Death is ever present as we journey through this valley of the shadow of death. The obituaries of newspapers large and small are never without the names of people who have died within just a matter of days prior to the time of publication. Reporting on death by violence is a part of every television newscast. The number of lives lost in just one tragedy is impossible to comprehend, sometimes involving the death of entire families and villages.
This week two servants of the Lord of Life have died. Both were faithful servants who lived to bring the Good News of Christ's victory over death and the grave to a world of people who must ultimately face the reality of their own dying and death. There is no way to escape death. Sooner or later, each one of us reading these words will die. It could be as soon as a matter of minutes or it could be decades away. But come it will.
Very likely we have each had to deal with the death of loved ones as part of our life journey in this valley of the shadow of death. Very often it is the death of grandparents and their generation that becomes our first dealing with the presence and reality of death. Not that it makes it easy, but society has come to consider the death of the elderly as being natural ... a part of life we even say.
The death of people not yet in the "elderly" category seems all wrong, unnatural, unacceptable. And the younger the person, the more unacceptable and much more difficult to even talk about by family and friends.
It was in the face of death ... the spiritual deadness with which we are each born and the physical death that soon follows ... that Mr. Kenneth Seevers and Rev. Richard Hamlow proclaimed God's Word of Life ... the Word incarnate of the virgin Mary, Jesus, the Christ. It was Jesus, the living Word, who had brought them out of their own spiritual death into the new life of faith through the water and the Word, the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.
They came to know that in Christ Jesus they would never again be spiritually dead, never again separated from their God and Creator. They came to know and understand that physical death and the grave were no longer a threat to those alive in Christ.
All this they came to know and understand as they grew in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus had suffered and died for man's forgiveness and salvation ... and He had overcome death and the grave through His Resurrection. They lived in the certainty that in Baptism they had been united with the Christ ... buried with Him in His death and raised with Him in His Resurrection so that even as Jesus lives eternally they also were alive eternally.
They knew that death could no longer harm them ... the grave could never hold them. With Christ and in Christ they lived in true freedom as God's own sons and daughters. They knew that when death would come ... no matter how it might come ... no matter when it might come ... their spirit would be with Jesus ... and their physical body? ... it would be as though it were asleep ... asleep in Jesus ... to be awakened by His voice at the Day of His Return.
This Good News they lived to share in full time ministry ... called by Christ Jesus to serve among the people and communities of the congregations and schools to which the Holy Spirit had called them. They lived in the valley of the shadow of death as lights in the darkness ... reflecting the One who is the True Light and Life.
I was privileged to live for a while in their light and to know the unique blessings that the Lord had bestowed upon each of them and the unique blessings that flowed through them ... through their words and actions ... through their daily walking with us as His servants and ours. They were blessed to be a blessing ... and that they were ...and that they continue to be ...
Their presence shall be missed ... but the lights of those whom they touched will continue to shine brightly and the blessings that flowed through Ken and Rich will continue to flow through those who now mourn their departure.
Until that Resurrection Day, may they rest in peace in the Savior's care.
