Leon Ligtenberg
Notes
Transcript
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself.
Scripture 2 Timothy 2:8-13
Leon Ligtenberg Funeral Message
Brothers and sisters, Leon was a jack-of-all-trades it seems to me. Earlier in his life, if there was a job to be done, he was willing to do it. If he had to get his hands dirty, he was there. If something needed to be built, he was a man you could trust. As we remember his life, we also know that his love to work with materials was not just his job, but also a hobby. Working with wood brought him joy as well as being outdoors in God’s great creation—traits that it appears have been passed down to his children. Later in life, he became sick; his body did not function as healthy as it once had. He became acquainted with suffering, with pain, with not being able to do all of those things that he once enjoyed.
It is fitting as we spend time today and in the days and months to come celebrating his life as well as mourning his passing that we consider the whole of Leon’s life. The good times as well as the bad, the times that you as his children and loved ones remember fondly as well as the not so fond, even hard times that you have had over the years. Our lives include many great blessings from God, but he also sustains us through many sufferings.
Our passage here in 2 Timothy is written by the apostle Paul, another man who knew a thing or two about suffering. The suffering that he endured came as a result of his life’s work—as one who spread the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. For that he was persecuted, he was beaten and imprisoned, “chained like a criminal.” Despite all his suffering, Paul knew where his hope lied; he knew what truly mattered in life. He could lose everything as long as he had Jesus.
Paul was able to live that way because he knew that in health as well as in suffering, life does not end with what happens to us or our bodies here on earth. We might ask, “How was he so convinced?” I was told over the weekend that Leon liked things simple and straight-forward. I think Paul tended to be of the same mind. In the trustworthy saying in verses 11 through 13 we find one of the simplest summaries of how Paul could be so hopeful in his life and in his suffering. “If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.” What does each of those truths mean?
“If we died with him, we will also live with him.” Many years ago, Leon was baptized in this church. In our tradition, baptism symbolizes that just as water washes over our bodies to get rid of any dirt so too does Jesus Christ’s blood that he shed when he died on the cross wash away all of our sins if we believe in him. We tend to sprinkle water over those who are baptized whether as infants or adults, but many Christians are dunked or immersed into water. That image of going down—is tied to dying and being buried with Christ in the death that he experienced, but then you come out of the water, and just as Christ rose and lived on—so to we are made new to live with Christ. When we believe in Jesus, he put our sin to death, and we have the opportunity to live with him in this life as well as the life that is ahead of us.
“If we endure, we will also reign with him.” Paul traveled around spreading the gospel, and when he came to places that did not want to hear it, he was chained up. For some of us, maybe we are called to be missionaries like him, but others like Leon had a different calling. His life’s work included the Guard, his business and labor in Wagner, he was called to his family and to the fellowship he found at the Good Samaritan Center. In all areas of life, he was called to endure, to keep on believing in Jesus Christ. We trust today that he did! In enduring, we can be sure not just that Leon lives with God now, but his suffering is done and he reigns with God.
“If we disown him, he will disown us; if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.” Brothers and sisters, this is the decision for those of us who live on in this life. God created us, but we as humans fell into sin; we put our wants and desires ahead of what God desired. But he did not leave us without a Savior. There is nothing we can do to earn salvation, to earn eternal life; all that we can and all that we must do is to receive the gift of grace that comes in believing and trusting in Jesus. If we disown him, we have no hope—no hope for understanding our days here on earth, but also no hope for the life to come. But if we acknowledge who God is and what God is able to do, if we give ourselves to him, even when we worry that we don’t get it—even when we do not always live as we should, he remains faithful.
What great comfort God’s faithfulness is for all who believe! God offers his people, those whom he has created and who he loves, great promises as well as great punishments. As Leon was raised in the church as a number of us have been, we come to put our faith not in ourselves or our labor or the things of the earth—all which might be very good, but we put, we profess our faith in Jesus Christ. God does not forget when we declare that we want his mercy and we desire to serve him. Whether it is in traveling around as a missionary like Paul or speaking up in front of a congregation, whether it is telling the good news that we find in God’s word around the dinner table or sharing our faith with our co-workers—the Word of God is never chained, and we have the wonderful opportunity to share that gospel that we treasure.
As we live on with the memory of Leon, a father, a brother, a grandpa, an uncle, and a friend, may all of us also live in the certainty and in the faith that salvation is in Christ Jesus alone. He alone takes away the pain, and he gives us the greatest healing from sin that there is. If we can hold onto that, God will remain faithful for this life as well as the life that we pray our brother is living right now with his Lord and Savior. Amen.