Funeral Sermon for Carol Giese: "Planted in Christ"

+ A Christian Funeral – March 9^th, 2019 +

Carol Giese, February 4, 1940 – February 25, 2019

Beautiful Savior Lutheran, Milton

Isaiah 35:1-10; Revelation 22:1-5; John 15:1-11

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Most of us have some kind of hobby or interest. Something we love to do simply for the joy of doing it. Music. Reading. Exercise. Baking or cooking. The list goes on. 

It seems from our Scripture readings today that one of our Lord’s greatest hobbies – if we may call it that – one of his great joys is gardening. After all, in Genesis, one of the first things God does is plant a garden for humanity to live in, for the sheer joy of sharing his love, life, and peace with his creation. Yes, God loves to plant.

This was true of our dear sister in Christ, Carol as well. She loved to plant. To garden. And not just in the soil with the flowers. But with her family too. Nurturing and caring for home and family, and her church family. Each Sunday school class, child, and grandchild was a little garden where she would sow the seeds of God’s life-giving word. Where she would tend and nurture her family in Christ’s love.

So it’s no accident that one of the Scripture passages Carol chose was from Isaiah 35, where God plants a living hope in us of the rescue Jesus brings our fallen creation, where “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantlyand rejoice with joy and singing.

You see, Carol learned her love of caring for others from the Master Gardener himself. God has a bit of a green thumb himself. A real thumbs joined to real hands, like branches to a vine. Our Lord Jesus took on human flesh and laid down his life on the tree of the cross for Carol, for you, and for me, so that we – along with Carol and all the saints – will be his new creation. Ransomed by the Lord. Redeemed in Jesus. Baptized in his Name. Rooted, planted, and alive in Jesus’ crucified and risen for you. Clothed in greater raiment than all the lilies of the fields, robed in Jesus’ righteousness that cleanses us from all sin. 

This is the faith and hope Carol received in Holy Baptism, where God planted her into Christ’s death and resurrection. Where God grafted Carol, as he does for all of us withering branches, by his grace and joins us to Christ the true Vine. With water and Word and the Holy Spirit, our Lord abides with us, and we with him. I am the vine; you are the branches, declares the Lord.Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

This was Carol’s faith and hope in life and death. For she knew what all good gardeners know. That plants can’t live without being fed and nourished with water, good soil, and sunlight. That apart from Christ, our true Vine, we wither and die too.

But Carol also knew that God is no ordinary gardener. Indeed, he is the greatest gardener of all. For unlike most gardeners, who dig up the flower bed and start over when its full of weeds, Jesus does something truly remarkable and unexpected. Jesus who knew no sin became sin for us. Became the curse for us. Became the weed for us. Jesus the Vine becomes the branch, is born to save us from being cut off forever. Jesus is cursed on a tree with our sin to make his cross our tree of life. 

Like a grain of wheat that is buried in the earth and dies so that it might bear fruit, Jesus is crucified, died, and buried in the earth for three days. Planted in our tomb. But the divine Gardener could not, and would not stay dead, for Carol, for you, and for all. And because Jesus rose from the dead, one day, so will we. New, glorified, resurrected bodies. Just like Jesus. 

Who rose from the dead, of all places, in a garden. For you. So that one day, with Carol, and all the saints who have gone before us, we will see what John saw in Revelation. The river of life flowing from the throne of the Lamb. The tree of life whose leaves are given for the healing of the nations. And Jesus, the Lord of life, the Lamb of God, the divine gardener at, at the center of it all, welcoming us home before his face. 

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
    and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;    they shall obtain gladness and joy,
    and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.