title: Christian Burial for Frank Gaertner
author: St. Paul's, Monroe
date: April 18, 2022
Opening
It’s the day after Easter and drizzly out. We find ourselves gathered into a church, probably not the first thing we thought we'd be doing the day after Easter.
Death personified
I’m just one person and my experiences are limited by the fact that — well, it’s just me. But my experience of death is that it comes to us unbidden. Unwelcome. So often a surprise. Sometimes when a person has been in great pain and suffering, death is in fact longed for, but with some kind of rascally contrariness it takes its own sweet time.
Death takes us by surprise. But, again, my own experience has been that, at such times, God’s presence is more palpable than at any other time. The bold, large, emotions are quite familiar to us then: laughter, tears, stories to tell, poignant memories silently remembered, faces of loved ones not seen in years.
The boundary between God’s realm and our own is dependably reduced, no longer locked or guarded.
Always an Easter Liturgy
The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. It finds all meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too, shall be raised.
The liturgy, therefore, is characterized by joy, in the certainty that "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
This joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian. The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death. Jesus himself wept at the grave of his friend. So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn.
The Gardener
Few are as equipped to know these things as are gardeners. Priscilla was quick to share her own vision of Frank, newly entered into the wider paradise, as having a new-found garden to plan and tend to. Jesus was quite comfortable using images and stories from the garden. Fig trees that needed pruning. Seeds that needed planting. Weeds that needed removal. Mary at the empty tomb mistook Jesus for the gardener. Priscilla said that some of their neighbors, having recognized her, respond with, “Oh, you’re the gardener’s wife.”
We gather today to celebrate first and foremost the victory over death through the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Him are all of us bound together in the love of God which passes all understanding. For today, at least, seek not to understand but to embrace that love of God which may, to us seem remote at times, but which to Frank today is closer than we can possibly imagine.
Eulogy
Frank Jr. is now going to share a few thoughts with us, for and about his father.
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