Funeral of Cheryl Dorazio
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“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John 5:24). Yesterday, many of us in this room were at the funeral home for Cheryl’s wake. It was so apparent, as it always is in a viewing, that Cheryl was not there. Her body was there, and the mortician had done a beautiful job in preparing it, but Cheryl was not there. As certainly as the word of Christ is true, she had already passed from death into life. Of this there can be no doubt.
Jesus says, “He who hears My word… has everlasting life.” Cheryl is an example to us all of one who heard the words of Jesus her entire life. As an infant she was carried to this very font and there heard the words of Jesus, “Cheryl, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Your sins are forgiven. You are now a child of God. Your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” As a child and young adult, Cheryl continued to hear the words of Jesus, learning to confess his truth back to him with her own lips, which she did on the day of her confirmation. And then Cheryl knelt at this altar and for the first time and heard these words of Jesus spoken directly to her, “Take. Eat. This is my body given for you. Take. Drink. This is my blood shed for the forgiveness of all your sins.” Ten years later, Cheryl knelt at this same altar—this time with a young man—and heard Jesus say, “I now pronounce you man and wife. What God has joined together, let not man separate.”
These are some of the more memorable times that Cheryl heard the words of Jesus. But in-between, she heard him speak on countless occasions that have been forgotten—Sunday after Sunday, week after week, year after year—until the words of our Lord had taken such deep root in her heart that believing them was as effortless as breathing. But never was her faith in the words of Jesus more on display than in her final weeks. I visited Cheryl and Tony at home right after they learned that there was likely no treatment for her cancer. Tony and I were discussing what other options there might still be, a modified course of chemo, perhaps, but Cheryl simply said to me, “I’ll see you in church on Sunday.” Perhaps she already knew what we didn’t. The only treatment she needed now was to receive one last time the medicine of immortality and to hear once more the words of Jesus. “He who hears My word… shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
It is said that a pastor’s job is to prepare his people for a blessed and faithful death. But that task had already been accomplished in Cheryl’s heart long before I became her pastor. I simply witnessed her faith in action as she rounded the final turn, entering the home stretch of her earthly race. Nothing has ever humbled me more as a pastor than to see this living faith in those I had been sent to teach: to see Cheryl unafraid to face death, to see Tony kiss his beloved wife of forty-five years goodbye as though she were going on a long journey, saying through the tears, “I will see you again.” Here I was, Cheryl’s pastor, being taught what true faith in Jesus looks like, being shown what it is to live and breathe the promise of Christ. Of all the great saints who have gone before, no marvelous work was more pleasing in the sight of God, than Cheryl’s simple yet absolute confidence in promise of Jesus. Firm in these words, which she had heard with gladness her entire life, she faced death, the last enemy, without fear, confident that her sins were forgiven, unafraid of the judgment, certain of this promise: “He who hears My word… shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
And now these words, which are still a promise to every believer on earth, have become reality for Cheryl. For her the promise has been kept. She has passed from death to life. No, she was not there at the funeral home yesterday. She is not lying in this coffin here. Her body lies here, and Christ will raise this body to new life on the Last Day, but Cheryl’s spirit is even now with her Savior. Her faith, which came from hearing the words of Jesus throughout her life, accomplished God’s gracious purpose and bore the joyous fruit of eternal life. “Most assuredly,” Jesus said to Cheryl, as he also says to you, “he who hears My word… has everlasting life.” Amen.