Sermon for 4/20/18: Funeral of Dale Lampe

Here's a link to Dale's obituary. I apologize for the lack of an audio recording. I forgot to record the sermon at the funeral home.

“If You Had Been Here...”

John 11:21-27

ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Both Martha and Mary cried out to the Lord in this way. The implication is that Jesus didn’t care enough about Lazarus or the sisters to see to their needs. They’re His friends, but apparently other things were more important than His friends.

You may be feeling something similar this morning. Usually, when someone goes into the hospital, they expect to come out healthier than when they went in. Sadly, this was not the case for Dale. It would be easy—and certainly it would be convenient—to blame Jesus for the death of our beloved son, brother, friend. “Lord, where were you?” “Lord, it’s not supposed to work this way.” “Lord, don’t you care?” The hard part of the Christian faith is accepting that the Lord’s will is not our own. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done.” And we think we mean it when we say it. But we don’t understand the Lord’s will. We think He should do what we want Him to do. So when hard times come, when grief assails us, it’s easy to blame Jesus.

But our Lord knows your grief. He cried over Lazarus. It gives him no joy that the wages of sin is death. But at the same time, the Psalmist writes, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” The Lord revealed to the Apostle John, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” And both these statements are true. Our Lord rejoices that He is able to welcome His children into their rest. Those children are blessed, for they now rest from their labors and rely fully on Jesus, whose death and resurrection paid the price for our sins. Dale won’t walk from his tomb to resume his earthly life with us. But on the Last Day, everyone will be raised from the dead. And those who live by faith in God, those who believe that Jesus died for their sin and rose from the dead, will rise to live in the eternal presence of their Savior.

We have no need to cry out, “Lord, if you had been here...” for He is here, even now. He is here, comforting you with His Word. He is here, rejoicing that Dale rests from his labors. And He is here to remind you that He is preparing a place for you, too. ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.