A Message of, and for, Hope.
More than twenty years ago my wife and I huddled together out in the bitter cold, forming a little group with my parents and in-laws, my brother and brother-in-law, and my mentor, pastor, and friend, Mike Greiner.
We’d spent days in the hospital, losing the baby. We’d spent days at home, crying together, and I’d been secretly putting things away, like the camcorder my in-laws had purchased so we could take videos of our little girl. I hadn’t been to seminary yet, hadn’t officiated any funeral or pastored a church, and I was struggling to make sense of what had happened. We were heartbroken.
Through the years I’ve met so many people who’ve lost children before birth. Love interrupted, cut short before the meeting — and so often they never took the steps to really grieve. I’ve gone back to this message myself over the years… those days in December are always hard for me… and the simplicity and honesty of these words restores my soul. I’m thankful for that young pastor who loved my wife and I and pointed us to Jesus.
From time to time I see this document on my computer, and now it feels like the time to put it out there for anyone who needs it. If you are a mom or a dad who has just lost a little one, I pray that this will be a gracious and comforting word for your soul as you take your first steps in grief. If you’re thirty years down the road and imagining if she’d laugh like your wife, or if he’d be taller than you and it just… aches… I hope you’ll imagine that this was written for you. If you are a pastor, and you’re struggling to write that first crisis funeral message — there’s not much more you need to say.
We give glory to God for His blessings, four boys later. He has been kind. And we’ll never forget the ministry of our pastor and friend in the hardest of days. Thanks Mike.
Funeral Service for Hope
Pastor Mike Greiner
Wednesday, 11 A.M.
December 23
Opening Remarks
Dear friends, we gather today in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to worship God and thank him for the life of Hope. Though we never met her, we were joyous to know she was alive. Though we longed to hold her we know that she never left the arms of Him who loves her more than life itself. And so we are here to give thanks to the Lord of Life. Let us pray.
Opening Prayer
Our loving Father, our Creator, Savior, and Friend, we look to You today, for our peace, and our hope. We have no desire for this grief, and we do not wish for sadness. Nevertheless, we refuse to stop trusting You. You are the giver of life and the giver of comfort. You are worthy of our praise. In Your greatness, you overflow with mercy and compassion. Please, Father, rain down Your compassion and comfort on us this morning. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit that we may know peace. Amen.
Scripture Reading: Job 1:13–22
While he was still speaking, [a messenger] came [to Job] and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and they died; and I alone have escaped to tell you.” Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshipped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.
Message: “A Hopeful Farewell to little Hope.”
We never saw her face. We never touched her hair. We never heard her voice. We never saw her run across the grass. We never picked her up and heard her giggle with delight, and we never saw the twinkle in her eyes as she witnessed the wonder of Christmas morning. We never held her little hand in ours. We never wiped away her tears. And yet, we loved her.
And in this brutal age, where life is misunderstood and devalued, we cry for the one we have never met, knowing that life is the most precious gift, and this loss very real. For little Hope is human. She was conceived by the will of God, made in His image. She had a soul, and a personality, and as great a value as anyone every created, for God is no respecter of persons. He loves us all the same. He knew Hope. He knitted her together inside her mother.
Some wonder what happens to babies when they die. I believe they are all in heaven. The Bible speaks of an age of accountability. Though all are born sinners, God is compassionate and patient. And no baby in the womb has mental capacity to know right from wrong. We know that everyone who enters heaven does so by the name and the blood of Jesus the Savior. We don’t always know how that salvation is applied. But we serve a God whose love for mankind is matched by no one. His treasure of loving-kindness is endless. I truly believe that Hope has gone from life to life, and today knows joy we cannot even imagine.
Perhaps it seems especially difficult that Hope would leave us in the Christmas season. For she was born with her soul already departed, with no life in her body, whereas the world is celebrating a baby who was born very much alive this Christmas. But if we look closer, we will see that little Hope’s life mirrors our experience much closer than we think.
For, we all come into this earth knowing that death is our end. We all are born sinners, spiritually dead, and destined for physical death. And, whether we die one day before being born, one day after being born, or at age 10, or 20, or 40, or when we are 80, our experience is much more like Hope’s than like Jesus’. For Jesus is eternal, existing forever before and forever after. Our time on this planet is relative. At the last moment of life in this body, it makes little difference whether we are 70 or 7 days old. We pass away and time marches relentlessly on, having no mercy on our individual absence. Our lives are like a sigh, or a flower that fades in days. In the long span of time, our years are fleeting. We are like Hope, here for an instant. But the Baby in the Manger is forever.
But, this little one’s name is Hope, not “Despair.” And she is well named. For as we can all identify with her, on the brevity of life, we also can identify with her on the loving care of our Savior. For the Babe born 2000 years ago did not come that we would not have hope and life. No. He came to bear death away. He came to oppose death. He came to remove the enemy of all flesh –death. He came to set us free from the grave. And He took death away by going there Himself. He took death away, by bearing our death on His perfect body. He expressed His sorrow at the death of our little Hope, when He lifted His head on the cross and said, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
He expressed our freedom from the grave when he hung his head from the cross and said, “It is finished.” Before dying, Jesus said to the criminal on the cross next to Him, and said, “Today, you shall be with Me in paradise.” Jesus is our Hope. He went to the grave for us. He beat it. He rose from the grave, and when He did, He made a way for life. For when one man beat the grave forever, He led the way for all to beat the grave.
And so, this Christmas, and all Christmas’s to come, when you think of little Hope, do not make her a yearly monument to sorrow. Rather, allow her to be the precious gift God meant her to be –a yearly reminder that we all are born needing the life of the Baby born in Bethlehem.
And for you who are mothers here, I do not know the pain a mother feels at a time like this. A mother’s pain is unique, because a mother’s love is so unique and wonderful. To you women I can only remind you that God knows. He is gentle, and He knows the tender heart of a Mother. He has heard the cries of mothers throughout the centuries, and He has held their hearts in His hands. So, let me say, He holds yours now. When you cry, when you wonder, know that He is close. And know that He is able to make the Son come up again. And know that He never leaves the broken hearted.
And may all of us bid farewell to our Little Hope, knowing that God has her, and that this young life was not wasted, but is kept by our loving Father.
Let’s pray.
Prayer
Lord, may our tears wash the pain from our hearts. You are the Lord of life, and we beg for your help and mercy during this difficult time. Thank you for your faithfulness to us, and to Hope. In the name of Jesus the Savior, we pray. Amen.
Committal Service
And now, let us briefly commit our dear sister’s body to the earth it came from. The Scriptures say,
5:1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, in order that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. . . . 6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord — 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight — 8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
Our heavenly Father has seen fit to give us Hope for a short time. We now commit the earthly tent of her body into the ground, knowing that it will not remain there for long, but that God’s mighty Son Jesus will quickly come to judge the living and the dead, and will at that time raise and change Hope’s body to join again her spirit which is presently with Jesus in eternal joy. At this sad occasion, we offer our praise to the Great and only God.
Prayer
Father in heaven, as we bid farewell to Hope, may we who remain in these earthly tents remember Your goodness and remain faithful to you till the end. We now commit Hope’s body back to the clay from which You formed us all, as we await the glory of Your Son’s return. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.
