Christ is Risen Indeed!

I guess you could say that it “was her time.” Minerva, “Nerby” to her friends, passed away peacefully about two weeks ago. She was 103 years of age.

Jen, Nerby's granddaughter and a faithful member of Faith Lutheran, traveled to North Dakota for the funeral. It was both a sad and joyful occasion. Yes, the retired P.E. coach's family and friends would miss her, but they also rejoiced over the free-spirited life Nerby had enjoyed.

Nerby just never seemed to be bothered by anything. In more than a century of life, she had lived in a blissful certainty that all her gushing joys and tearful sorrows were safely in the hands of a loving and forgiving God.

Jen reported that Nerby's pastor had visited the old women at her deathbed. Nerby had stopped eating several days before and had lost the power of speech. She lay peacefully with her eyes closed, waiting to be taken home to the arms of Jesus. The pastor said some prayers. When he recited the Our Father, Nerby opened her eyes, looked directly at him, and attempted as best she could to mouth the words she knew so well. She was faithful to the end.

Jen's story put me in mind of the death of another dear soul, my friend the Reverend Howard Kuhnle. Pastor Howard had served eleven parishes and celebrated over seventy years in ordained ministry. He preached his last sermon on the occasion of his one-hundredth birthday. He lived on for almost a year after that.

I visited him on his deathbed. A foam mat had been placed on the floor next to him to prevent injury should the centenarian roll out of bed. Just like Grandma Nerby, Howard lay peacefully waiting for the end. I read some scripture and some prayers. When I recited the Our Father, the old man's eyes remained closed, but his arms shot straight up towards heaven, and he began to recite the prayer in a voice Charlton Heston would've envied. Perhaps he was imagining himself leading worship as he had for so many years. I don't know, but I remember leaving Howard's side with a feeling of tremendous peace.

Last December I traveled to Tacoma, Washington to visit my sister Maryanne. She has been diagnosed with stage four cancer and is now on hospice care. During our visit, she recounted for me an exceptionally vivid dream she had had just before her doctors recommended she cease aggressive treatment for her disease.

Maryanne told me that she had imagined herself in heaven being greeted by our earthly (not to be confused with our heavenly) father. Our dad carried under his arm our family dog, Pepe. Pepe had been a shaggy miniature French poodle. Dad loved this dog, and Pepe worshiped him with the slavish devotion of which only a dog is capable.

My sister recounted that, in her dream, she had called out, “Pepe!”

Our father, not one to overlook the importance of an occasion, immediately scolded her. “Do you know what has happened to you?” he asked her. “Do you know where you are?”

“Oh, yes,” my sister told him. “I've died and this is heaven.”
“And you're excited about a dog..?” he asked.

“Of course!” she said. “Because if he's up here, then everybody's up here!”

I asked my sister if she was afraid of what was to come.

“Not in the least,” she said. “I know where I'm going.”

What beautiful lives the saints live!

In Matthew's Easter gospel, the angel of the Lord tells the women seeking the body of Jesus at the tomb, “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee.” (Matthew 28: 7) I've always loved this verse. “He is going ahead of you.” These words bring me comfort. Jesus has entered into the slop of this life, dealt with all the pain of it, and returned to the place from which he began. He's gone ahead of us, and there is no place in this life—be it physical pain, loss, betrayal, loneliness, hunger, helplessness, need, despair, or death—where Jesus has not already been.

And today, we celebrate that he has conquered it all.

Now, I'm not one for proclaiming a theology of glory, but for this one day out of the year I don't see the harm of it. The world did every sick, cruel thing it could think to do to Jesus, and yet he is still Lord. The resurrection of Jesus is the promise of the everlasting nature of our own souls. Saint Paul taught:

“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5)

Nerby, Howard, and Maryanne all lived their lives in this certainty. Their faith is courage in the face of death because of their assurance of victory everlasting in Jesus.

I don't know what Easter Sunday means to you, but to me the empty tomb is a reminder that all the mistakes of my earthly life and all of their consequences are but blinks in God's eye. We can live as people already resurrected, because all the sin and pain and chaos of this world which cause us so much grief and worry now have already been vanquished in God's time—even if we sometimes forget this.

Happy Easter, dear friends. May today be for you but one day in the everlasting joy of immortality.

Christ is risen! Alleluia!

PS-As all Christian celebrate this holiest of days, let's raise a prayer that we may all celebrate together some day around the table of the Lord. Lutherans and Roman Catholics both believe that Jesus is with us in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. If you believe this too, please sign my petition to bring both denominations back to the table. It's been almost 500 years. Let's bury the hatched! Just click here.