Funeral for Christopher and Nicholas Driver
September 9, 2011
(Published with the permission of the parents)
✠ In the name of Jesus ✠
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Is 53:4). Only the words of God are sufficient for us in this. Our own words and expressions may help, but they feel inadequate. What do we say when death lays its claim so quickly on life?
In the face of this, after the tears stop, sometimes to try to keep the tears from starting, I’ve noticed that we do a lot of sighing. Deep breath and exhale. It is as we will hear again in Sunday’s Gospel reading. Jesus is dealing with a man who is deaf and mute (Mk 7:31-37). After touching His ears and tongue, it says that Jesus looked up to heaven and sighed. Those words could even be translated that He groaned. There is great comfort to be found for us in that–first of all, because Jesus put Himself there in our place, as we ourselves groan and sigh to heaven in our great need. Jesus is the Immanuel Savior, God with us in our flesh and blood. He sighs for you, and He sighs with you, even and especially now. He knows your heartache, and He has made it His own. He is with you by His Word to see you through this. He will never leave you or forsake you.
Secondly, Jesus’ sighing and groaning shows how He has not only shared our burden but that He has taken our burden. He has taken the curse of sin and death upon Himself to break it and set us free. Though we now groan within ourselves and all creation with us, Christ cried out with a loud voice and groaned unto death to demolish it. Death and the devil tried to lay their claim on life forever in the taking of Jesus, but instead they themselves were utterly destroyed by His sacrifice. His resurrection in the flesh is evidence enough of that. We eagerly wait to share fully in that resurrection, to be released from the bondage of corruption and have the redemption of our bodies on the Last Day. Until then, the Spirit of Christ helps us in our weaknesses, making intercession for us before the Father with groanings too deep for words.
So we certainly do not gather here today without hope, but with a firm hope because of Christ–both for ourselves and for Christopher and Nicholas. It is good that we are in church, for we remember today that Christopher and Nicholas were here many times before. It is not something to be dismissed that even within the womb they were in God’s presence in the liturgy, where the word of Christ and psalms and hymns reverberated. It is not a little thing that the Church prays for pregnant mothers and the unborn, for their eternal well-being, as you have prayed. Those petitions are certainly heard for the sake of Christ. The heavenly Father who created these two children and who knit them together in the womb in love–we trust that His will for them is good and gracious in Christ who died for all, and we entrust them into His merciful care.
We certainly should not forget that our Lord Jesus, by His conception, has sanctified our lives in the womb. That is where God took up our humanity. Jesus was once a holy embryo. He was a 17, 18, 19 week old unborn boy; Jesus shared that with Christopher and Nicholas. The redeeming power of His incarnation is for them. John 1 says of Jesus the Word, “That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.” It is true, apart from Jesus there is darkness and no hope. But in Him there is light and life. He has redeemed our humanity at every stage of our existence, all the way to death, whenever it comes. And Christ is Victor over death.
The name Nicholas has victory in it. It means “victory of the people”–fitting for the people of Christ, He who triumphed for us in the cross that we might rise and live with Him forever. And so Christopher, “Christ-bearer” is fitting for us all. We bear Christ’s name; we share in His sufferings and death that we may also share in His life and glory.
“If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31) It is not an easy thing to confess that God is for you at a time of loss such as this. Sight and experience and feelings would try to lead you astray to say otherwise. But do not give in to them; they would deceive you. In the midst of things we cannot adequately understand, Jesus is the only anchor and certainty and truth. “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:32) The Father has given His Son for you, for your sons, for us all. That’s for sure, whatever else is to be said. That’s the truth.
So in this disorienting time, when you pour out your complaints and your laments to God–and don’t be afraid to do that as the Psalmists did; the Lord can handle it–when you ask why, remember and fix your eyes on Him who cried out for you “My God, My God, why . . .” on Calvary. Only there are our questions peaceably resolved. The cross is the only answer that will satisfy. With His Son the Father gives you all things. And so we say in faith, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall lack nothing” (Ps 23:1).
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. . . And by His wounds we are healed” (Is 53:4,5).
✠ In the name of Jesus ✠
