1 Corinthians 15:42-44
Funeral Service
The Perfect Body

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

I had a fair amount of difficulty deciding which Valerie Clements I would refer to in her funeral sermon.  Would I talk about the little girl – the one who had tremendous health and loved to play?  Would I talk about the Valerie who was plagued with seizures – the Valerie who had several operations to remove cancer from that most delicate of human organs: the brain?  Or, would I talk about the only Valerie that I had known personally – the Valerie who was so encumbered with the handicaps that had been placed on her through those surgeries that she had difficulty communicating?

But I realized that these are all one in the same Valerie.  These are all the same person that God placed on this earth.  She was placed in a more fragile body, perhaps, than most of us; but she was given a human body, nonetheless, by the same God that has given all of us our bodies.  And just as will happen with all of us, that body has died.  The shell that contained the soul of Valerie failed last Thursday morning, and the remnant that was returned to ash is here.

This is the body that St. Paul tells us “is sown perishable”, and hers has indeed now perished.  “[The body that] is sown in dishonor”: because none of us have the ability to match God’s glory and honor.  “[The body that] is sown in weakness”: and Valerie’s body has fatally succumbed to that inherent weakness.  “[The body that] is truly natural, that is an earthly body: subject to the corruption that has come into the world through sin.  Not just the sins of commission or omission that we are prone to, but also the sin that exists from the fall of Adam and Eve into the first sin.

I was told by several different people that one Valerie’s most cherished books was Luther’s Small Catechism.  This was her bedtime reading.  Through this she clung to the Word of God.  Here she heard it explained, as the head of the family should teach [it] in a simple way to his household.  Through this she held fast to those promises that we heard from St. Paul in our lesson.

The most important promises for is today is St. Paul saying that we shall be raised from the dead.  Jesus has won the victory of death and the devil.  Through His resurrection we have the certainty that we, too, will be resurrected.  And we shall be raised in the bodies that God intended us to have.  The scars from surgery will be gone.  The ravages of earthly sickness will no longer be evident.  The body will be imperishable – no longer subject to these things.  The body will be raised in glory – through the glory that belongs to Christ.  And it will be raised in power – by the power over death that Jesus won for us in His resurrection.

These promises, this faith, was given to Valerie at her baptism and stayed with her for her entire life.  For “we were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”  (Romans 6:4) We have the assurance that, along with all who die in the faith, Valerie will be raised on the Day of Judgment clothed in the perfect body that God had always intended for her to have.  And we shall be there with her saying “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” (Rev. 5:13b)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

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