In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It can be difficult to adapt to the change when parents move away from the home where we grew up. As a child, a move means leaving a place that holds so many memories and associations, even if you only move across town. I knew someone in college who, as soon as he had moved off to college, his parents sold their house and relocated. Once he left for that first fall semester, he never got to go “home” again.
For all of us, the idea of moving is unpleasant, and all the more so if you do not know where you are going to end up. No matter how well planned, there is always uncertainty about how things will work out, about how you will adapt your life to your new place in the world.
Adam and Eve had everything perfect in the Garden of Eden. They were the pinnacle of God's creation, and it was very good. The image of God was within them. The Lord God Himself walked with them in the garden. They had all the fruits of the earth for their use and consumption. The animals obeyed them, and they were surrounded with all they needed to support body and life. And they were joyful and at peace.
But then came sin. When prompted by the serpent, Adam and Eve departed from the Word of God and presumed to know better how they should live. Rather than take God at His word, they chose to attempt to become gods unto themselves. In that first fateful bite, the image of God so lovingly crafted into the soul of man was corrupted beyond measure. No longer was everything good and easy. No longer would God walk with them in the garden.
Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden, never to return. Blocking them from the presence of the Lord stood an angel with a flaming sword. They were cast out into the wilderness, alone and lost. They had chosen to remove themselves from the house of the Father, and so had been barred from returning. The ground was cursed on their account, and suffering, pain, and death entered the cosmos through them.
And the curse descends from generation to generation, all the way from Adam and Eve down to you and me, and our children after us. Age to age, year after year, man wanders the earth, laboring under the sweat of his brow, while woman brings forth the next generation in pain and travail. Banished from our Father's house, we wander, blind and disoriented by our sin. That original sinful condition, inherited from our forebears, keeps us ignorant of the way home to God. We grope blindly through the dark, attempting to find some way to something, but only stumble further into death and destruction, and further away from home and the place of rest.
But all is not lost. “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God.” You and I are not stuck out in the dark forever. The Father of all mercies has seen the terrible plight of humanity, and has purposed our salvation. In His great love, God has looked upon us and seen our wretched estate, and has come to save us. He has prepared many rooms for us in His house, one for each of His beloved children.
But how do you get there? Like the young man whose parents relocated after he moved out, our sin blinds us from finding the way back to our Father's house. What good does a room prepared for us do if we can't find the house?
[Jesus said,] “You know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
The way to the house of our Father is through the cross. Not through our blind groping or our best efforts or our superior intellect. The way to the Father's house is through death. Through His innocent suffering and death, Jesus died our death to sin, that we may have life in His name. Jesus travelled the road of obedience that we could not. His glorious death on the cross has opened to us the gates of righteousness. He is the way, the truth, and the life. Baptized into Christ, we receive sight to follow the way that leads to everlasting life. We have life eternal in our Father's house because we have life in Jesus' name.
You and I, though formerly blind, lost, and alone, now see the light of Christ, and in His light we see the Father. We know that He loves us and calls us to Himself because Jesus has made Him known to us. There is salvation in none other, but with Jesus is forgiveness, life, and salvation in measure overflowing.
Lorna knew Jesus, and in Jesus she came to know her heavenly Father. In the waters of Holy Baptism, she was drowned and died with all sins and evil desires, and was buried with Christ, to rise again with Him to new life. Throughout her earthly life, Lorna heard the preaching of the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit worked faith in her heart to repent of her sins and believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She received the very Body and Blood of her savior Jesus Christ on her tongue for the forgiveness of her sins, and in that blessed Meal she was united to her Lord and God. Because Jesus gave Himself to Lorna, she knew the way home to her Father's house. And there she now rests from her labors, secure in the place prepared for her by the One who loves her.
So listen to the words of Jesus: “Let not your hearts be troubled”. Lorna has her place of rest. She has reached her dwelling place in the house of our Father. And there is a place prepared there for you also. For in the House of God are many rooms prepared for all the multitude of saints whose life is Christ Jesus.
We mourn because we are bereft. Death is unnatural to us, and it tears away something very precious to us, and it hurts deeply. We shed tears for what has been taken from us, one who loved us, cared for us, nurtured us, and encouraged us along our way. But we rejoice because we are united in Christ. When we enter the house of God to receive His Gifts, we enter the company of Lorna and Earl and all the saints who worship in the heavenly house of the Lord. They see fully what we here yet only see dimly and in part. But we are united with them because we are united to our one Lord Jesus Christ, who is the life of all the living. And we rejoice because we know that we shall be reunited with all those who go before us in the faith on the Day when our Lord calls us to Himself, and when we finally take our places among the innumerable multitude surrounding the throne of the Lamb who was slain and now is raised.
In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
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