Departing This Life in Peace: Sermon for the Funeral of Helen Beyers
“Lord, now You are
letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have
seen Your salvation that You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a
light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to Your people Israel”
(Luke 2:28–32).
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ!
Linda, Rick, and Jim, the
words of our text were regularly spoken or sung over the years by your mother as
she attended Divine Service at St. James, Memorial, Our Saviour’s and elsewhere.
They are the Nunc Dimittis, part of the liturgy of Holy Communion. A few
days before the Lord called her home, your mother recited these words, along “with
angels and archangels and all the company of heaven,” having received Christ’s
body and blood for the forgiveness of her sins and the strengthening and
preserving of her body and soul. That individual communion of the Lord’s Supper
in her room at Good Samaritan was the last of her many earthly rehearsals for
the eternal marriage feast of the Lamb in heaven.
Simeon first spoke the
words. The Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not die before
seeing the promised Savior. Then the Holy Spirit moved him to be in the temple
when Mary and Joseph brought in the baby Jesus to present Him to the Lord and led
him to recognize this baby is the very promised Savior. And then, the Holy
Spirit gave Simeon this confession of faith: “Lord, now You are letting Your
servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your
salvation” (Luke 2:29-30).
These same words the
Holy Spirit has also given us to proclaim. In fact, in this celebration of the
resurrection that Christ has given Helen, we will observe how these words of Simeon
are the words of every believer in Christ and were, in a special way, the words
of Helen throughout her life.
In these words of
Simeon, “My eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2:30), we know that he recognized,
by the power of the Holy Spirit, that this baby Jesus was the promised Savior.
Here was the fulfillment of the promise to Adam and Eve, when they fell into
sin and the terror of death came upon them, how God would provide the Seed of
the woman to crush the head of the serpent, who had brought sin and death and
bondage into the world. This is that Child, born of the Virgin: Immanuel, God
with us. “My eyes have seen Your salvation.”
The conversation with
Joseph and Mary revealed that Simeon saw more than a baby in his arms. The Holy
Spirit revealed to him what this baby would accomplish as a grown man. “This
child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel,” he told them, “and
for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also),
so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35).
As one who waited for
the consolation of Israel, and who undoubtedly knew the Scriptures, Simeon would
remember that the Servant of Yahweh would be “despised and rejected by men; a
man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief [just as you today experience sorrow
and grief]… wounded for our transgressions; … cut off out of the land of the
living, stricken for the transgression of my people” (Isaiah 53:3,5,8).
Did the Holy Spirit reveal
the scene thirty-three years later beneath the cross, the crowd mocking “He
saved others; He cannot save Himself” (Mark 15:31). Mary, beneath the cross,
hearing the words of her Son, “Woman, behold your son!.… [Son,] behold your
mother” (John 19:26-27)? Did the Holy Spirit bring to Simeon that “the word of
the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it
is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18)? His words would lead us to say, “Yes!
This Child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and
for a sign which will be spoken against” (Luke 2:34). More than a baby, this is
the one who would bear the curse of sin, death, and eternal damnation and would
grant salvation to all who believe. “My eyes have seen Your salvation” (Luke
2:30).
Helen, too, was
privileged to see her salvation, though not physically while taking Him up in
her arms as Simeon did. She saw Him by faith when He took her up in His
arms in the water of Baptism, where He joined her to Himself in His death
and resurrection when she received that Blessed Sacrament. Through faith and
repentance, Helen lived in her Baptism daily. Her eyes saw the Savior in the
washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
Helen saw her Savior
through the preaching of the Word every Sunday, when the Scriptures were opened,
and she was shown that the Christ, the Savior, must suffer, die, and rise again
to bear her sins and reconcile her to her heavenly Father. She saw her Savior
in the breaking of the bread, a term used by the Early Church for the Sacrament
of the Altar. When health made it difficult for Helen to come to worship, we
brought the Church to her. Fed and nourished by God’s Word, Helen could also say,
“My eyes have seen Your salvation” (Luke 2:30).
Because Simeon saw this
salvation, he said, “Now you are letting your servant depart in peace” (Luke
2:29). That could mean, “I can leave knowing my sins are forgiven, and I can go
serve my Lord. I now have a living hope. This Light to lighten the Gentiles
removes the darkness of my despair. I’m ready to go out and live.”
Helen could say that,
too. She could go about her various vocations as wife, mother, grandmother, church
secretary, bookkeeper confident she was serving Christ in love to her neighbor.
She could enjoy hobbies and activities like reading, knitting, crocheting, snowmobiling,
fishing, and playing cards with friend, thankful that God had blessed her with
so many opportunities. She could confidently say, “I’m ready to live. My eyes
have seen my Savior.
But when Simeon said, “Lord,
now you are letting your servant depart in peace” (Luke 2:29), he might have
simply been stating, “I am ready to die. I have seen my Savior.” The Holy
Spirit revealed to him that he would not see death until he had seen the promised
Savior. We tend to think of Simeon as old because he spoke these words. Not
necessarily so. The same words could be spoken if he were younger and had a terminal
illness. For that matter, he could have been young and healthy. Death comes to
all people, young and old, sick and well. It’s been so since the fall of Adam: “Just
as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death
through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
Scripture also reminds
us that not all people die in peace. Death holds terror for the unbelievers
because they will be eternally damned. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). Intuitively, all people know that
when they die, they will have to stand before their Creator for judgment. If
people come before Him in their own righteousness, which the Bible says are as “filthy
rags” (Isaiah 64:6), then there can be no peace in dying. They can only anticipate
the Judge of the whole earth saying, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the
eternal fire” (Matthew 25:41).
Simeon and Helen could
say, “I am ready to die in peace, not because I have lived a good life, but because
“my eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2:30). There is only one way to die in
peace, and that is seeing by faith the Savior born at Christmas, who died on
Good Friday and was raised on Easter morning to conquer sin, death, and Satan.
The Holy Spirit gave them that peace.
Helen was eighty-eight
years old. People of that age know that death cannot be far off. She could say
in old age, “I don’t have long to live! But even in her youth, and throughout her
years, as one whose eyes of faith saw her Savior, she could say, “Now let your
servant depart in peace. I am ready to die because in Him Word and Sacrament I
have seen my Savior.”
This was very clear
when I met with Helen last week that she was ready. She knew that her time to
depart was near. But more important, having seen her Savior, Helen knew that at
the moment of her death she would hear the words of her Savior, “Today you will
be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). In fact, the longing of the apostle Paul
may also have been hers when he said, “I desire to depart and to be with Christ,
which is better by far” (Philippians 3:21).
Helen could die with
the confidence that this lowly body—subject to the ravages of disease and time—will
be transformed like Christ’s glorious body in the resurrection. Because she saw
her crucified and risen Lord, she could confess, “When the perishable puts on the
imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the
saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’” (1 Corinthians
15:54). She, with all believers, could go on to taunt, “O death, where is your
victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power
of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through out
Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).
If Helen could speak
with us as one of those in the great cloud of witnesses who have finished the
race, as described in Hebrews 12, she would, from the vantage point of her seat
in the stadium of eternal joy and glory, say to you, children, grandchildren,
friends, and fellow church members, who are still in the race: “Lay aside every
weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race”
(Hebrews 12:1). And “fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our
faith” (Hebrews 12:2).
Keep your eyes on Jesus,
by continuing to hear and learn the Word of God. Come to the Lord’s Table often,
so that you may live and die in the words of Simeon, “Lord, now you are letting
Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word, for my eyes have seen
Your salvation” (Luke 2:29-30).
The peace of God, which
passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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