Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message on Thursday, September 25, 2025, during the funeral service for Jean E. Hagen. Martin Funeral Home recorded a full video of the service.
Psalm 90 is an intriguing poem. Its Old Testament verses open with lyric thought and fond reflection on home, sweet home: How, for time immemorial, God has provided God’s people a dwelling place.
“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations,” the psalmist begins. “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (v. 1-2 NRSV)
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Psalm 90’s tone shifts to quite-fearsome consideration of Creation’s brokenness. You nearly sense the psalmist quaking in his boots at the bracing thought of God readily able to see every sin we commit, spy every trespass we make, and note every debt we incur. The psalmist continues –
“You turn us back to dust, and say, ‘Turn back, you mortals.’ For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.
“For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance. For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh. The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.
“Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.” (v. 3-11 NRSV)
However sobering and humbling as is the inescapable notice of an angry, disappointed God, the bold thread that weaves together Psalm 90 is the fleeting nature of earthly existence. Life flies by in the blink of an eye. Whether the consequences of sin sweep us away, or whether you and I just get flat-out blown apart by the gale-force winds of another’s storm – either or both, or any other way: The years allotted to us – the days that God formed for you and me before any of us were even born – come and go with breathtaking speed.
In Psalm 90 the poet observes that sooner or later everyone dies. And it usually feels sooner rather than later to most people – even if by grace one manages to live to what most would consider a ripe-old age measured in triple digits. With cruel sensation, the years tend to speed up the older one gets. And so, in wisdom, you recognize this and wonder, “Given the rather short nature of my earthly existence, how ought I behave? How would Father, Son, and Spirit have me live, move, and breathe? What should I count as very important, and what should I count as very unimportant?” Returning to the psalm –
“So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. Turn, O LORD! How long? Have compassion on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.” (v. 12-16 NRSV)
Hopefully, in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, we discover that serving God must be our highest priority and mightiest calling. In letter and spirit of what Jesus calls the first and greatest of holy commandment, loving God with everything we’ve got, then loving likewise friend, neighbor, and stranger; forgiving as we have been forgiven of sin, debt, and trespass; abiding together in the dwelling place of the eternal Lord God Almighty. Thus the foreboding dead ends in the long run of cosmic history are these: only living for short-term personal gain, and forever trying to nudge and cajole life’s moral boundaries into more personally convenient places.
In the final stanzas of Psalm 90, the poet near-begs the Lord to be good and kind to his people. The psalmist wants to wake up each morning basking in the goodness and blessing of God that by grace alone bring to earthly life: Healthy measures of satisfaction, and happiness, and peace. With God’s blessing resting upon us, we can sing; we can have joy. Even as tears well up the eyes and flow down the cheeks.
Yes, life is short and all-too-soon comes to an end, but in the meantime, better to be serving God and God’s people, singing to God with God’s people, and experiencing the shalom of God’s love and God’s community, rather than sitting alone and forlorn in the helplessness of grief’s fear and loathing. Which is why Psalm 90 famously concludes with a prayer to God to establish our flourishing:
“Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands – O prosper the work of our hands!” (v. 17 NRSV)
It ought to go without saying that we cannot ask God to firm up and make fruitful our hands if their work is motivated by sheer selfishness, or if that work builds one up at the expense of another’s downfall. God will not establish as something of lasting value that which is short-sighted or ruinous for others of God’s creation and image. When you set God as the standard for the value of your work – and if you expect God to “establish” it in some approving way, then that cuts off a whole lot of the ways too many people choose to live their lives.
So, we continue to pray with the psalmist: “Let the beauty of the Lord be upon us. Establish and prosper the work of our hands. Yes, bless our hands for holy work.”
In the hours before the end of Jean’s earthly journey, her granddaughter Sarah posted this lovely photograph to social media. The honest poignancy of Sarah’s accompanying text further swelled a growing lump in the throat: “Getting her ready to go home.” From both image and text rise a testimony to the moment, and to all the many other moments that came before; testimony to all the sweet memories tenderly swaddled in those moments.
Spend a few moments with the wedding band still wrapping the ring finger of Jean’s left hand, its circle confirming that love knows no ending – as much for her beloved Walter as it does for cherished children and grandchildren. Like a circle, love has no defined beginning or ending. Love always has abided, and love always will abide. Love forever and always abiding. So thanks be to God for establishing and prospering the love of family in its many expressions. Perhaps Jean so loved her jewelry, because Jean so loved each and every one of us.
Zoom out now to wider view: the vivid, fuzzy warmth of fleece, the blue-spotted bed jacket, those fingernails polished pretty in pink. Ah, yes, Jean never left with house without being properly outfitted, coiffed, and accessorized – reflections of beauty within and without. So thanks be to God for prospering Jean’s gifts of beauty: her polite ways, her grateful heart, her endless hospitality. O yes, Lord, establish now and forever polish the lively work of our colorful hands.
Finally, now, ponder the grand panorama of hands that have done so much to glory of God: Hands trained in classic piano. Hands that held a tennis racket on the championship court; hands that held hot, grand-slam cards at the bridge table. Hands that wrote an award-winning essay and later clung to the deck rail of an ocean steamship bound for Europe. Hands that did farm chores, hands that fed farm family and hired hand. Hands that kneaded dough for bread to be broken; hands that rolled and dropped dough for after-school and Christmastime cookies. Hands that tailormade clothing for growing littles, hand-in-hand leading them to church on Sundays in praise and honor of the Lord’s Sabbath day.
Let the beauty of the Lord be upon us.
Establish and prosper the work of our hands for holy work.
Take my hands, and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love.
Ever, only, all for Thee.
Our work here on earth – in whatever form, by whatever means – never disappears like a transient bubble that in a heartbeat pops into non-existence. No, if God can somehow establish our work – if what we do bears the stamp of God’s approval and blessing, then indeed the work of your hands really does matter after all. And it endures, plenty of sizzle to accompany flame: Surely surviving no less than in the heart and memory of Almighty God, no matter what happens to the works of our hands in this life. Indeed so also enduring and surviving in the hearts and memories of the saints gathered here in this moment, in hands well trained in holding fast to a legacy of prosperous, holy work.
Psalm 90 seeks not our sadness and distress at the prospect of the relative brevity of our earthly moment. It seeks the teaching of wisdom and prudence. And if by the Holy Spirit we manage to attain to these, then our lives – whether long or short – will glorify God and, just so, enrich the world. And as an added bonus, we likely might experience our own lives more fully filled with that sense of shalom that surpasses all understanding.
Lord, you are our dwelling place! May it be so. Amen, and amen!