Aberdeen, SD-Funeral service for Shelby Jo Thayer, 23, of Aberdeen and formerly of Forbes took place at 10:00 am Thursday, October 1, 2015 at Zion Lutheran Church in Ellendale.
This has been bothering me since I heard about it earlier in the week. The death of the young is always startling and difficult and the death of any individual is a tremendous loss. Sadly, we are in a world where death is ubiquitous. The Old Testament has a lot to say about that – “all flesh is like the grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of the Lord endures forever”. Our job is to get the Word out.
Shelby’s mother is Darci Wolff. Darcy is in charge of the LWML newsletter and publicity department for the North Dakota District LWML. She has been active in the LWML for years. This Sunday is LWML Sunday and in preparing a service for that I have been thinking hard about Darci and Shelby and all the Pastors that would be praying and consoling and preaching to family and friends.
Darci’s job was to get the word about the LWML. The LWML’s job is to get the Word out to the “lost and erring”. The Word is Jesus. As Pastor’s our jobs are to get the Word out and the Word is Jesus. Jesus is the Word and that Word is light of men. That Word pronounces us right with God and then actually makes us right with God.
In our world today Jesus is impugned and ignored and laughed at and those who speak of him are often ridiculed, sometimes marginalized, and maybe even killed. Sometimes even in our circles we get the feeling that for many Jesus is irrelevant for most of their life, until a baby needs to be baptized, or a wedding needs to take place, or someone gets sick or dies. Suddenly Jesus is relevant but….
An old Lutheran preacher by the name of Helmut Thielicke wrote…….
“But the Word of the Lord—and Jesus Christ himself is this Word—is relevant at every station of life. It is there at the cradle and the grave. It is there when wedding bells ring, and it is there in the night of suffering. It sounded forth its “Let there be” on the morning of creation, and it will be the Word that will not pass away when heaven and earth pass away and are toppled into the great grave of the universe. It is there, always there. It is there with its blessing even before we understand it, when it is spoken at the cradle, in baptism, and in our mother’s prayers. And when we grow to consciousness we find that already it is there. And when we prepare for our last hour, when we no longer feel the touch of the beloved hand that cannot let us go, when our dreams dissolve and those we love are left behind on the hither shore, when the songs of birds are silenced and the sun goes dark, then, even then, this Word does not desert us; now it imbues with substance the prayer of bygone days: “When I depart, depart thou not from me.” No, it does not depart; it comes to meet us on the other shore. Any pastor who deals with the dying learns again and again that these words penetrate to levels and depths that no human words can reach. They are the last companions as we cross the unknown border, and they are the first to greet us on the other side, where they are still true and valid.”
For Darci and her family and all of Shelby’s friends; for the Pastors’ who preach and those who listen; these words and The Word, are our strength and our hope and our song.
But the Word of the Lord—and Jesus Christ himself is this Word—is relevant at every station of life. It is there at the cradle and the grave. It is there when wedding bells ring, and it is there in the night of suffering. It sounded forth its “Let there be” on the morning of creation, and it will be the Word that will not pass away when heaven and earth pass away and are toppled into the great grave of the universe. It is there, always there. It is there with its blessing even before we understand it, when it is spoken at the cradle, in baptism, and in our mother’s prayers. And when we grow to consciousness we find that already it is there. And when we prepare for our last hour, when we no longer feel the touch of the beloved hand that cannot let us go, when our dreams dissolve and those we love are left behind on the hither shore, when the songs of birds are silenced and the sun goes dark, then, even then, this Word does not desert us; now it imbues with substance the prayer of bygone days: “When I depart, depart thou not from me.” No, it does not depart; it comes to meet us on the other shore. Any pastor who deals with the dying learns again and again that these words penetrate to levels and depths that no human words can reach. They are the last companions as we cross the unknown border, and they are the first to greet us on the other side, where they are still true and valid.
