As you probably know, I didn’t know Elisabeth Rosa Miller personally, and so my remarks here are somewhat limited, but at the same time after getting to speak with Warren, Mike and Hugh during their difficult loss, I feel like I know something of her warmth and greatness, and of her devotion to her family.
It is often the occasion of great loss that causes us to see how much we have to be thankful for, and Elisabeth’s wonderful life is no exception. Her long life of 89 years, her story, includes many twists and turns, many exciting moments where the fate of this family hung in the balance. The misdiagnosis of her appendicitis as a child, and her lone survival of a train attacked by planes in wartime Germany because she stayed hidden beneath a wooden bench protecting a valued painting (and people think art isn’t practical!) are wonderful examples. Had she not been in Hardheim, Germany when the American armored column arrived, and had she not been available and chosen to translate between the American officers and town magistrates, she might never have met Warren nor mothered her three children.
When we consider a life, a story, like Elisabeth’s, the number of things to be thankful for are obvious and overwhelming. These gifts come from a giver, from a gracious God who gives life and breath and all things, and no gift is fully enjoyed as a gift if it not received with gratitude, knowing who gave it and returning thanks to him. To think otherwise is not just to deny the Giver, but is to deny the gifts as well which flies in the face of all these wonderful things. And so we thank God for Elisabeth’s long and adventurous life, her wisdom and humor, her gifts and abilities, her wonderful marriage of 63 years, her family, her three children and her loving friends, and her fortitude even as she died.
When confronted by the death of a loved one, even the death of someone else’s loved one, it is natural and normal to be taken back, to be angry and sorrowful and questioning. The issue on is not whether we are to be upset and sorrowful, but how we are to make sense of it and direct these emotions.
The Christian faith, as revealed from Genesis to Revelation, has always understood death as an enemy, but not as a finally victorious enemy. The apostle Paul writes “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned . . . Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come” (Rom. 5:12-14). Death is not a good part of life like life, birth, food and drink, love, marriage and sunshine, but was introduced by our first parents who chose it, a choice that has been imitated by every son of Adam and daughter of Eve since. God offers us life, but in sinning against him, we all choose death. Not his will, but ours be done, and we are free creatures to do so.
But our rebellion against the gifts of God, our refusal to love him and our neighbor, didn’t keep him from continuing to give, and almost unthinkably, to enter our story and give Himself. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:3-6).
The incarnation, celebrated soon on Christmas day, recalls the fact that God is not a deistic god, a creator far away who made the world, set it up to run, but lives in isolation away from it. The incarnation means that God is near, and he doesn’t just sympathize with our experience, but he came into this world to suffer just as we have, and he took death, the curse of our race, upon himself that he might defeat it forever. This is what Jesus did when he lived a life without sin, died in the place of all who trust in him, and rose from the dead. This is what turned his disciples from being disappointed cowards who fled at Christ’s execution into bold witnesses of his resurrection who willingly faced their own deaths rather than deny their faith. This is why all Christians today, with all their faults and disagreements, are agreed on the divinity, humanity, death and resurrection of Jesus, billions of people confessing not their religious worthiness, but their unworthiness and sinfulness before a God who grants full forgiveness and gives his own righteousness, having suffered the wages of sin on our behalf.
Elisabeth had spiritual experiences including a near brush with death in 1952 where she saw her parents on the other side and heard them tell her that her time was not yet, that she was to remain and take care of her children. She knew this calling upon her life. She also bore the name of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit by baptism, and although hypocrisy in the church distanced her from it, we should not let another’s sins cloud the witness of Christ nor dull the comfort he offers us. Salvation is not by church-going, but by faith, and faith is the gift of God, faith in Jesus who rose from the dead. God is merciful and compassionate. As Abraham said, full of faith, regarding his cherished family, “Will not the judge of the earth do right?” Just as every good gift comes from God, so does the gift of comfort and peace that passes understanding. Just as we give God thanks for Elisabeth, her wonderful life and her blessing to us, we should trust him as offers himself to us in Christ, the forgiveness of sins and the peace and comfort that comes with it.
The resurrection is not a fairy tale to make us feel better about harsh realities better left unexamined. Paul honestly says “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” Death is not the final reality of this world. Rather life is. Spring follows winter, death is swallowed up by life, and this means that by faith we have much to hope for, and a joy that lies beneath every sorrow.