TITLE: "Being in Christ"

Family and friends of Susan, especially Dennis, Lisa, Troy, Laura, Richard, Jackie & Peggy, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Our text for today is from the Gospel Lesson just read from St. Matthew chapter 3. We focus especially on the words of the text, It is Fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

Susan Marie Peperkorn was born on March 9, 1947 in Denver, Colorado. She was baptized into Christ on March 31, 1951. She married Dennis Eugene Peperkorn on August 3, 1968. She died in Christ on January 10, 2005. Blessed are the dead who die in this Lord from this time forth and even forevermore.

This week one of mom's friends spoke to me for a minute about a conversation she had with Susan. It was a story about how my mom expressed a little, well, angst, over the fact that she lived in a world of doers. Everyone always had to be doing something. I think it kind of drove her crazy, frankly. And in the midst of a world of doers, here is Susan. She was not a doer, she was, if you will, a be-er. She belonged. She watched. She observed. She listened. But she would never describe herself as a doer.

That isn't to say she was lazy. Far from it. A daughter and sister for fifty-seven years, a wife of thirty-seven years, mother of four, confidant and friend to people all over the country it seems. I wouldn't even know where to begin in talking about her interests, be it home schooling, her family, photography, homeopathy, healing, and other interests that each person here may have there own memory and perspective on. What she did was not so easy to nail down and put into nice and cute categories. She simply was here. She is Susan. I don't know quite how else to describe it. Perhaps a part of what was hard for the rest of us is that her illness over the years made it so that she looked like there was a lot more being than there was doing. And in a word of doers, that can be hard to handle.

But she was and is not just Susan. She has another name, another identity that shapes who she is. She was baptized. Or even better, she is baptized. In our Gospel text Jesus comes to John the Baptist to be baptized. John I think must have been a doer. He doesn't get it. He says, in effect, to Jesus: Look, cousin. I'm the sinner here. I'm the one who needs my sins forgiven. I should be baptized by you. You shouldn't be baptized by me. Jesus then let's John in on a little secret that brings the whole thing together. Jesus says, in effect: Let it happen this way now. For it is necessary for us to fulfill all righteousness. It is as if by baptizing Jesus, John brings all of us into the story. We all go into the water with our Lord, and we all participate in His death and resurrection. We all rest in His Word and Work, and receive it in Holy Baptism. That is Susan's identity. That is where she rests even now, in the bosom of God Himself, in the sure confidence of the resurrection of the dead. God forgave her sins for Christ's sake. There is nothing left to be done at all.

Yet it is in the midst of sorrow and suffering, especially death, that we are all tempted to ask questions. Questions about when, how, what, where, and perhaps more than any other, we want to ask why. Why did this happen? Why have I buried my second child or sister in seven months? Why am I alone to care for and raise four children? Why won't I have a mother here when I graduate from high school, college, or when I get married? Why, why, why, why, why? And along with these questions, borne from our own sorrow and grief, there is the underlying question to God of why. Why did you take her now, Lord?

God hears your questions. He knows them, just as He knows your hurts and sorrows, better than you know them yourself. He knows. It reminds one of the tender picture of Jesus weeping at the tomb of His friend, Lazarus. God knows your sorrow. And He answers. He does not answer with a why or how-come, though. He answers not with a why but with a who. Jesus Christ, the one into whom Susan was baptized, is the answer to your questions.

When Jesus is the answer to these questions of sorrow, hurt, fear and anger that we feel, there is a different kind of hope. There is a hope for the future. There is a hope that because Susan is in Christ, she will rise from the dead. Her death is not the end of her life, even though it may appear thus for a time. We heard Job confess it a little earlier: and though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God. Or as Jesus Himself said:

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. (John 10: 27-29

She now is in a place where there is no pressure of time or schedules, doctors and pills, doings and places. There are no more midnight trips to the emergency room, no more waiting for those few brief hours a day of energy to come out. She now rests in the eternal mansions of heaven. No trial. No pressure. No schedule. Just the eternal day of our Lord's great light. And she joins the heavenly host and all the saints who died in Christ and have gone before. Who knows who she may see as she wanders in our Lord's house? Nana and Ardis. Wilbur & Bill. Nadia and Bruce even? It is in the Lord's hands, but those sound like some pretty happy reunions to me. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? It should. Perhaps our hymn puts it best:

O Savior, child of Mary,

Who felt all human woe;

O Savior, king of glory,

Who triumphed o'er our Foe,

Bring us at length, we pray,

To the bright courts of heaven

And into endless day (LW 67:5).

Until we all join together with her in our Lord's light, we weep. But we weep with hope, for Susan lies in Christ. And in Christ Jesus, there is always hope.

Believe it for the sake of Him who died and rose again, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.