Job 19:21-27; Ps 121; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; St Luke 2:25-32
In the Name + JESUS. Amen.
He told me to call him Dutch. We stood outside the conference room next to the church office. He was singing with the choir. It was thirty minutes before my ordination and installation. I remember he shook my hand. His strong hands dwarfing mine. I felt like a child. I was a child! He told me to call him Dutch. “Well,” I said, “I guess you can call me Pastor Mierow.” He still held my hand as he looked me over. “So, you’re my Pastor,” he said. “And for that, I love you.” Ugh. “Who am I that I should go to St Peter’s and give God’s Word to this man?” I felt like Moses at the burning bush. I was wholly unequal to the task.
He was 87 years young. I was less than a third his age! He had grandkids older than me. He probably had ties older than me. Here he stood, the wisdom of age, the honor of service, dignified and kind, just meeting his new pastor. “And for that, I love you.” He didn’t know me from Adam!
But he did know what he inherited from Adam. Dutch knew his sin. The wages he deserved. For his graduation from General Motors Institute he received honors. For his sacrifice and service in the war, he received gratitude. For his engineering feats at Allison, accolades and a modicum of fame. For his years with the Liederkranz, respect. For his decades of sacrificial love and Christian charity at St Peter’s, immense thanksgiving.
But to Dutch this all piled up to nothing. Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ, he confessed along with St Paul. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing work of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord (Ph 3:7-8).
Dutch knew the wages of his sin meant death. He confessed as much for 73 years here at St Peter’s! For all his accomplishments, all his valor, all his manly sacrifice and service, Dutch knew that before our Lord God, His almighty Father, he was a poor, miserable sinner who justly deserved His temporal and eternal punishment. He knew this. He confessed it. Do you?
Do know that the Word of God teaches that we are all conceived and born sinful and are under the power of the devil until Christ claims us as His own? We would be lost forever unless delivered from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation. Dutch’s parents knew this. Thus did they bring him to the font at Trinity Lutheran Church on March 5, 1921 to be born again, begotten from above by water and the Word in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Pastor Rees baptized him. And for that, Dutch loved him. Then he placed him back into the arms of Norton and Laura to raise in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Eph 6:4).
For his parents, for all the faithful pastors from that man until know we give thanks. They baptized him. They catechized him. They proclaimed our Lord’s death and resurrection for him. Put His Body broken for Dutch into his hands. Poured Christ’s Blood, shed for him over his lips. They absolved him in the stead and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. And for that, he loved them. He loved them because they gave Him the pure Word of Jesus. The Word which endures forever. The Word which marks the body and soul of our dear brother, therefore he shall endure forever. Dutch confesses with Job, and as you just sang, Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!
A few months ago when I visited Dutch at Rosegate he was sleeping. I put my hand on his chest, and said, "Herr Heintzelman, wake up." He opened his bright blue eyes, smiled and asked, "Pastor, is it the resurrection?" No, not yet, my friend.
But for this reason do we loving cover his body today with the funeral pall, representing the robe of Christ’s righteousness that covered all his sin and joyfully sing, “God’s own child, I gladly say it, I am baptized into Christ.” Dutch is baptized into Christ Jesus, baptized into His death and resurrection. He is united with Christ in a death like His, certainly he shall be united with Him in a resurrection like His.
Our brother’s baptism is now complete. “Death, you cannot end my gladness.” The Word of the Lord, the words of our Psalm, spoken today at his funeral as we come in go out for the final time with his earthly body, were spoken at Dutch’s baptism as he was first carried in: The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
As a commissioned officer in World War II our dear brother in Christ carried a hand written copy of that psalm, Psalm 121, in his cap. Though he never saw combat, Dutch prayed the words of the psalm often. For his friends and fellow countrymen, for his wife, Jean, waiting at home, for himself. Don and I marveled at Dutch’s recitation of several psalms. Begin the first verse and he’d recite the rest from memory. Blessed is the man . . .
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me . . .
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered . . .
Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me.
He could recite them all. Mostly in English. Sometimes auf Deutsch. But Psalm 121 was his psalm. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
At wartime or peace, on the factory floor or at home, with good friends or around the table with his dear family, while examining the many catechumens over the years or praying with his beloved bride before her death, Dutch, by our Lord’s grace and mercy, through the work of the Spirit in the Word, in faith and hope lifted up his eyes to the hill of Golgotha, to the Place of the Skull, to that Hill of Salvation.
