Christ Lutheran Church: Welcome

"What Do You Want on YOUR Tombstone?" - Feb. 4, 2007

"What Do You Want on YOUR Tombstone?"

Luke 2, Philippians 2

February 4, 2007

Rev. Dave R. Garwick

Doctors get trained in medical schools, lawyers get trained in law schools, and lots of people ask me what cemetery I graduated from.  The word is "seminary" folks, not cemetery...although I do spend a lot of time in cemeteries - I guess I should say "at" cemeteries - (Come to think of it, I suppose all of us will spend most of our earthly time "in" cemeteries".  One of my favorite hobbies is reading epitaphs on tombstones.  Like one in a Georgia cemetery that simply said, "I told you I was sick!"

Of course, Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona has always got some real doozies like the 1880 tombstone for a Wells Fargo station agent named Lester Moore which reads:
Here lies Lest Moore
Four slugs from a .44
No Less No More.
One of my favorites is Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont which reads
Here lies the body of our Anna
Done to death by a banana
It wasn't the fruit that laid her low
But the skin of the thing that made her go
Imagine a loving Christian family member getting the last word on a relative in a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery:
Here lies an Atheist
All dressed up
And no place to go.
They say that one of the best things you can do to clarify your real values is to imagine what you would like to have on your tombstone.  What is the one thing that you would most want people to know about you, to remember about you?  Would it be something you most liked to do, like hunting?  Would it be about who loved you?  Would it be anything about your hope for overcoming that grave?  I like the humor but not the message of someone named Johnny Yeast whose marker in Ruidoso, New Mexico, reads:
Here lies
Johnny Yeast
Pardon me
For not rising.
So, like the pizza commercial says, "What do you want on YOUR tombstone?"  Could be an interesting question.  But consider what John Calvin wanted.  He lived back in the Middle Ages at the same time as Martin Luther.  Luther began what became the Lutheran church and John Calvin began what in this country is known as the Presbyterian church.  Here is what Calvin wanted.  He wanted to be buried in an unmarked grave.

An unmarked brave.  THAT really stops me in my tracks.  Long before he died, he knew that he was world famous.  He was a very big name.  But all he wanted was an unmarked brave, like the poorest of the poor.  For most people, a marker is important because it says, "I existed.  I was somebody.  And when you read this, I still AM somebody."  When death has reduced our presence to absolutely nothing, the marker is our last whistle in the dark to be significant in this world.

But John Calvin wanted an unmarked grave.  I sometimes feel that what makes the greatest impact on people who know us is not just how we live, but how we die...as John Calvin did with his unmarked grave.  With that act, it was his dying that lived out what the Bible said about humility in the Epistle Lesson:  "If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ...do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves."  In humility consider others better than yourselves.

Despite what people say, the gave will not be your final resting place.  Whiles you are resting up there for your last transfer, your only hope will be that you are connected to the only person who ever did rise from the dead.  And if you ARE tied to Jesus, then you are tied to humility and not to self importance.

Week after week we have been following the course of Jesus' life, from His birth, to His dedication in the Temple, to the visit of Wise Men, to His escape to Egypt, to His adventure in the Temple when He was twelve years old.  Today is the next thing we know of His life.  This is the beginning of His actual ministry, when He was thirty years old.  The Book of Mark says nothing about the birth of Jesus or of His growing up.  It says that the Gospel of Jesus Christ begins with one thing:  His baptism in the Jordan river by His second cousin, John the Baptist.

It is the Gospel of Matthew however which fills in the baptism story with one special little detail.   John is baptizing all kinds of people when Jesus comes up to him.  "But John tried to deter Him, saying, 'I need to be baptized by You, and do you come to ME?"  (Matt 3:14)  Remember, it was John's job to prepare for the arrival of Jesus.  But when Jesus DOES arrive, John is taken aback by Jesus' humility - that the Son of God would submit himself to the very same baptism as the creatures He had come to save.  How would YOU expect the Son of God to make His appearance - by lowering himself to the level of the common people?!  Absolutely not!  This should have been beneath the majesty of the Messiah of the King of the Universe!

But it wasn't.  The Son of God came in humility.  The very first thing He did to open His ministry was an act of unimaginable humility.  And when He did, He heard a voice from heaven proclaim, "This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well please."  The next time you feel that you have been slighted, the next time you feel that someone else has cut you off, the next time you feel that someone got more than you, remember whom you are tied to and remember what He said:  "A student is not above his teacher...It is enough for the student to be like his teacher..."  (Matt 10:24-25)

Humility does not come naturally to mortals, especially to the privileged who have been taught to be assertive and aggressive in order to win, to those who think that they have earned the blessings which God has given them as a gift and as a trust.  And I cannot promise you that humility is the best way to succeed in this world.  But, when practiced in faithfulness to Jesus Christ, I can promise you that it will help you succeed in eternal life.

Amen.  May it be so!