Today we’ve travelled to here...
and we are now gathered to remember, and perhaps even from our hearts to speak to you Mom and Dad, and hoping that you might be listening us, but those days of when you hear us have gone.
The Bible tells us this: “For the living know they shall die, but the dead know nothing.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5)
That’s rather stark, but it is true.
The Bible also tells us God said we shall return to the ground, “for out of it we were taken; we are dust, and to dust we shall return.” (Genesis3:19)
And this is unavoidable reality.
We are here this day to return Mom and Dad to the ground.
Why?
Because of God’s 5th Commandment – it is the first given for relationships between man and man, and it is this,
“Honour your Father and your Mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.” (Exodus 20:12)
The Bible doesn’t give us any fine print about how to do this, but I believe this burial is one final act in honouring our parents.
I’m convinced that honouring our father and our mother did not end with their deaths, but will end for each of us upon our deaths.
Everything we say or do concerning our parents since they died either honours them or dishonours them. Choose your words with care in what you say about your mother and your father when talking about them, whether they are still living or if they have died.
The Bible tells us this:
“When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” (John 19:26-27)
Jesus spoke these words when he was already nailed to and hanging on the cross, hours, if not minutes from his own death.
But why did Jesus say and do this?
To fulfill God’s commandment, “Honour your father and your mother” and in doing so, he provided a home and someone to care for his mother after he was gone… and for us to know this and do likewise.
How many times did we hear Dad say, during the last year of his life, “I wish I’d been less of a worry to my mother.”
Jesus was no stranger to funerals, because the Bible tells us, “When Jesus came to Mary and Martha, he found that Lazarus, their brother, had already been in the tomb four days.” (John 11:17)
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, and said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”
Jesus answered her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha said, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
I didn’t ask that question, Jesus did. You can look this up in the Bible and see it for yourself.
But at some point in our lives we are all confronted with this same unavoidable question, “Do you believe this?”
Concerning Lazarus, Jesus asked, “Where have you laid him?”
And Mary and Martha answered, “Lord, come and see.”
“Jesus wept.”
Afterward Jesus came to the tomb. He saw it and said, Take away the stone.”
And Martha answered, “Lord, by this time there will be an odour, for he has been dead four days.”
“Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”
So people took away the stone covering the grave.
“And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you hear me always, but I have said this on account of the people standing by, that they may believe that you have sent me.
When Jesus had said this, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.”
And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth.
Jesus said to them, “Unbind him and let him go.”
No one present there that day needed convincing that Lazarus had been dead and entombed four days, and there were no shortage of witnesses to see Lazarus return from the dead and come out of the grave at Jesus’s command.
We’re all here in this cemetery, and gathered around this hole that’s been opened in the ground for us, and there’s no shortage of the buried remains of other people here either.
We could cry out with loud voices and shout, “Come out!”
But the dead here will not respond to us, because in time we are destined to join them.
But this I know. On the last day, and whether or not we want to, we shall respond to the same voice of Jesus when he commands us to come out of our graves, and we shall come out.
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Dad and Mom, if we have dishonoured you, then perhaps doing so was in not returning you to the dust here before this day. And if we have honoured you, then perhaps it’s because we have kept you together and now return you here together.
“The Lord bless us and keep us;
The Lord make his face to shine upon us, and be gracious to us:
The Lord lift up his countenance upon us, and give us peace.” (Number 6:24-26)
The Oddblock Station Agent
May 30th 2025