He knew that is where his true Help came from. From the Lord who made heaven and earth. From the Word through Whom all things were made, without Whom nothing was made that is made. From the Word who became flesh, who endured in his flesh Satan’s war and tyranny, who bore in His own strong hands the sting of Dutch’s sin and sin of the whole world, Who, in perfect love and obedience, offered up that frail flesh upon Calvary’s sacred Tree, shedding His precious blood for Dutch. And for all!
There a real Man, the GodMan, received the wages due Dutch’s sin, the world’s sin. For His compassion, Christ received ridicule. For His love, mockery. For His teaching, taunting and jeering. For His humility, shame. But He did it all, received it all, in His body on the Tree, for Dutch. It is fitting that today is Holy Cross Day. Its why we have the reds on the altar. Today the Church remembers with awe and reverence the glory of our Lord’s beautiful crucifixion. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For all his honors and accolades, awards and accomplishments, Dutch knew true wisdom. The Word of the Cross. The preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is why he loved his faithful pastors. Why he loved this place. For him, as for Jacob, it was the gate of heaven.
He was our very own Simeon here at St Peter’s. He was righteous and devout, joyfully awaiting the Word of the Lord read and preached, and the Holy Spirit, who called him by the Gospel, and enlightened him with His gifts, kept Dutch together with the whole Christian Church on earth, with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church our brother daily and richly received the forgiveness of all his sins.
He received the Lord’s Christ here, at this Altar, His true Body and Blood in and under the bread and wine, given and shed for him to eat and to drink for the full and free forgiveness of all his sins. This is why he loved his pastors. And so he sang countless times with Simeon, Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel. Simeon was prepared to die. Dutch confessed the same thing every time he came back from the Lord’s Supper.
After Jean was gathered to our Lord, Dutch was different. My German is useless, but in Spanish there is a phrase, “Mi media naranja.” “My half orange.” It’s kind of like our “my better half.” But I like the half orange image. Cut an orange in half and the part left out starts to shrivel up. It’s not whole. Dutch wasn’t whole anymore. He said he was an old man. His better half, his woman, his love had departed in peace. He told me to call him Quinton. That was fine. He will always be my friend Dutch. But as his pastor I gladly called him Quinton. It was the name his mother gave him. It is the name joined to our Lord’s most Holy Name in his Holy Baptism.
That baptismal Name and its promises of forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and eternal salvation to all who believe was remembered every Invocation and Absolution when Quinton and I had Divine Service at Rosegate. He would still read the liturgy. In fact, Pam, Don, and myself inadvertently got him to read the House Blessing when he first moved into Rosegate. That was good. It calmed him down. The Word of the Lord gave him peace. Be still and know that I am God.
When I visit the shut-ins I read the Gospel lesson to them and then preach a short sermon. Sometimes with Quinton I would announce, “This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God,” and while I paused to collect my thoughts, he would start expounding on the text. Our sermons were more like conversations. The mutual consolation of the brethren, Luther called it. We’d confess the Baptismal Creed, pray the Vater Unser, and then after I gave him the Holy Communion, before we sang Simeon’s Song, he’d receive the blood of our Lord, sigh, and say, Oh taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps 34:8). Then we’d sing to the Lord and confess, “I am now ready to die.”
Nancy, Diana, Pam, Don and Julian, beloved grandchildren, great, and great-great grandchildren, his beloved family, dear friends of Quinton, brothers and sisters in Christ from St Peter’s, the author to the Hebrews writes, But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone (Heb 2:9). Jesus Christ shares in our flesh and blood, even as Quinton is flesh and blood, so that through His suffering and death He might destroy the one who as the power of death, that is, the devil.
Behold, He is risen from the dead, freeing Quinton from eternal death. For He who drank the cup of suffering and woe, who tasted death for Quinton, has given him the cup of salvation and the joy of everlasting life. He now rests from his labors and has received the victor’s crown of gold. For the Lord kept him from all evil, He kept Quinton’s life, and has given him a blessed end, graciously taking him from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven. Here, within the communion of the Church, the place he loved, you shall find strength to meet the days ahead in the assurance of a holy and certain hope and in the joyful expectation of eternal life with Quinton, Jean, and all those who have departed in the faith.
In a few moments we shall loving place the body of Quinton - father, Opa, friend, and brother in Christ - into God’s acre. We do so in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself. Our Lord keeps his life. The good work our Lord began in Quinton on March 5, 1921 is now complete. His baptism is complete. Our Lord will keep his going out and his coming in from this time forth and even forevermore.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + JESUS. Amen.
