Text of Message Shared at Funeral of Three Brothers, ages 16, 13, and 10

Note: This is the text of a message I shared at the recent funerals of three brothers who were killed in a car accident in the community where I pastor. Jamie, age 16, Carson, age 13, and Christian, age 10, were a gift to all who knew them. I offer this here as a word of hope and comfort to all who need it. 

BELIEVING WITH HOPE

We are, each one of us, at every moment, a heartbeat away from death.

It seems that for all of us here today that of all deaths, that of a teenager or a child appears the most unnatural and hardest to bear. We expect the old to die. When those who are old die, it is always difficult, but perhaps it comes as no surprise. But the death of a teenager or a child is a different matter. Life with its beauty, wonder, and potential lies ahead for them. Death comes as a cruel thief when it strikes down the young.

In a way that is different from any other relationship, a child is bone of his parents’ bone and flesh of their flesh. When a child dies, part of the parent dies too and is buried. When we lose a child, the effect is widespread. It not only deeply reaches into the fabric and heart of loving and caring parents, it also involves siblings, grandparents, friends and family, in incredibly unique ways. The specter of death reveals our relationships to be our most precious possession in life.

So, I want to begin today by naming some realities about this day and the circumstances in which we gather:

• The hurt is deeper than the deepest hurt; 
• The tears seem endless;
• The pain feels unbearable;
• There is a sense of powerlessness that is with each of  us;
• We are trying to let go when what we really want to do is to hold on;
• We have a sense of physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion that overwhelms, confuses us and just doesn’t make sense.
• And we ask, Why? How come? What for? – And we are prone to say, It is not fair.

I am not telling you anything you do not already know and feel. But I also want to tell us all something else. While the things I just named are very real, please know today that they are NOT the final or ultimate reality. There is a dimension yet unknown to any of us, but very real to Jamie, Carson, and Christian - a life that brings the promise of Christ and with it the promise of resurrection.

I will tell you that there is no answer that can I can give or that you can give that can fill an empty mother’s heart or end a father’s longing or restore a brother to you. We come here today, not for answers but for comfort, for faith, for hope, and for love – and for a promise.

I am reminded of the words of the classic hymn written by Martin Luther – “And though the wrong seems oft so strong – God is the ruler yet.” The comfort we seek is the Word of the Lord that endures forever.

Sara invited me to share this little story. There was a mom who was approached by her child. “Mom, why do the best people die so soon?” Mom replied, “When you’re in a garden, which flowers do you pick first?” Child replied, “I don’t know.” Mom said, “You pick the most beautiful ones first.”

Aaron and Sara and Mackenzie and Garrett - your family compassion and love for Jamie, Carson and Christian - those are not simply choices - they are, I believe, divine qualities. They reveal the ongoing and active presence of God with you and in you. And none of you or us here today stand alone in these circumstances. Even in Jamie and Carson and Christian’s death, God is present with us. He is the God of resurrection life, love, and compassion.

Compassion and love are what brought Jamie, Carson, and Christian into this world and they are what allowed you, in the end, to let them go. That is the miracle in the midst of today’s circumstances. That, Sara and Aaron and Mackenzie and Garrett, is the miracle that has and will continue to let you entrust Jamie, Carson, and Christian to God. And, it is the same miracle by which you will forever be their mom and dad and brother and sister.

We all want our children to outlive us. No parent ever thinks the day may come when they must bury their children.  But the world in which we live is not about fairness or justice. What we expect from God is far above fairness and justice. It is mercy and grace. Mercy that is strong enough to bear our broken hearts and make them whole again.  Mercy that is strong enough to hold a hope of a reunion to come.  Mercy that is strong enough to fill our emptiness and teach us joy again.

In this real world of tragedy, trauma, sin, curse, destruction and death, God’s compassion and love for us are why, in the Christian faith, death never has the final word. Death is for sure our enemy - but it is NOT the final reality. It is why God says that he makes all things new.

Physical life has changed for Jamie, Carson, and Christian - but there IS a life that has not ended for these three precious boys. It’s the reality of a life found in the grace of God and the love of Jesus Christ.    

As real as the circumstances are today, the greater reality is the love of God, the power of Christ’s resurrection, and the healing of our lives. That is the greater reality into which we entrust Jamie, Carson, Christian and ourselves.

Tears are the words with which we tell God our pain. When tears fall, we entrust. When questions and doubts arise, we entrust. When circumstances overwhelm, we entrust. Over and over we entrust ourselves and those we love to God and the new life He is creating. And we do not do this alone. We do it together with and supported by family, friends, the angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven, of whom Jamie, Carson, and Christian are now one.

We come to God in our sorrow and in our mortality and He answers us with the gift of His own Son, Jesus. He gives Jesus to us, in our flesh and blood, to bear our suffering in His own suffering and to die for us the death that ends death’s reign once and for all.

When a child dies, all of us struggle with the purpose and will of God and rightfully so. Every person has a purpose in the divine design.

Marshall Shelley and his wife lost a child shortly after birth. He wrote about the brief life of their child and their grief. I want to personalize his words for us today. He said, “Why did God create a child to live sixteen years, thirteen years, ten years? He didn’t. He did not create Jamie, Carson, and Christian to live sixteen, thirteen, and ten years. He did not create me to live forty years (or whatever number he may choose to extend my days in this world). God created Jamie, Carson and Christian for eternity. He created each of us for eternity, where we may be surprised to find our true calling, which always seems just out of reach here on earth.”

