live, we all be changed. It will be in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the sound of the last trumpet. Indeed, that trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised never to decay, and we will be changed.
That’s the secret, the mystery, of the Christian faith. Those who have died, whose mortal bodies have gone to rest in the earth will be raised. God will again reunite their bodies and souls. But, this time, their bodies and their souls will perfect, without decay and immortal.
When that happens, those who are still living will also be changed in their bodies and souls, perfected, without decay, and immortal. That’s when God will fulfill His written word: “Death has been swallowed up in victory! Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?”
That’ when God’s written word will be fulfilled—but not quite yet. Now the sting of death is sin. From sin comes our sadness and loss. And the power of sin is the law. It exposes our weaknesses and failures. It dogs us to our dying day. We have failed in being the person whom God meant us to be.
We’ve not been the good family members we should have been, letting our selfish ways override doing what was right. We have hurt ourselves and those we love. Others have hurt us, sometime by intent, sometimes by accident, sometimes in sorrow and sometimes without care. We’ve all been hurt and we’ve all hurt others. That’s the sting of death.
Living with sinners is living in this death, for it is what has become of God’s perfect creation after the fall into sin. So, no matter how well intentioned our lives may be, living in a fallen world is never easy.
So, death haunts and hounds all the fallen creatures of man. But it is not part of life—at least, it was never meant to be so. We aren’t supposed to die. Life is not a circle. Life is not a line that comes to an end. God never created us to die. Death is unnatural.
That’s why, even though death has been our universal experience since the fall into sin, it still rubs us raw and feels wrong. No amount of rationalization changes that. Death hurts, even when death ends someone’s suffering, as Ruby suffered from the effects of several strokes the last week of life.
That’s the sting of the Law. If we had never fallen into sin, we would not die. Neither would sadness or regret fill our lives with what could have been.
But if you’re like me, you’ve done your best to figure out how to hide yourself from the effect of death. Sometimes we live as if it doesn’t exist. Sometimes we live as if we’re seasoned warriors, too tough for death to lay us low. We won’t flinch in the face of death.
And then there are times when we opine and says that “Life isn’t fair.” That makes us sound wise. But that’s not wise or clever, not really. Think about that. Think about it if life were fair. Think about, not from our fallen earthly perspective, but from an eternal, divine perspective. Now, we’ll not do this that well since our minds are fallen. But God has dropped enough bread crumbs to give us some clues. God has even revealed some secrets, some mysteries. We heard about that in our epistle reading.
So, think about if God treated us fairly. To be treated fairly is to get what you deserve. Do you really want God to treat you as you deserve? If you do, that means you want Him to base your eternity based on what you think, say, and do. You would want God to base your eternity based on who you are right now.
That would be like being a Pharisee when Jesus walked this earth. They wanted God to be fair. That was what the Pharisee prayed: God look at me. Look at how good I am. Reward me based on that.
But that wasn’t Ruby’s faith. She knew she wasn’t good enough. Oh, she looked good enough when we look at her with the standards of this fallen world. But what good is that? That’s the same as being trapped in a mud pit and then thinking someone else trapped with you in the mud is clean. He’s only clean because you happen to be a bit dirtier. But you’re still both dirty.
Ruby’s faith was that of the tax collector. She prayed, “Lord have mercy on me, the sinner.” That’s the core of the Christian faith. We don’t want a God who’s fair. We don’t want a God who treats us as we deserve. We want a God who treats us as we don’t deserve, one who treats us with mercy.
And in Christ Jesus, that exactly what we have from God. Did you hear that in the funeral liturgy? “Do you not know that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” In baptism, God connected you to Jesus’ death. But this was for a specific purpose. That was so through baptism you were buried with Him into His death. Why? So that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, you too can walk in newness of life.
That is God treating you with mercy. It’s his doing. When you are living in your baptism, you are living in the life of Christ. To be living in the life of Christ is to have His righteousness as your own. I tell a secret: God is gracious and merciful. When you are in Christ Jesus, He doesn’t treat you fairly, which is something good!
Right now, you are living in the dark-side of love. It’s the irony of loving someone in a fallen world. If you did not love, you would not grieve. You grieve because you love. We don’t weep for the thousands of unknown persons who died yesterday all over the world, not usually. It’s because we did not know and love them.
But Ruby has died, and we know Ruby. And so we mourn. It comes to us in a way that is unasked, even, at time, unwanted. It comes to us in the mixed emotions we have a fallen beings: sorrow from the loss, regret for what could have been, maybe even some unspoken hurt you’ve had with Ruby that has been hidden and festering within you.
Why is this so? It’s because Ruby was an imperfect person, whom we loved imperfectly. But whatever imperfections she had, whatever failures or regrets, she loved us back. So, as whacked out as this sounds, the darkness of your sorrow has on its flipside the joy of having loved and the joy of being loved. That’s what the poet meant when he said, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” (Alfred Tennyson).
That’s the hidden joy wrapped within your sorrow. It’s not fun. It’s not easy. It hurts, for it is the sting of death. God has given us the ability to love and to be loved. That also is comes from His mercy.
So, both you and Ruby and loved imperfectly. But God is different. He holds nothing back. He came to be one of us—in love!—just to die. And in that love and death, He forgives and accepts us. He restores you to himself and gives you peace, even amid your suffering.
What is that peace? It’s that in Christ, you will see Ruby again. This is not the end. You will have a family reunion beyond description, filled only with perfect love. God doesn’t do this because He treats you fairly; He does this because He treat you unfairly, that is, with mercy.
“Lord have mercy on me, the sinner.” That’s a prayer we never outgrow on this side of heaven. For that prayer states our reality—that we are always in need of our Lord’s mercy. That’s the prayer of faith!
Listen, I tell you a secret: Not all of us will die, but we will all be changed—in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the sound of the last trumpet. Jesus Christ, who was killed for our transgressions, lives. He has earned the victory that swallows our death and removes its pain. And God has not abandoned us, for He promises to bring us also out of the grave as He did His Son. In that resurrection, He promises you the fullness of perfection.
Right now, Ruby’s soul is in a better place. That’s not just some cliché; it is also true. She is free of her dying body, at peace and at rest. She is free of sorrow and regret, free of sin and shame, and free of pain.
But she is still incomplete. For she is not yet what God created her to be in the beginning. That will take place on the Last Day. The Holy Spirit will raise her and all the dead and give eternal life to her and all who believe in Christ. Then the written word will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory!”
Ruby won’t be some faceless soul, free from all that is bad. She will also be filled with all that is good. She will be herself, more herself than she ever was on earth. All the good in Ruby will even be better with none of the sin and decay.
Her quiet smile will be back, but then better than ever before. Her smile will then overflow with the full knowledge of God, of how He was working everything for her eternal good. Joy will flow from the fullness of God’s promise coming to it fruition on the Last Day. This is all from God’s mercy and grace. For what decaying will put what cannot decay, and this dying will be clothed with what cannot die. Then the written word will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory!” Amen.