He told me to call him Dutch. We stood outside the conference room next to the church office. He was singing with the choir. It was thirty minutes before my ordination and installation. I remember he shook my hand. His strong hands dwarfing mine. I felt like a child. I was a child! He told me to call him Dutch. “Well,” I said, “I guess you can call me Pastor Mierow.” He still held my hand as he looked me over. “So, you’re my Pastor,” he said. “And for that, I love you.” Ugh. “Who am I that I should go to St Peter’s and give God’s Word to this man?” I felt like Moses at the burning bush. I was wholly unequal to the task.
He was 87 years young. I was less than a third his age! He had grandkids older than me. He probably had ties older than me. Here he stood, the wisdom of age, the honor of service, dignified and kind, just meeting his new pastor. “And for that, I love you.” He didn’t know me from Adam!
But he did know what he inherited from Adam. Dutch knew his sin. The wages he deserved. For his graduation from General Motors Institute he received honors. For his sacrifice and service in the war, he received gratitude. For his engineering feats at Allison, accolades and a modicum of fame. For his years with the Liederkranz, respect. For his decades of sacrificial love and Christian charity at St Peter’s, immense thanksgiving.
But to Dutch this all piled up to nothing. Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ, he confessed along with St Paul. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing work of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord (Ph 3:7-8).
Dutch knew the wages of his sin meant death. He confessed as much for 73 years here at St Peter’s! For all his accomplishments, all his valor, all his manly sacrifice and service, Dutch knew that before our Lord God, His almighty Father, he was a poor, miserable sinner who justly deserved His temporal and eternal punishment. He knew this. He confessed it. Do you?
Do know that the Word of God teaches that we are all conceived and born sinful and are under the power of the devil until Christ claims us as His own? We would be lost forever unless delivered from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation. Dutch’s parents knew this. Thus did they bring him to the font at Trinity Lutheran Church on March 5, 1921 to be born again, begotten from above by water and the Word in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Pastor Rees baptized him. And for that, Dutch loved him. Then he placed him back into the arms of Norton and Laura to raise in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Eph 6:4).
For his parents, for all the faithful pastors from that man until know we give thanks. They baptized him. They catechized him. They proclaimed our Lord’s death and resurrection for him. Put His Body broken for Dutch into his hands. Poured Christ’s Blood, shed for him over his lips. They absolved him in the stead and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. And for that, he loved them. He loved them because they gave Him the pure Word of Jesus. The Word which endures forever. The Word which marks the body and soul of our dear brother, therefore he shall endure forever. Dutch confesses with Job, and as you just sang, Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!
A few months ago when I visited Dutch at Rosegate he was sleeping. I put my hand on his chest, and said, "Herr Heintzelman, wake up." He opened his bright blue eyes, smiled and asked, "Pastor, is it the resurrection?" No, not yet, my friend.
But for this reason do we loving cover his body today with the funeral pall, representing the robe of Christ’s righteousness that covered all his sin and joyfully sing, “God’s own child, I gladly say it, I am baptized into Christ.” Dutch is baptized into Christ Jesus, baptized into His death and resurrection. He is united with Christ in a death like His, certainly he shall be united with Him in a resurrection like His.
Our brother’s baptism is now complete. “Death, you cannot end my gladness.” The Word of the Lord, the words of our Psalm, spoken today at his funeral as we come in go out for the final time with his earthly body, were spoken at Dutch’s baptism as he was first carried in: The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
As a commissioned officer in World War II our dear brother in Christ carried a hand written copy of that psalm, Psalm 121, in his cap. Though he never saw combat, Dutch prayed the words of the psalm often. For his friends and fellow countrymen, for his wife, Jean, waiting at home, for himself. Don and I marveled at Dutch’s recitation of several psalms. Begin the first verse and he’d recite the rest from memory. Blessed is the man . . .
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me . . .
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered . . .
Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me.
He could recite them all. Mostly in English. Sometimes auf Deutsch. But Psalm 121 was his psalm. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
At wartime or peace, on the factory floor or at home, with good friends or around the table with his dear family, while examining the many catechumens over the years or praying with his beloved bride before her death, Dutch, by our Lord’s grace and mercy, through the work of the Spirit in the Word, in faith and hope lifted up his eyes to the hill of Golgotha, to the Place of the Skull, to that Hill of Salvation.
