Burial Service for Gabriel ……. Stebbins

Pine Lawn Cemetery

107th St. and West Capital

September 22, 2004

 

Welcome to all for coming to bring the curtain down on a very short life but life it was. And thanks for coming to help Daniel and Lisa through these hard days so that they can move on again into life and the future.

 

Though human wisdom fails in the face of death, the Letter to the Hebrews takes a try at finding some meaning in suffering. “The Lord disciplines those whom he loves. (12:6).  Of course any discipline is painful at the time,  but later on, in those on whom it has been used, in time it bears fruit in peace and goodness” (12:12).

 

There is a plus to suffering, says Hebrews. There is a plus in your loss, Dan and Lisa. It will make you more understanding, more compassionate. To be compassionate you first have to suffer. Then you can recognize suffering in others. Then you can suffer with their suffering. That’s what compassion is.

 

When you hear that someone’s child is very ill or has died you’ll immediately know what that means. When you hear that someone’s son or daughter has been killed in action, that’ll be much more to you than just a war statistic without a face. So your present pain isn’t all that bad; it has a plus. “In time it bears fruit in peace and goodness.”  Give it some time. 

 

 

But there is also a negative in your suffering, Daniel and Lisa. You could get stuck in it and not move on and enter again into life. Or you could get caught up in some sort of guilt about this or that. I suspect that after sorrow guilt is perhaps the next most prominent emotion that clouds all funerals. Or finally you could become paralyzed with a kind of fear about what the future has in store for you both instead of putting your future in God’s hands.

 

We, this little community before you, are here to weep with you but also to help you move on and enter into life. We are here to help calm whatever guilt might plague you. We are here to help you put away your fears about the future and to look forward with the same hope and expectation that you had on your wedding day not too long ago.

 

We are here with you, Daniel and Lisa, as you lay your Gabriel to rest on this very first day of fall, September 22, 2004, as the first fruits of the harvest.  Give thanks for this gorgeous fall day with all its light and warmth, and take it as a harbinger of good days ahead.