+In the Name of God, wonderful Creator,
liberating Savior, empowering Spirit, Amen.
Today’s Gospel reading is the Evangelist John’s
account of what Jesus said to his disciples the
night before he was to leave them by his
crucifixion. In Chapter 13, John says “Now
before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew
that his hour had come to depart from this world
and go to the Father. Having loved his own who
were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
(John 13:1). Then after the Passover meal, Jesus
says to the disciples, “Little children, I am
with you only a little longer. You will look for
me, but where I am going, you cannot come.”
(13:33). Then his disciple Peter says to him,
“Lord, where are you going?” (13:36). Jesus says
to them again, “Where I am going, you cannot
follow me now; but you will follow
afterward” (13:36). Then we have today’s passage
from Chapter 14, which begins, “Do not let your
hearts be troubled. . .if I go and prepare a
place for you, I will come again and will take
you to myself, so that where I am, there you may
be also” (14:1-3, passim).
In the Christian tradition, we believe that
Jesus is the Christ and that he has indeed gone
to prepare a place for us, and today, especially
for Bill. Jesus the Christ who, in another
passage in John, promised his friend Martha that
her brother Lazarus would live eternally in
God’s presence because Jesus himself was the
Resurrection and the Life, is the same God who
said to his disciples in their own grief at
losing him from them at such a young age, “And
remember, I am with you always to the end of the
age” (recorded in Matthew 28:20). Jesus promised
to go with us on this journey of life and to be
with us through all the suffering and grief and
sorrow we experience as well as through all the
joy of our lives. We pray to God that all those
whom we love but see no longer, will live
forever, praising God in the life to come.
I believe in the power of the Resurrection. I
believe in it with every fiber of my being. I
believe that God has prepared a place for each
of us in that place where there is no death or
sorrow or sighing, no pain or illness, but life
everlasting. I believe that we will sing and
praise God always. If we believe in the power of
the Resurrection and give our lives to the God
of love and joy, we, too, in our time will be
reunited with all those we love, and this day,
especially our brother Bill.
C. S. Lewis, the English philosopher and
theologian, better known recently as the author
of the Chronicles of Narnia, of recent
movie fame, wrote a novella in his early years,
about heaven and hell. In Lewis’s 1946 story,
The Great Divorce, he and others board a bus
for both heaven and hell. Lewis imagines a group
of people arriving in heaven on a bus. He says
this in the opening words of the story: “It was
a wonderful vehicle, blazing in golden light,
heraldically coloured. The Driver himself seemed
full of light and he used only one hand to drive
with.”1
Lewis says the journey to heaven is a joyous
ride and Lewis insisted that the Christian life
is one of joyful faith. As Aslan, in Narnia,
Lewis roared out, if you will, his belief with
powerful intellectual writing as a classic
Christian apologist. The other night when Bill
died, I talked about his going on that last
great sailing adventure, instead of a bus ride,
the great sailboat guided by the ultimate
Captain of his ship, the one who guides his
sailboat to heaven. I said that God would guide
him to smooth sailing and that even though he
felt his ship to be “in irons” that soon he
would find a great wind at his back and smooth
sailing. I was with him in that final hour,
holding his hand as he left on that final
sailing adventure to the life beyond.
I loved Bill Ross as I love Nan. I remember when
they fell in love. Nan was like a schoolgirl in
love for the first time. They were so
happy. When I was doing their pre-marital
counseling and they told me of the freighter
cruise to Tahiti for 55 days, I said that living
aboard ship with a few people in those small
berths was enough pre-marital counseling and
that if they survived that trip, they would
survive marriage just fine. When they returned,
I asked Bill how they managed, and he said, “we
managed just fine!” Theirs was my favorite
wedding.
I am reminded of the “Navy Hymn,” “Eternal
Father, strong to save,” which we will sing in a
few minutes. The words were written in the
latter 19th
century. Nineteenth century hymnbooks usually
had an entire collection of hymns echoing
prayers for God’s protection of travelers,
especially for sailors. Hymns for Christian
Melody, for example, was published in 1832
and contains 24 hymns under the section:
“Mariners.” An 1857 Baptist hymnal published in
New England devotes 18 hymns to sailors. The
most famous mariners’ hymn, “Eternal Father,
Strong to Save,” was written in 1869 by William
Whiting and has been associated with the Naval
Academy. It was FDR’s favorite hymn. It was sung
at his funeral and it was played in 1963 when
JFK’s casket was carried into the US Capitol.
