“Darling
daughter, you will rise and shine like a star, yea, like the sun. I am happy in
spirit, but the flesh is sorrowful and will not be content, the parting grieves
me beyond measure. I have sent a saint to heaven.”
So
spoke the great church reformer Martin Luther on the death of his beloved
daughter Magdalene.
I’m
sure everybody here this morning, even those of you who weren’t privileged to
meet Ruth, relates to Luther’s grief. For what, in our world, could be sadder
than the death of a child; a little girl with everything in life to look
forward to? Our flesh is sorrowful and will not be content.
But
for many of us relating to Luther’s “happiness in spirit” at “sending a saint
to heaven” is quite another matter. You
might be here this morning feeling that there is nothing but tragedy in this
situation. You might feel that any sense of hope or joy today is inappropriate,
even offensive.
But
that’s not what Nick and Julia think. Shortly before Ruth diagnosed, before
knew she was ill, Nick preached on these words from 1 Peter:
Praise be to the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a
living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into
an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in
heaven for you, who through faith are
shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be
revealed in the last time. In all this you
greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief
in all kinds of trials.
If
you ask him Nick will tell you that those words, preached in the conviction
that they were true then, have become very precious to him over the last two
years. Not because they have become any truer, but because their relevance has
become more and more obvious.
We
all need to know this morning that the comfort of heaven is not something Christians
have made up to deal with tragic days like today.
This
morning’s service with its mixture of grief and hope is a product of the
convictions this family, and all Christians, have always held, in good times
and bad. Followers
of Jesus have always known that being a Christian is being a pilgrim – living
life as a journey. Christians
have always known that journey has a destination – not the grave but the courts
of the Lord God, our creator and redeemer.
We
meet this morning in the conviction that though our flesh may not be content,
we can yet be happy in spirit, even in the face of tragic death.
Our
loss is, indeed, grievous. Nick and Julia have lost a child. Emily and Fliss a
sister. Whether we are Ruth’s grandparent, cousin, Auntie, Uncle, nephew, niece
or friend we are right to grieve in the flesh.
Ruth,
though, as a follower of Christ has now come to a place so wonderful that it is
better to be the person who opens the doors there than it is to be the proud
owner of a sumptuous mansion here.
The
Psalmist, writing chiefly of the beautiful stone temple Solomon had built in
Jerusalem, but with one eye on the true, eternal home of God, of which that
temple was just a picture… The
Psalmist longed for those courts. His flesh might fear the cost of the journey.
But his soul, his inmost being, yearned to arrive there.
Ruth
has gone before us to the courts of the Lord, whose time is so sweet that the
passing of 24 hours there, the Psalmist says, is not even to be compared with
three years of earthly life.
As
we celebrate Ruth’s life our thoughts turn, inevitably, to what we have lost.
To the growing up, the going to school, the exam successes, the unsuitable
boyfriends and all the rest of it that we will not now experience. But today
above all days we must remind ourselves that the loss is ours, not Ruth’s.
Because
Ruth is somewhere lovely. She
is with the Lord. No
doubt we would have honoured and loved Ruth much. But
she is now in the presence of the one who bestows favour and honour without
limit. Ruth
is with him who withholds no good thing from those, like her, who put their
trust in him.
The
Lord, the ruler of these courts, is not too proud, not too grand to welcome
little Ruth into his home, the house of glory. In
fact, the Psalmist says, even the sparrows and the swallows, those commonest of
birds that we haughty human beings, filter out as of little significance in our
world, can find a place in the courts of the Lord, even a central place, one
near the altar.
We
should be comforted this morning that the living God, the God and Father of the
Lord Jesus Christ, who took children in his arms and blessed them, has many
places, special places, in his courts even for those, like Ruth, who will never
be considered by this world to be amongst the great.
The
courts of the Lord are beautiful.
The
courts of the Lord are welcoming to all who trust in him.
As they pass
through the desert valleys
They make
them oases of water.
I
hope that, for those of you who were privileged, as I was, to see Ruth’s life
at close quarters, you will hold onto a quirky memory of her uniqueness. It
might be her voracious appetite for meat or her uttering of a sentence
completely incomprehensible to adults but perfectly translated by Emily.
It
would be easy to think those were just quirky things about Ruth. Which they
were. But they were more than that. They were green places. They were a gift of
God to us through Ruth, even as he strengthened her for her own pilgrimage to
his courts.
Those
courts, where she now lives, are lovely. Ruth’s
presence in them shows that they are especially open and welcoming even to the
smallest and weakest of us. And
our own testimony, our experience is that Ruth, like all followers of Jesus, brought
us green places in the desert.
Ruth
was greatly blessed in being brought up to know the Lord. That
blessing has now come to its full flowering in the house of God. As
we remember Ruth’s life with gladness and thanks let us remember that one day
we will all follow her into death. My
prayer is that each of us might be trusting in Jesus Christ when we do.
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