Funeral Homily for Stan Holme

 Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.
²⁹ He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
³¹ but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint. ~ Isaiah 40:28-31

14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. ² My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. ⁴ You know the way to the place where I am going.” ⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” ~ John 14:1-5

Stan was a man of hope. In a world of staggering problems, he lived as a believer in hope, a bearer of hope, and a builder of hope. Look at the scriptures that he picked for today – hope sings from them. And this hope is not optimism or idealism. It has nothing to do with wishful thinking or fantasy but seeks to name reality and revere truth. Hope, I believe, is what Stan would like for me to share with you today. But don’t lose hope – I also know that he would want me to be brief.

          1.    Hope walks in reality.

Unfortunately, I only knew “tired and weary” Stan. Like the passage read from Isaiah, I only knew “stumble and fall” Stan. But, Stan was a man of hope in the Lord. And though frail I sometimes caught glimpses of him soaring like an eagle, even when in pain. I watched him soar around his dinner table talking about all of you and sharing how much he loved his family. I glanced at him running in this building – in a hobbling sort of way - greeting others, asking about them, praying for them. I saw him walk a little faint as he discipled people at the Pancake House or wrote me hand-written letters about how to improve worship. And yet none of this detracted from Stan’s unflinching realism – the constant wrestling with his own body, the struggle and tension of being a physician in pain, who longed to soar in the great outdoors he loved, only to be found in a body that often stumbled, fainted, and fell. His love of Jesus and commitment to the church were offered hopefully with great pain and Stan had no trouble describing that pain to me, showing the wounds, noting the scars. As a physician, Stan knew something all too well. In the presence of a God, the most hopeful thing we can do is show Him our wounds.

I once had a friend describe Christianity and belief in God as a means for weak-minded people to hide from the tragedies of life. Maybe there are such people out there but I haven’t met many and that person certainly never met Stan. Hope as wish-fulfillment is also not how the Bible speaks. The passage from Isaiah speaks of hope for the weak, the tired, the weary, the stumbling, and the falling. Hope is a struggle. So you are on the path of hope not when you abandon reality or refuse to live in this world with all its physical and psychological pain. You are on the path of hope when you stare hardship wide-eyed in the face, mourn its pain, acknowledge the hurt, and keep on walking – if even with a limp.  Hope shines against the backdrop of pain and doubt, Isaiah shouts, when the weak place their trust in the Lord and say, “He will . . .” He will give strength, he will give power, he will win. He will, He will, He will..

Friends, the good news that I want to share with you today is that you may look at your life with an unflinching realism. You can sit there right now in your sadness and say, “This isn’t right. He shouldn’t be gone. Death is tragic and painful. I miss him so much and feel tired, and frail and weak.” You can confess all that is wrong with yourself and the world. You can reveal all the struggle and doubt that you have.

Stan, does something sneaky by the way. Did you catch it? Perhaps he’s more of a preacher than a physician. In our passage from John 14, he stopped the reading at vs. 5. Why did he do that? It’s vs. 6 that’s the final chord, the crashing ending with cymbals and horns. But he stops at vs. 5, with Thomas’ expression of doubt. Knowing that Stan planned all of this very carefully, I don’t think this is an oversight. Rather, I think this is the mind of a careful, hopeful believer who knew that even doubt can walk with hope

Isaiah is right – when we hope in the Lord we will eventually walk and not faint. I’m reminded of the fact that if something is functional or has power in English we say, “It works.” However, in French when something is functional you say, “It walks [Ça marche].” Stan’s life right to the very end reminds us that hope isn’t silly or meaningless. It’s not nostalgic nor blind. No, in the face of real struggle and hardship, “Hope walks.”

          2.    Thankfully, hope is not about you.

Of course, nothing would make Stan more furious at me than for me to stand up here and tell you that you should be like him, or that his hope rested in his own belief to handle life himself. No, Stan’s life was not hope itself but a sign of hope – pointing you to where you should look, to whom you should trust, to the One who hopes for you.

The passages from Isaiah and John acknowledges that hope comes from God and connects to God – the One who does not grow tired or weary, the One who will come and take us to be with him. Hope always has an object, always demands the preposition “in.” Our Christian hope is not in ourselves, not in church, not even in doctrine. Our hope is in the one whom Stan loved and followed – in Jesus Christ. Our hope, in other words, is a historical story, rooted in reality, of Jesus of Nazareth, who spoke of the kingdom of God, forgave sinners, healed the sick, challenged religious leaders, spoke of justice for the poor and compassion for the broken-hearted. He acted out the hope that had always been attributed to God. And the world and political powers killed him. But even the grave couldn’t keep him down. Hope, it turns out, is unkillable.

So I would like to end by offering the invitation that Stan would wish me to offer – “Hope in the Lord and believe in Jesus.” For that is what Stan has done, and that is where Stan will be and where Stan now whispers Isaiah’s words:

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.”

He will – offer you hope.

He will - help you soar.

He will – prepare for you a place.

He will – win.

He will, He will, He will. Amen.