Sermon for Jonathan Farris Memorial Service - Rom 8:31-39

 

Jonathan Farris Memorial Service

                                                      Rom 8:31-39

                                                      11/6/21

 

          Jonathan Farris was a character. And I mean that in the best sense of the term.  He was always joking – always ready to laugh … and to laugh at himself.  He was a very positive, engaging, and fun person to be around.

          But Jonathan was also very serious when it came to faith in Jesus Christ.  He didn’t just attend the Divine Service each week.  He attended Bible class.  He read Scripture during the week. He read books about the Bible and the Christian faith. And Jonathan was certainly no generic Christian – he confessed what is in the Small Catechism as his faith.  Jonathan was a Lutheran because he knew what he believed, and he knew why he believed it.

          When Jonathan showed up at Good Shepherd, and told me that he had moved to Marion, I was thrilled.  Here was someone who was going to be at the Divine Service and Bible class every Sunday.  You knew that he would be actively involved in the life of the congregation.  He was going to be a great addition to our congregation for many years to come.

          And then Jonathan had to go to the emergency room because of a pain in his side.  As a result of that trip and ensuing tests, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  And everyone knows that pancreatic cancer is generally very bad news. 

Jonathan began treatment, and the news went from bad to worse as it was discovered that the cancer had spread to other parts of his body, including his spine.  Because of the nature of his cancer, the treatments were very hard on Jonathan.  But in the midst of it all, two things remained constant.  Jonathan remained very positive, which was remarkable, given the circumstances.  He never ceased to joke around and remained the same character he had always been.  And Jonathan never ceased to be very serious about faith in Jesus Christ.  I have met few people who have demonstrated such deep faith and trust in the Lord in the face of suffering, pain and the imminent likelihood of death.

In the end, it became clear that Jonathan was going to die.  He was experiencing severe pain, and the cancer was advancing. Confident in his Lord, Jonathan entered into Hospice care, and we learned that on October 20 the Lord called Jonathan to himself.

I look at what happened to Jonathan and part of me wants to say that its not fair.  He shouldn’t have died that young. He should have had more time with his family.  We should have had far more time with him as a member here at Good Shepherd.

But the reality is that what happened to Jonathan was entirely fair – it was entirely just.  It is exactly what God’s law says must happen to every sinner – he died.  It has been happening ever since the sin of Adam. Paul tells the Romans in chapter five, “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” The apostle lays it out in plain words in chapter six: “The wages of sin is death.”

Sin brought death to Jonathan.  And while I am glad that Jonathan is no longer suffering, don’t ever give death the credit for ending his suffering. It was sin and death that caused it in the first place  Because of sin, we are always in the process of dying.  As I said recently in a sermon, once you get past your teenage years, you realize that getting older does not mean you are getting better.  Instead, you are on a trajectory of decline that can only end in death. Unless Jesus Christ returns first, like Jonathan, you will die.  And like Jonathan it will be entirely just, because you are a sinner.

In the section before our text, Paul has been reflecting upon the presence of suffering in our lives.  He has said, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”  He has stated, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”  He has just written the famous verse: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” 

As we think about Jonathan’s death and the sin that caused it, the apostle Paul gives us words of encouragement and hope. He writes, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 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?”

What Paul says certainly has the sense of: “Duh!?!” If God is for us, who can be against us?  If God, the Creator of all things is on our side, what is there to fear?  After all, God is the One who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all.  Paul has said in chapter five, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  God the Father sent his Son into the world in the incarnation in order to die for us on the cross. He did this for Jonathan.  He did this for you.

 And this leads Paul to ask the question in our text: “Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.”  The ultimate issue is not simply death, but the fact that we all must stand before the judgment seat of God. Paul asks: Who is going to bring a charge against God’s elect when God – the judge – is the One who justifies?  As we heard last Sunday from Romans chapter three, God is just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. This means that because of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ in our place, we know that Jonathan will be declared just by God on the Last Day.  We know that God will do the same for you, because like Jonathan, you believe in Christ.

Finally, Paul asks, “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died--more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”  Our Lord died on Good Friday. But then on Easter, God raised him from the dead.  He has won forgiveness and defeated death.  Now as the ascended Lord, he intercedes for us.

Jonathan was baptized into the death of Christ.  Paul says about baptism in chapter six, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” The apostle says that because Jonathan was baptized, he will share in Jesus’ resurrection.  Paul says this because through baptism Jonathan received the Holy Spirit. In this chapter he writes, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” That is why Paul says just before our text that “we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

In Christ, Jonathan had justification and the assurance of resurrection.  That is why Paul can say about Jonathan and about us: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?  As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Death has not separated Jonathan from the love of God in Christ.  It has not separated him from Christ.  It is in this same letter that Paul says, “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”

Jonathan has not been separated from Christ. Instead, he is with the Lord.  He is justified and ready to stand before the judgment seat of God.  On the Last Day, the Lord Jesus will return and raise his body, for Paul told the Philippians, “we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”  The Lord will do this to us as well. We will stand with Jonathan on that day, as we live in bodies that can never die again.  We will live forever with our Lord and with Jonathan in the new creation.