Sermon - Lorma Zinnel Funeral - Matthew 11:25-30

Agnus Dei, Jose Campeche, 1751-1809

Dear children, grandchildren, relatives and friends of Lorma, God’s peace be with you. When you’re heavy laden with grief and sorrow, listen to the comforting words of your Savior: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Christ our Lord promises you rest and peace in the midst of your sorrows, so lay your burdens on Him, and rest a while. Lorma, she is already resting. Her soul is resting with the Lord in heaven, and her body will soon be laid to rest in the grave as she awaits the day of resurrection! 

After labor comes rest, and Lorma has indeed labored as a Christian for many years. If you read her obituary you will have noticed that she was involved in so many things in the church, from the LWML to the choir to serving in Laborer for Christ where she travelled around renovating churches. Lorma and her Husband Ray even moved the family farm from West Bend to Whittemore in order for their kids to attend the Lutheran school; the faith was that important. Lorma indeed labored faithfully as a Christian.

Now, to be clear, I don’t say all of this to imply that Lorma was perfect or sinless. Because the reason Lorma was so involved and dedicated in church was because she knew that she wasn’t perfect and sinless. Each week she confessed with the whole congregation that she was like the rest of us, a poor, miserable sinner and that her hope was in the Lord who so graciously forgives her of all of her sins.

That’s why Lorma was so involved in church! It wasn’t to virtue signal her greatness, rather it’s because God’s rich mercy and grace are so great! Because her Lord has shown her His grace and mercy through the death of Jesus Christ, her faith towards God and fervent love towards one another overflowed in abundance! 

Lorma’s dedicated attendance in church was all meant to prepare her for what has just recently taken place: her death and the life to come. In recent years she was ready for death because her health had been so poor. But she’s been ready since the day she was baptized! On September 1st, 1926, she was born into God’s family and became a child of God. Because God washed her and adopted her into His family through baptism, Lorma has been saved by God and her faith has clung to God’s promise in baptism ever since.

Since Lorma was baptized, she’s been “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus endured the agony of the cross, suffered pain and death, shed His holy precious blood, so that Lorma’s sins would be forgiven her and so that in spite of death she would inherit eternal life.

Every weight and burden of Lorma’s sin was lifted from her, by Jesus, so that she could run the race that was set before her! She has now finished that race. She has run the race and she receives not just a perishable ribbon or trophy, but she receives the crown of everlasting life! All of this has been won for her through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, because God loves her as His own dear child.

The incredible thing here is that all of what I’ve said about what God has done for Lorma is true for us as well! We’re not perfect or sinless, instead we are heavily weighed down with griefs and sorrows, guilt and sin, and Christ has taken our burdens upon Himself and crucified them for us upon the tree. Christ takes away your sin and gives you eternal life! Even if you don’t realize it, and at some points you’ve even been running the wrong way, the race which Lorma ran you’re also running.

So I encourage you to look to Lorma as a good example of running the race. Like St. Paul said: “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [such as Lorma], let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” Let us look to the many blessings Lorma made use of in her life in order to help us identify how God has similarly blessed us.

One of the things Lorma wanted to be preached at her funeral, which God has used to bless her and us, was the idea that we’re to bloom where we’re planted. As Christians God has planted and established us by grafting us into Jesus. The church is the body of Christ, and this is where we Christians have been planted. So let us learn to bloom and grow where we are planted, grafted, into the body of Jesus. Let us like Lorma grow in our faith by studying the scriptures and attending church every week. Let us be regularly watered with baptism when we confess our sins and receive forgiveness, just like Lorma was watered. Let us be fed and fertilized, like Lorma was, with the food which comes from God’s own altar: Jesus’ body and blood.

In that respect, just like flowers do, we bloom when God waters us and fertilizes us. But those first flowers are just the little immature practice flowers, because there’s a great blooming yet to come. The cemetery is for Christians a planting bed, a fertile field. Very soon we will plant Lorma in the ground. Like a seed, it doesn’t look like much, it appears dead; but it’s not! Lorma is a living seed who will be planted in the ground and on the last day Lorma will rise from the ground like a flower in Spring. The seed husk of sin and death and sadness will remain in the grave. But Lorma will live and bloom for eternity, the beauty of which has never yet been known on earth, yet shall abound in the paradise where we Christians will live.

Be that as it is, while still on earth, when we bloom where we are planted, we are able to “put on the whole armor of God, that [we] may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” And when, by the grace of God, we finish our race on earth, we know that Christ will give us rest. Lorma has that rest right now because Christ has kept her safe and secure in the holy ark of the Christian church for 95 years. 

Our Lord also promises to keep you safe and secure in His church. So just as you remember Lorma this day and remember all that she accomplished in this life, most especially remember the One who has kept her and keeps her even now. Remember the Lord Jesus who shed His blood for Lorma and for you. Remember God the Father who adopted you and Lorma into His family through the waters of baptism. Remember the Holy Spirit who implants faith and peace in your hearts. Remember the Lord who gives you rest.