At Home with Jesus

Jesu Juva

John 14                                                              

April 26, 2024

Jerry Schiesel Funeral          

Dear family and friends,

Dear saints of our Savior,

        Let not your hearts be troubled.  So says Jesus:  In my Father’s house are many rooms. . . . I go to prepare a place for you.

        The Bible begins with perfection.  But within a few chapters, perfection gives way to eviction.  Our first parents had the perfect place to call home.  God created a garden for them, filled with the finest flowers, fruits and vegetables—teeming with birds and wildlife of all kinds.  Adam and Eve had work to do in the garden, but this work was pure pleasure because there were no weeds, no thorns or thistles.  (Jerry would have loved it.)  They shared space in that Garden with God Himself.  It was the perfect place to call home.

        But our first parents blew it.  They got themselves evicted from the perfect home.  The Lord kicked them out.  They rebelled against God—tried to be gods in the place of God.  And with that eviction began a steep, downward descent—a fall from grace for the whole human race, including you and me.  St. Paul gives this sad summary:  Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned (Rom. 6:12).  And this is why we find ourselves here—at funerals like this one, confronted and confounded with the sad and terrible truth:  The wages of sin is death.   

        And ever since Eden, all of humankind has been on the hunt for a place to call home.  And yet every home we can find is temporary.  On planet Earth we lack a permanent place.  We are perpetual pilgrims, exiles from Eden, always on the move.  Every moving box and moving truck is a sad reminder of what we’ve lost—of the perfect home that once was ours.  There’s no place like home.

        You would be hard-pressed to do better than Jerry.  He managed to maintain the same address for nearly six decades.  He was a fixture who could be found at 517 W. Bender.  He was a pillar of the community—a member of the Glendale fire department, doing risky and dangerous work to rescue his neighbors when flames and smoke threatened.  He was the beating heart of this congregation for nearly his entire life, serving and working and contributing to our life together in countless ways.  And he was a rock for his family—a perfect match for Karen—a godly husband, father, uncle, grandfather and great-grandfather.  A fixture.  A pillar.  A rock. A beating heart.

        But even Jerry had no permanent home in this world.  He was a pilgrim just like the rest of us—an outcast from Eden.  And he knew it.  Like every son and daughter of Adam, Jerry was a poor, evicted sinner.  And every week, right here, he confessed the worst about himself—that he was a sinner whose thoughts and words and deeds often did not align with God’s plans and purposes.  By nature, we all stand before God—empty-handed, poor in spirit, with nothing to plead before God but one simple petition:  God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

        But even better, Jerry knew where forgiveness could be found.  Jerry had a Savior who loved him and gave Himself for him.  Jesus is the eternal Son of God.  Jesus had a permanent, perpetual place in heaven, a glorious throne, together with the Father and the Spirit.  But Jesus left it all behind.  He became a Paschal Pilgrim, a man on the move.  Jesus left behind the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  And Jesus dwelt among us to accomplish two things: to pay for our sins as our substitute, and to bring us home at last by the power of His resurrection from the dead.

        Jesus said, Let not your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God; believe also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

        Jesus prepared a place for Jerry in His Father’s house.  Jesus is the reason for Jerry’s heavenly homecoming.  Jesus prepared this heavenly home using some of the same, common elements that are used to construct every house on the north shore.  Jesus prepared a place for Jerry with nails and wood, with blood, sweat, and tears.  But the nails Jesus used were the nails that pierced His hands and feet.  The wood that Jesus used was the cross on which He died.  The blood, the sweat, and the tears came flowing out of Jesus because of the suffering He went through—for Jerry, for you, for the whole world.

        The only way for any of us to get home to the Father’s house—home to our permanent dwelling—is through Jesus, who died for our sin.  All that would keep us out—all that would separate us from God’s love—all that would condemn us eternally—has been answered for by Jesus.  Without the death of Jesus on the cross, there’s no room prepared for anyone but Him in the Father’s house.  But with the death of Jesus on the cross, the doors to the Father’s house have been thrown wide open for all believers. 

