Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message at the graveside service for Vicki M. Gluck on December 12, 2023, at Oakland Cemetery in Waukon, Iowa. Reflection by Stacy Lowe informs parts the message.
When God seems far away – like when death comes calling and steals away someone we love, the candle of our hope is easily snuffed out.
It surely doesn’t help when death strikes in the midst of the holidays and early winter’s bone-chilling cold. You feel icy and isolated in tear-filled darkness. You covet the warmth of God’s love to rekindle the flame, renew your hope, and reassure your faith.
In that spirit of healing and wholeness, we now gather here on holy ground to lean on one another, to support one another, and to commit Vicki’s body to a place of rest – earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
As the story’s told, an intrepid young photographer once crawled out of bed in the pre-dawn hours, grabbed her camera, and headed to a nearby beach.
The date was January 1, and she planned to mark the occasion with a picture of the New Year sun rising over the ocean.
Her teeth chattering, her body shivering, her hands and feet quickly numbing, she waited patiently in the early morning cold for the sun to peek over the horizon. But as the minutes ticked by and the light of day began to break, all she saw was a thick blanket of soupy gray.
The sight for which she’d been waiting – the bright, colorful hues of dawn’s yellow, orange, and red – was nowhere to be found. And it quickly became painfully obvious that she wasn’t going to see the sun that morning much less make the photograph she envisioned.
Disappointment flooded her heart. She’d set January 1 as the start of a yearlong photography project, and now her idea for the perfect “Day 1” photo fell far short of plan.
Then she finally noticed something that was readily apparent: The sun still came up. She couldn’t see it, of course. Like a heavy veil, the clouds obscured its rays. But if the sun wasn’t there, tucked behind that dimming mist, she never could have seen anything else. Sunlight surrounded her, but she almost missed it – simply because the sun didn’t show up the way she wanted it to.
So also it goes it God.
It’s easy to feel God’s presence when life goes exactly as you want. You thank the Lord for his blessing and move on with the rest of your day. Problem is, that’s usually not how life goes. More often than not, plans are interrupted; schedules are rearranged, and in trying to keep up with it all, your head spins like a whirling dervish: Perhaps wondering where God is in the midst of it all, perhaps pondering what God is up to, perhaps even questioning if the Lord God is anywhere to be found in the neighborhood!
Yet none of those confusing, disappointing, often heartbreaking moments escapes God’s notice. Through it all, God remains at your side – abiding, as always, in the ways of grace and mercy. The mouth of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah thunders with such Good News:
All is well!
We are surrounded by the strong walls of your salvation, holy God!
Open the gates to all who are righteous; allow the faithful to enter.
You keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
You are a God who does what is right, and you smooth out the path ahead of your people. (Isaiah 26:1-3, 7)
Keeping your gaze fixed on God broadens one’s perspective, allowing you to see beyond the obvious. Staying focused on the Lord provides daily reminder that your purpose as well as mine is not to satisfy our own agendas but to perform faithfully our carefully orchestrated parts in heaven’s song of renewal, redemption, and resurrection.
And suddenly – when you do just that, the perfect peace of which Isaiah speaks floods your heart, and your eyes ever spy the Lord in each and every moment – even if and especially when those moments look nothing like you’d hoped or imagined.
When Vicki was born, in no way did she come into the world as her parents planned or expected.
Nonetheless, God was and still is a God of light and life, and Vicki’s was a life well lived in God’s light. To riff on an anonymous poet:
A life well lived is a precious gift
of hope and strength and grace,
From someone who has made our world a brighter, better place.
It’s filled with moments, sweet and sad;
with smiles and sometimes tears;
With friendships formed, and good times shared,
and laughter through the years.
A life well lived is a legacy of joy and pride and pleasure,
A living, lasting memory our grateful hearts will treasure
Whenever we see that the sun’s coming out.
“The sun’s coming out!” That was Vicki’s favorite phrase – perhaps singing in perfect pitch with writer of an Old Testament psalm:
O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. I try to count them – they are more than the sand; I come to the end, and I am still with you. (Selected verses of Psalm 139)
Vicki loved singing along with the music on “The Lawrence Welk Show.” So, I leave you with this unorthodox benediction, the perennial ending to each Welk episode:
Goodnight, goodnight, until we meet again,
Adios, au revoir, auf wiedersehen ’til then.
And though it’s always sweet sorrow to part,
You know you’ll always remain in my heart
Goodnight, sleep tight, and pleasant dreams to you.
Here’s a wish and a prayer that every dream comes true.
And now ’til we meet again, adios, au revoir, auf wiedersehen.
Amen, and amen!