LeRoy Gerberding

 

LeRoy Gerberding – June 10^th, 2021 – John 3:16-21 and Romans 5:1-8

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +

Mark and Jill, family and friends of our brother in Christ LeRoy, grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. For God so loved the world. This is a verse that we are familiar with, perhaps the most familiar verse in the world. And it's one that we actually misunderstand. We hear that “so” and we think of it in terms of “so much” - that God loved the world SO MUCH... and it's true that God really does love the world, but this isn't talking about so much, but the how, the how so of God's love. God loved the world – well, how so. This is how God loved the world – He gave only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. If you want to know what God's love looks like, how God shows love, the answer is Jesus dying upon the Cross, taking up our sin and sin's punishment, and Jesus rising to give us His life and His righteousness, to ensure that we rise.

LeRoy understood this. LeRoy understood that God loved him, and that even though he was a sinner and far from perfect, Christ Jesus died for LeRoy to rescue LeRoy from sin and death and Satan. And this knowledge, this grounding, this faith permeated Leroy's life, and it shaped the love that He showed. You see, God loving the world by sending Jesus to the Cross is a practical sort of love, an “it needs to be done” sort of love. Without Jesus going to the Cross, things go badly, so Jesus does what Jesus needs to do for your good, and that's just what He's going to do. And LeRoy received that love, and that love shaped LeRoy. Now, I am not going to presume to tell you all how LeRoy showed love to you, but I will mention one example of how LeRoy showed love to me and my family. Oh, how so? This way. Just a touch over six years ago I moved up here, and it's the first day in the parsonage and the moving van is here and I've got two toddlers and my wife and I are running around like chickens with our heads cut off, and the doorbell rings. And it's LeRoy. And he's got a bag of groceries. Figured we wouldn't have had time to go shopping yet and we'd need to eat, so here you go Pastor. And that was that. Simple, practical. Nothing flashy, nothing dazzling – but utterly kind and loving and thoughtful. LeRoy received God's practical loving care, and God saw often enough that we received God's loving care through LeRoy in utterly simple, quiet ways.

And there was that same simple, quietness that I'd see when LeRoy would be here with us at Church, and I know it was the same simple, quiet love he got to show to you down south when he went that way. Quiet and simple doesn't mean easy, though – and increasing frailty and age makse things harder and brings frustrations. But for a man of faith like LeRoy, that's okay. Didn't change God's love for LeRoy – For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. We are weak, but He is strong. And even though LeRoy's weakness grew, indeed grew too strong for him to bear, we shall see the strength of Christ Jesus for LeRoy, because LeRoy belongs to Jesus, and LeRoy was redeemed by Jesus, and LeRoy will rise with Jesus. And the next time we see LeRoy, we will see him risen and refined, with the same love that we have known, but its strength renewed, and the dross of sin and the hardship of frailty all gone, and man, if I'm not actually eager to see LeRoy in his full flower. We've missed him up here these past few years, but that's the thing about being in Christ. We do miss people, and there are absences and separations – just the reality of life in a fallen world. But God shows love. God shows love to rescue His fallen children and to redeem them and restore them, to overwhelm death with His Life Everlasting. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. This is what our brother LeRoy sees in full now, face to face with Jesus, and because God indeed loves the world, loves His LeRoy, loves you, we will see it face to face with Jesus and with LeRoy and with all the saints who have gone before us and who will follow after us, because God's love is utterly practical, and we shall delight in it forever, all thanks be to God in Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.