The deeply moving melody was composed by John B.
Dykes and named Melita after the island
where St. Paul was said to have been shipwrecked
on his journey to Rome. How fitting, in our
singing this hymn today that the author of the
text was Master of an Anglican school for
musicians, and he reportedly wrote this hymn as
a prayer for a friend who was preparing to sail
to America.
And so this day, we pray that the eternal God of
land and sea will protect Bill on his last
journey and will protect us on land and sea and
in the air in this life and in the life to come.
We have no idea what the life to come is like,
but we have the words of Scripture that assure
us of God’s presence in our lives always. Psalm
139 says, in verses we did not read, that
God has searched us out and known us and that
God has traced our journeys and our
resting-places and God is acquainted with all
our ways (Ps 139:1-2, paraphrased). In verses we
did read, God promises to be always with
us no matter where we go, in this life and in
the life to come, even if we dwell in the
uttermost parts of the sea. Psalm 139 ends with
these words, “and lead me in the way that is
everlasting” (Ps. 139:23b).
I loved sailing with Bill; it was always a great
adventure, even for a day on the Chesapeake. And
if he thought you were really a sailor, he’d let
you crew. No matter how many times he had sailed
those waters, it was as if a young boy were
going sailing for the first time, when you were
with Bill. I love to sail although I’ve hardly
been sailing since I moved from the great
Narragansett Bay to Washington, but I love the
sense of adventure and peace from sailing, like
Bill did. Bill was my favorite sailor and I
loved being with him and Nan on the Bay, even in
the time of the pilot house trawler.
Bill Ross was a Renaissance man, one who loved
great art and classical music and great books
and adventure and traveling and sailing. He
loved Nan and his family and his work; he cared
deeply about justice and peace. He, like my own
father, was a gentle man, a loving man, a
wonderful husband and father and grandfather. I
admired Bill greatly and I loved being with him,
even in his last hour. Bill was “patient and
brave and true,” as the wonderful children’s
hymn, “I sing a song of the saints of God,”
says. That great English hymn written in the
early 20th
century, says there are historic saints of God,
who were “patient and brave and true, who toiled
and fought and lived and died for the Lord they
loved and knew.” Then the last stanza says,
“there are hundreds of thousands of saints still
and the world is bright with these joyous saints
who love to do Jesus’ will.” The hymn says, “you
can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,
for the saints of God are just folk like me, and
I mean to be one too.” (Hymn 293, “I sing a song
of the saints of God” in The Hymnal 1982). Bill
was one of those saints in our lives and we
thank God for giving him to us, his family and
friends, to be our companion on life’s way.
I believe that Bill has sailed into a new harbor
this day and that God has welcomed him home, to
a new port, a new mooring, a new life of love
and joy and peace, a life with those who have
gone before him into that place that Jesus has
promised for those who believe. Bill’s death was
incredibly peaceful as he bravely awaited that
final sailing adventure. As I held his hand, I
said, “Don’t be afraid, Bill,” and he said, “I’m
not afraid.” And then he journeyed on to that
new life, that place the dinghies can’t reach,
but the great sailboats can.
Whatever the particulars of each of our own
journeys of coming to believe in the power of
eternal life, we know we have a home in the life
to come where we are not a stranger or a guest,
but like a child at home. The opening anthem of
our service, the reading from the prophet Job
(19:23-27), and that great soprano aria I used
to sing from Handel’s Messiah have these
words, “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives
and that at the last he will stand upon the
earth. I myself shall see, and my eyes behold
him, who is my friend, and not a stranger.” The
risen Christ comes to meet us as we make our
way, even haltingly towards him. Every service
of death and resurrection is just that, death,
but also resurrection. Bill had a peaceful
death, and he was ready to go to that place
where there is no heart disease, weariness or
pain, but smooth sailing forever.
May God go with Bill into God’s reign of love
and peace and joy and may God go with us into
the faith the next step requires: the step that
says that God has created each of us in God’s
image and has given us a heart to long for God
and to be restless until we find our rest in God
in the life to come. We commend our dear brother
to God and we mourn his departure from
us. Because of our unfailing belief in the power
of the Resurrection, even at the grave, the
Prayer Book says, we make our song, “Alleluia,
alleluia, alleluia.”
2 Amen.
1 C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce,
London: G. Bles, 1946, p. 3
2 The Book of Common Prayer,
1979, p. 499