        Jesus wants you there.  Jesus wants Jerry there.  So in the fullness of time, God sent forth His only Son to prepare a place for Jerry and all of us in the Father’s house.  Jesus lived a perfect life in our place; and He gave that perfect life to God in exchange for our sinful lives.  On the cross, He paid the price for our every sin by suffering the death we deserve.  There God counted Jesus as the sinner, in order that He might credit you with Jesus’ perfect, righteous life, through faith.  There on the cross, Jesus opened for us a pathway home—a beautiful way of forgiveness, life, and salvation—all by grace, through faith, for Jesus’ sake.

        Jerry was a man who knew where His true and lasting home was to be found.  For He trusted that Jesus is, indeed, the way, the truth, and the life.  Shortly after Jesus said these words about Himself, He said this about Jerry and all who follow Him in faith:  If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him (Jn. 14:23).  Jesus says that for those who keep His Word and cling to Him in faith—that both He and the Father will come to him and make our home with him.  The same Jesus who prepares a place for us in the Father’s house—He doesn’t leave us to fend for ourselves during the days of our earthly pilgrimage.  Jesus makes His home with us.  What does that mean?

        It means that for 84 years God the Holy Trinity made His home with Jerry.  Beginning with that precious splash of Holy Baptism, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit made a home with Jerry.  Jerry’s Savior from sin and death wasn’t some distant deity in the sky.   He made His home with Jerry.  There was Jesus every time Jerry was absolved of his sins. There was Jesus as Jerry listened to the plans and promises of God in Holy Scripture.  There was Jesus in the bread and wine of His Holy Supper, showing His love for Jerry, cleansing him and calling him home.

        Because God made a home with Jerry, it meant that Jerry was free.  Because he knew he was headed home to be with Jesus, he could live a life on earth filled with love and service to his family, his church, and his community.  Because Jerry knew that nothing could snatch him out of his Savior’s nail scarred hands, Jerry could get busy, get to work, living a fruitful life of love and service.

        I only knew Jerry for the last twenty years, but during those decades of retirement Jerry didn’t retire.  He was here at Our Savior—not just on Sunday mornings—but sometimes daily—doing big jobs and little jobs—dirty jobs and messy jobs—jobs that nobody else had the time or inclination to take on.  If it was broken he fixed it.  And if he couldn’t quite fix it, then he would “jerry-rig it” until it worked.  Over the years he cleared snow from my driveway.  He tilled my garden; and a little later in the season would drop in some pretty produce from Pick n’ Save to make me feel better about my gardening. (It might’ve been a miracle if only he hadn’t left the stickers on the tomatoes.)  He was a true friend to man and beast.  And the beasts at my house can attest that Jerry rarely left home without milkbones in his pocket.  There isn’t time to tell of all the ways he lived out his faith.  I still expect to see his jeep parked in front of the church.  When I’m alone in the building and hear a noise, I just assume that’s Jerry.  But it isn’t.

        Because Jerry was a man who knew where he was headed.  He knew where his true home was to be found.  He walked by faith, not by sight.  He knew that these years on earth were temporary; but that he had an eternal place prepared for him in the Father’s heavenly house.  Jesus is risen from the dead, bringing victory for the evicted and a home for the homeless.  For 84 years the Lord Jesus Christ made His home with Jerry—giving Jerry faith in the midst of trials, joy in times of sadness, and peace at the last.  Very early on Sunday morning, Jerry fell asleep in faith—at home—and in an instant he awoke—at home with Jesus—in the Father’s house.

        And if you want a place in the Father’s house, like Jerry, trust in Jesus yourself.  Believe in Him.  Be part of a church that proclaims the pure promises of Jesus.  If you need help finding a church like that around here, I happen to know of one in the six thousand block of Santa Monica Blvd.  Because you need the Jesus we proclaim.  Sin is real.  It’s why we die.  But you do not need to die in sin.  You can die with Christ who took your sin away.  You can receive His full forgiveness.  You can rise with Jesus and be welcomed into the Father’s house and the life of the world to come.  What is for Jerry is for you too.  It is a gift.  It is God’s desire for one and all.  Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Jesus who has prepared a place for you in His Father’s house.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.