The Psalmist describes children as a treasure from the Lord, gifts from God to the wombs, hearts, and our lives. No life and no teenager and no child is hidden from the Lord. No teenager and no child suffers without the Lord suffering and no teenager’s cry and no child’s cry is left unheard in the ears of our heavenly Father.

(STORY OF JAMIE RIGHT HERE – CONFIRMATION MATERIALS – TEENSERVE TRIP – ALONG WITH CARSON AND JAMIE GOING NEXT YEAR).

The gospel of Mark 10 tells us that people were bringing their children to Jesus, hoping that He might touch and bless them.  The disciples pushed the children away, thinking they were in the way. Jesus said, “Don’t push these children away. Don’t ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them.

I know that we don’t get all our questions answered, but I also know that we must all become like a little child and come to Jesus… Bring your pain to Jesus… Bring your broken hearts to Jesus… Find your comfort not in explanations or reasons but in the hope and promise of a manger that held the Christ child, the cross on which Jesus suffered to put an end to our suffering, and His death that gives us life – life everlasting, eternal life – life that is never quenched by physical death.  He gives power to the faint. He fills the hearts of the empty and gives strength to the exhausted.

He will renew your strength… He will restore you… The pain of this day is real – but through the pain we can also find a way to the promise and hope of that which is to come. It is a day when tears will flow with joy instead of sadness. It is a day when all our questions of WHY fade away in the presence of the Lord, in the reunion with those whom we love who depart in the Lord, and in the unending future of joy He has prepared for us.

The pain we feel today says something to us not just about death, but also about life. Life, when it is brief, is a reminder that all of us can be recalled at any time. Life is transitory. Psalm 39:5 reminds us, “Each person’s life is but a breath.” Since we have no promise of how long we are given life and breath, surely we must maximize the opportunities God gives us. Count every day a blessing. Bless every day by counting.

Time will bring some healing, but it will not heal all the wounds.

Billy Graham wrote, “Time does not heal. It’s what you do with the time that heals … a long life or a short life are of equal importance to God.”

Time alone doesn’t overcome sorrow. So, we turn to the only One who can enable us to deal with our grief. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Ps. 34:18). Faith in Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life, gives us unexpected strength. We grieve, but not as those who have no hope.

Jamie, Carson, and Christian are in the Lord’s presence by God’s grace. And through Jesus Christ we will get there, too.

Jamie, Carson, and Christian have brought joy and smiles and energy and sunshine and a simple faith and believing and trusting, exuberant love – to you and to us all.

Jamie, Carson, and Christian have taught us so much about the precious gift of a teenager and a child.

Grief hammers and tears at our hearts today – BUT the memories we have will always be cherished and no one or NOTHING can take those from us. AND we realize, because of Jesus and his victory over death, that there will be a reunion. There is a song by Watermark that says it well - “We cling to God’s promise that we will hold them someday in heaven.”

A writer by the name of Kenneth McFarland told of an item he found on the obituary page of the newspaper in a small southern town.

It read, “Billy, it was just a year ago today that you left us and the sunshine went out of our lives. But, we turned on the headlights and we’re going on … and Billy, we shall keep on doing the best we can until that glorious day when we shall see you again.” It was signed simply “Love, the family.” No names, just a simple testimony to the kind of faith that enables a person to go on in the face of sorrow and death.

And today I want to say the same about Jamie, Carson, and Christian. Jamie, Carson, and Christian - you have left us and the sunshine went out of our lives. But we will turn on the headlights and we will go on – and Jamie, Carson, and Christian, we will keep on doing the best we can until that glorious day when we shall see you again.

Until we come to that day when all mysteries, purposes, and plans of God are sorted out for us in the day when we shall see God face-to-face, let us be thankful that the lives of Jamie, Carson, and Christian have enriched us and made us the better because of it.

Now Jamie, Carson, and Christian fully and completely belong to God. Today we release their hands as God has grasped them over there, and He will never let them go.

    Victor Frankl once said: “We cannot judge a biography by its length, by the number of pages in it; we must judge by the richness of the contents. Sometimes the “unfinisheds” are among the most beautiful symphonies.” 

    Jamie, Carson, and Christian – all of their brief lives touched each of you in their own way as sons, brothers, grandsons, nephews, cousins, friends, classmates, team players, youth group, neighborhood and town buddies.

    Their unfinished lives are among the most beautiful symphonies. That’s because they put music in our lives and it was a beautiful piece of music. And it plays on and on and on – and it is a symphony that will never end. And right now I believe it’s playing among the heavenly angels in God’s heaven, prepared for Jamie, Carson, and Christian.    

    And while we say goodbye to Jamie, Carson and Christian, we also say hello to the love and hope that is the meaning of Jamie, Carson, and Christian’s lives among us.  

Love may change its form, but it does not die.  We seek to find meaning. We feel pain and sorrow – beyond words.

But there is also love. Enduring love. Eternal love.

    In the rising of the sun and in its going down we will remember them – in love.
    In the beginning of the year and when it ends we will remember them – in love.

    So long as we live, they too shall live for they are now a part of us as we remember them – in love.

    Today is a closing and an opening— a saying goodbye and a saying hello again. So while we say farewell to the Jamie, Carson, and Christian we know, we greet the Jamie, Carson, and Christian who have become a part of us - the Jamie, Carson and Christian who lives on with us as the love which is in our hearts.

    “And now abides, faith, hope and love, these three: but the greatest of these is love.”