He knew that is where his true Help came from. From the Lord who made heaven and earth. From the Word through Whom all things were made, without Whom nothing was made that is made. From the Word who became flesh, who endured in his flesh Satan’s war and tyranny, who bore in His own strong hands the sting of Dutch’s sin and sin of the whole world, Who, in perfect love and obedience, offered up that frail flesh upon Calvary’s sacred Tree, shedding His precious blood for Dutch. And for all!
There a real Man, the GodMan, received the wages due Dutch’s sin, the world’s sin. For His compassion, Christ received ridicule. For His love, mockery. For His teaching, taunting and jeering. For His humility, shame. But He did it all, received it all, in His body on the Tree, for Dutch. It is fitting that today is Holy Cross Day. Its why we have the reds on the altar. Today the Church remembers with awe and reverence the glory of our Lord’s beautiful crucifixion. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For all his honors and accolades, awards and accomplishments, Dutch knew true wisdom. The Word of the Cross. The preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is why he loved his faithful pastors. Why he loved this place. For him, as for Jacob, it was the gate of heaven.
He was our very own Simeon here at St Peter’s. He was righteous and devout, joyfully awaiting the Word of the Lord read and preached, and the Holy Spirit, who called him by the Gospel, and enlightened him with His gifts, kept Dutch together with the whole Christian Church on earth, with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church our brother daily and richly received the forgiveness of all his sins.
He received the Lord’s Christ here, at this Altar, His true Body and Blood in and under the bread and wine, given and shed for him to eat and to drink for the full and free forgiveness of all his sins. This is why he loved his pastors. And so he sang countless times with Simeon, Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel. Simeon was prepared to die. Dutch confessed the same thing every time he came back from the Lord’s Supper.
After Jean was gathered to our Lord, Dutch was different. My German is useless, but in Spanish there is a phrase, “Mi media naranja.” “My half orange.” It’s kind of like our “my better half.” But I like the half orange image. Cut an orange in half and the part left out starts to shrivel up. It’s not whole. Dutch wasn’t whole anymore. He said he was an old man. His better half, his woman, his love had departed in peace. He told me to call him Quinton. That was fine. He will always be my friend Dutch. But as his pastor I gladly called him Quinton. It was the name his mother gave him. It is the name joined to our Lord’s most Holy Name in his Holy Baptism.
That baptismal Name and its promises of forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and eternal salvation to all who believe was remembered every Invocation and Absolution when Quinton and I had Divine Service at Rosegate. He would still read the liturgy. In fact, Pam, Don, and myself inadvertently got him to read the House Blessing when he first moved into Rosegate. That was good. It calmed him down. The Word of the Lord gave him peace. Be still and know that I am God.
When I visit the shut-ins I read the Gospel lesson to them and then preach a short sermon. Sometimes with Quinton I would announce, “This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God,” and while I paused to collect my thoughts, he would start expounding on the text. Our sermons were more like conversations. The mutual consolation of the brethren, Luther called it. We’d confess the Baptismal Creed, pray the Vater Unser, and then after I gave him the Holy Communion, before we sang Simeon’s Song, he’d receive the blood of our Lord, sigh, and say, Oh taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps 34:8). Then we’d sing to the Lord and confess, “I am now ready to die.”
Nancy, Diana, Pam, Don and Julian, beloved grandchildren, great, and great-great grandchildren, his beloved family, dear friends of Quinton, brothers and sisters in Christ from St Peter’s, the author to the Hebrews writes, But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone (Heb 2:9). Jesus Christ shares in our flesh and blood, even as Quinton is flesh and blood, so that through His suffering and death He might destroy the one who as the power of death, that is, the devil.
Behold, He is risen from the dead, freeing Quinton from eternal death. For He who drank the cup of suffering and woe, who tasted death for Quinton, has given him the cup of salvation and the joy of everlasting life. He now rests from his labors and has received the victor’s crown of gold. For the Lord kept him from all evil, He kept Quinton’s life, and has given him a blessed end, graciously taking him from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven. Here, within the communion of the Church, the place he loved, you shall find strength to meet the days ahead in the assurance of a holy and certain hope and in the joyful expectation of eternal life with Quinton, Jean, and all those who have departed in the faith.
In a few moments we shall loving place the body of Quinton - father, Opa, friend, and brother in Christ - into God’s acre. We do so in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself. Our Lord keeps his life. The good work our Lord began in Quinton on March 5, 1921 is now complete. His baptism is complete. Our Lord will keep his going out and his coming in from this time forth and even forevermore.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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