Judy and friends and family of Mel Bruns: Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Amen.
You wouldn’t know it by looking, but Mel and I had much in common. Learning how something worked and functioned fascinated Mel, as it does me. Mel had a love for history, as do I. We both served our nation: He was in the Merchant Marines, and I in the Air Force. He delighted in learning the truths of God–and that was something that Judy delighted in, as well.
Maybe, it’s an understatement to say that Mel delighted in the Bible studies we had. For if you didn’t know better, you might have thought that he was a pastor groupie. He came to adult Sunday School and to the midweek Bible class. In our Exodus class, he deeply drank in learning about the Old-Covenant rituals that God put in place and how they found their fulfillment in the New Covenant.
Whenever Mel learned something new, his eyes would light up, just like a kid, twinkling with excitement. His faith went into overdrive when he learned, from the book of Hebrews, that when we worship here on earth we also join with the saints and angels in the heavenly Temple. Then this phrase in our communion liturgy finally made sense to him: “With angels and archangels and all the company of heaven we laud and magnify Your [that is God’s] glorious name.”
So, yes, we had many common areas of interest about which we could talk.
I remember one conversation that Mel and I had about death. It was short, but it minced no words. And Mel was always frank (sometimes stubborn, too, but we won’t go there today). He told me his kidneys were failing, that he had chronic heart failure, and that his lungs were functioning poorly. He knew one of those ailments would, most likely, kill him. He didn’t tell me that directly, but I could tell that Mel knew that one of his ailments would take him soon.
And I remember sharing with Mel how I hoped that God would bring me home. I told him that wanted to die shortly after receiving Jesus’ body and blood in His Supper. Then I’d be like Simeon, I said, having just received Jesus, and prepared for eternity. I said, “Could there be a better way than that to enter heaven?”
And so I find it strangely sad that Mel died in such a way. Well, not exactly, but close. Oh, it was his heart that gave out as he was trying to make it home from lunch last Sunday, when the freshly fallen snow had made the roads impassable. And so he died only a few hours after receiving Jesus’ body and blood in His Supper. Even more, he died last Sunday, which was the day the Church remembered Mary presenting Jesus at the Temple. That’s when old-man Simeon saw Jesus and received him in his arms.
As with Simeon, the Lord gives peaceful departure to those who have seen His Son, Jesus Christ, those who believe and trust in Him by faith. After Simeon saw Jesus, he held Him in his arms and then chanted aloud the Nunc Dimittis, which is a Latin phrase that means, “You are now dismissing.” We sing the Nunc Dimittis after receiving Jesus in His body and blood, when Jesus has touched us, and we have touched Him in the Lord’s Supper. And so Simeon’s words also become ours after receiving Jesus.
Mel’s earthly life began when he was born on December 6, 1924 at Herington, Kansas. Shortly after Christmas that year, Mel’s parents brought him to church to be baptized. That was 89 years ago when many Lutheran churches still worshiped in German. Baptizing Mel, his Pastor poured water over his head and said: “Ich taufe dich im Namen des Vaters und des Sohns und des Heiligen Geistes. Amen.”
On that day, God made Mel a member of His Royal Priesthood of Believers through the water and word of Holy Baptism. God’s name was placed upon him, and he was baptized with water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Mel’s pastor then placed his hand on his little fuzzy head that now belonged to an heir of heaven. The pastor prayed, “The almighty God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has birthed you anew through water and the Holy Spirit, and has forgiven all your sins, strengthen you with His grace to eternal life.” Of course, he prayed in German.
And so began Mel’s spiritual life as a little priest of God. Later, after confirmation, Mel received for the first time, the Body and Blood of his Redeemer. And he sang the Nunc Dimittis with a new and vibrant joy! And many were the times since then that he knelt before the altar and received those gifts of God–even for the last time on February 2nd, last week.
But what happened between his confirmation and now is sketchy for me. For I’ve only known Mel 5-1/2 years. I do know that 15 years ago, Mel and Judy married, both having lost their spouses in death. They married right here at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church. Pastor Troyke, who will sing a solo after the sermon, married them.
But this is what I do know about Mel. He knew that he was, by nature, sinful and needed God’s grace and forgiveness. He knew that he could not work his way into heaven. He knew that God had sent His one-and-only Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to take his sins and the sins of all people into Himself on the cross.
Mel knew that Christ suffered and died for his sins, all so He could give Mel His light and life. He knew, believed, and trusted, by faith, in the crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus who had saved him, forgiven him all his sins, and upheld him in his earthly life. And Mel knew that God would receive him to Himself when he died.
Yet, Mel also knew that his God-given faith had to be nourished and strengthened. And so he never wanted to miss church, for he knew that’s where Jesus came to him in Word and Sacrament. He knew that’s where he received the forgiveness of sins, and so life and salvation. And Mel came countless times to this altar rail to receive just that.
Like Simeon, Mel could sing the Nunc Dimittis. He could confess that faith because he, too, had beheld the crucified and risen Christ in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Mel could look forward, knowing that Jesus Christ had assured his entrance into heaven, his own peaceful departure.
And so, although it looked as if Mel died only because his heart gave out, that is not the full story, for we know that God even uses the events of this fallen word for our eternal good. Scripture tells us so. Hear now the Apostle Paul:
We know that God works all things together for the good of those who love him, for those who have been called according to his purpose. For those whom God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers. [Romans 8:28-29]
And so although it looked as if Mel’s heart gave out and that’s why he died, there’s more to it. God even used Mel’s death for his eternal good. And so it was this past Sunday that God called Mel home to Himself and granted to that priest of God, that servant of the Lord, that husband and father, and yes even a friend of mine, a peaceful departure. He departed in peace according to God’s Word and is now in eternity with God as a blessed child of light.
He is now before the Lord and worshiping Him. He is now part of that great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. For God has released Mel from his earthly body. He will never again experience sickness, death, sin, crying, or mourning.
Mel didn’t have to make his peace with God. God had already made peace for him in the forgiveness of his sins that His Son Jesus gave to Mel in the waters of holy baptism, in holy Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper.
And so, for now, we say goodbye to the body that God created just for Mel. For although Mel’s spirit is with God in eternity, he still hasn’t received the fullness of the salvation that God has for him. That will happen on the Last Day, when Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead and join a new, sinless, perfect, incorruptible body to Mel’s soul. Then Mel’s salvation will be complete. Then Mel will eternally be a new creation in Christ.
And so we do not say that Mel is so much gone. Instead, we say that he has gone ahead where we, too, will follow. That’s why, even amid our real tears of sadness, we can rejoice. For all who have been brought into the Church of Christ, who have kept their baptismal robes of faith and not thrown them away in unbelief, will see Mel in the future. And that reunion will be better than anything we have experienced, for our sinful natures and the nastiness of our sins will be no more to ruin such a reunion.
That knowledge, that peace that we have in Christ, gives us the peace and strength to go on living, serving others, and rejoicing even amid our sadness. For there is nothing more sure, more certain, than Christ and His work of suffering, death, and resurrection for us and our salvation. It is a certainty that strengthens and carries us in this difficult time of adjustment and loss. That’s the certainty that enables, and even more, empowers us to sing with Simeon and Mel, “Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace.”
God bless you, strengthen you, and fill you with His peace and, through faith in Christ, also grant to you a peaceful departure. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
