Two years ago, a beautiful young lady took her own life...for reasons we are still not sure. I call her name today on her birthday to remind me how much I still miss her precious face and want to share in the pain that her parents and sister still feel. I offer up as both prayer and offering the words of grief and hope that Rev. Susan Meadors spoke at her funeral.

REMEMBERING
Elisabeth Marie Mosley

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

"See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away."
And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." (Rev. 21:1-5a)

We are gathered together in this place because grief has called us here and we need to be together. We need to wrap our arms around this dear, good family and love them today and in the days ahead. We need to be together and remember Elisabeth, to mark the gift of her life and her living, and her loving. We need to honor her, and cherish her memory and in the comfort of God through Jesus Christ and with the power of the Holy Spirit offer our memories to the healing and redeeming that only Christ can do. We are walking through the deep dark shadow of death and in our fear and the trembling and troubling of our hearts, we need to worship God, God who loves us, God who loves Elisabeth still; God who created us all and will sustain us always. We are here to worship God who raised Jesus from the dead, God who makes all things new among us and within us and beyond us.

Let us pray: Lift us up, strong Son of God, that we may see further; cleanse our eyes that we may see more clearly; draw us closer to yourself that we may ourselves be nearer to the one who is now with you. Amen.

We haven’t been able to breathe well since Wednesday morning’s news. We are looking for answers, some sense of what happened and why. The sad mystery of Elisabeth’s death and the dull aching emptiness just hurts. Each of us thinks of the last time we saw Elisabeth and what we said and did. We struggle with guilt over what we said or didn’t say, what we did or didn’t do recently or long ago. We would have wished to say goodbye and to say thank you to her for the gift her life was to us. The world is all askew. This should not have happened in a world in which we trust that a loving God is present. Our grief is bound up in all these feelings and questions, the answers to which we will not find today. There is no one to blame, none to fault. No matter what is said or done today, we cannot bring her back, but we can celebrate her presence among us, that God in his mercy and goodness gave her to us. We can comfort one another with our own stories of Elisabeth. And, we can look to God who alone can make of this unbearable sorrow something new, even hope.

To begin, the words of Psalm 23 speak to the reality that in the midst of all of this, God cares with a love that never ends, no matter where we go or what we do. This is the love that surrounded Elisabeth in life, a love that surrounds her in death and in the new life to which she has been raised and it is that love that surrounds us and carries us all in our grief. The good shepherd leads her now and cares for her gently. She is safe in the arms of God who knows her so well, who knows even the number of hairs on her head. God, who has long been acquainted with all her ways, who loves the unique person that she was, and delighted in her. Her life mattered to God and her death has grieved the heart of God, but God himself has welcomed her home. You will meet her again, but I do not think it will be to get the answers to questions, for at that meeting all questions will fall away, and there will only be love, a joyous reunion in love.

In the book of common prayer, there is a prayer to be prayed at funerals that asks this of God: that He redeem our memories. In the remembering of Elisabeth, in the telling of all those good stories you have of her, God in God’s mercy makes those stories powerful and healing. Remember is love’s healing work. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians says that the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort comforts us in all our afflictions, so that we may comfort one another and that means we remember.

The first time I met Elisabeth, she and her sister Emily enthusiastically told me about their pet corn snake, Colonel Corn. I immediately knew that these were some girls who would be interesting to know. I soon witnessed the fact that Elisabeth liked bugs and snakes and frogs and dogs and all living creatures, many of who she would bring home, especially if they were wounded or needed tender care. She loved nature, and being outdoors, playing with the neighborhood children, skateboarding, and running. She ran track and cross country and loved the friends she made while doing it best of all. She was funny, too, with a hilarious sense of humor, the kind that would tease you but always in a sweet kind way, with a twinkle in her eye, or a slow smile checking to see if you got it. And she could talk, like her momma, sometimes more than her momma, a fact of which she was proud. She loved her family, was loved dearly by them and was loving toward them, affectionate and sweet. Her grandparents enjoyed her visits, for she would always give them frequent hugs and kisses. She loved her friends, too and was a dedicated and loyal friend, cheering and celebrating their accomplishments. Two years ago Elisabeth was one of the youth counselors for the 1st and 2nd graders at our Vacation Bible School. She was a favorite of the girls and the boys because she was athletic and playful and kind to them. She was also just so much fun. I can see her so clearly playing with them a game of keep-away on the playground, continuing the play inside the room and sheepishly grinning and laughing at us teachers as we tried to bring order to happy childish chaos. She was the instigator of their fun and she seemed to be having as much fun as anyone. Small wonder that so many of you expressed last night that Elisabeth was the best kind of babysitter, the first choice of your children. Just last week I saw that she was again a youth counselor, helping this time at Camp Invention at Eastside Elementary School, having fun with the children there, being playful and yet being kind and loving Elisabeth. I wonder if she knew how much she meant to those children, to all of us. In all of her kind and loving ways she bore the marks of the good Shepherd; she was a good and caring shepherd in her love of children and in her love of her friends, in all her loving.

Ken and Teresa, you taught her well. And if she could speak today, she would tell you she loves you, she would say thank you, and I think she would say, "I am so sorry Momma and Daddy, for putting you through all of this pain" And Emily, she would tell you she loves you and she would tell you to keep on being Emily, just exactly who you are. And to her friends I think she would say thank you, she loved you, and she would say, "Please don’t do this."

I remember July 1, 2001 as a good day. It was the fourth Sunday after Pentecost, the season of life, of hope where the church celebrates its birth and growth. Our church marked that particular Sunday by witnessing the baptism of Elisabeth Marie Mosley. She stepped into the baptismal waters with her pastor Big John Hendrix as we sang these words: Baptized in water, sealed by the Spirit, cleansed by the blood of Christ our King. Heirs of salvation, trusting the promise, faithfully now God’s praises we sing. Elisabeth went under the water and then John, wiping the water off her head or rubbing it in, said these words of blessing to her for all of us: Elisabeth, you are a child of this church and we are well pleased with you. Elisabeth smiled a shy sweet smile. I hold that image in blessed memory.

Finally, the pain of these days is a reminder that we live in a broken world. The world is God’s good creation and nobody loved its goodness or its beauty more than Elisabeth, but it is a broken world. Terrible things happen, and as followers of Christ’s way we affirm even with tears in our eyes that we will cling to hope, to the promise that someday, someday God will make of all of this something new. We will cling to hope, unimaginable today, that God will make of even this something new and whole and good. All things, things broken and lost to our touch, will one day be made new and fully present in their perfection. No power on earth can knit together the pieces of our hearts undone as they have been by the hard broken edges of life and by death, but the God who created heaven and earth can make those hearts altogether new. And when God makes all things new, then the earth and everything in it, even we ourselves, will be just as God has intended. That is our hope.

Elisabeth’s life and now her death have changed us, and we will never be the same again, but God will help us find a way to breathe again, to take another step, to carry on, to remember the good. God will help us remember the living, to care for one another for we are walking through a terrible tragedy and we need each other. And God will help us to remember Elisabeth, to find the way to where we can hold her in our hearts restored, beautifully whole, and at peace. "For the Lamb who is in the center of the throne will shepherd her and lead her to springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from her eyes." In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Prayer
LORD our God,
the death of our dear one Elisabeth
reminds us we are human
and our lives on earth are brief.
But for those who believe in your love
death is not the end,
Nor does it destroy the bonds
that you forge in our lives.
We share the faith of your Son’s disciples
and the hope of the children of God.
Bring the light of Christ’s resurrection
to this time of testing and pain and heartache
as we offer thanks for Elisabeth
and pray for those who love her,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.