Many Rooms
Funeral for Pauline Wicke
September 10, 2010
(Jesus said) "In My Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" John 14:2
Here's a question for you. What has 90,000 square feet, 23 bathrooms, 13 bedrooms, 10 kitchens, a 20-car garage, three pools, a bowling alley, an indoor roller rink, a two-story movie theater, a video arcade, a fitness center, a baseball field, and two tennis courts?
Give up? I thought so. The answer is Versailles. No, not the palace of French kings; this is Versailles the mansion of tycoon David Siegel. Siegel started building the mansion when his business in timeshares was booming. He stopped building the mansion when the timeshare market got clobbered by the recession.
Right now the mansion is for sale. For those of you who are curious, the cost of the joint is a mere $75 million. If you wish, you can buy the place in a completed state for a paltry $25 million more.
Now, although I don’t know many of you, I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that most of you don’t have that kind of change in your petty cash box.
Now here’s the point, if we cannot scrape together the money to buy an earthly home, how short are we going to be when it comes to purchasing a nice place in heaven?
Honesty compels me to inform you that you cannot purchase a place in heaven. Not a mansion, not a condo, not a starter home, not even a closet space. You cannot buy a home in heaven. You cannot even get close enough to peer over the pearly gates.
Your sin separates you from God. Your ungodly lifestyle causes you to fall short of the glory of God. Your spiritual bankruptcy keeps you from your eternal dream house. If those rooms in heaven are going to be bought and furnished by us, they’re going to sit empty and unfilled for a very long time – for an eternity.
But, thanks be to God, those heavenly spaces with our names on them are not based on what we do or don't do. Those places, even now, are being prepared for us by the Savior. The down payment was made on them with His Bethlehem birth; the monthly charges were picked up as He lived His life, and the last disbursement was made when Jesus laid down His life on the cross. His third-day resurrection from the dead says that all who believe on Jesus Christ as their Redeemer from sin have been given a heavenly home.
And that’s why we are here today. To thank God that Pauline has entered the mansions of heaven. Not by being a good wife or a loving mother or even a faithful Christian. Her heavenly home was purchased for her by the precious blood and innocent suffering and death by her Savior, Jesus Christ. It is through her faith in Jesus that she has moved into her glorious new room.
A faith that she did not earn or deserve or work for. But a faith that was given to her in her baptism as a baby. It was a faith that was fed with God’s Word and nourished with Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper.
A faith that she expressed in her musical talents. Pauline joined the psalmist (Psalm 150) in praising God with the guitar, piano, trumpet, clarinet, organ and probably a few more. She sang solos and sang for many years in the choir in our church. With her breath and with her hands she praised the Lord. But now Pauline has put on the white robe, is standing around the throne of the Lamb, and she has joined the heavenly choir of saints gathered from every nation, tribe, people and language (Revelation 7). Together they are singing, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
For many years, Pauline called Epiphany Lutheran Church her home church. But now she has been transferred to the Lord’s temple in heaven where she will remain a member for eternity. Whenever I visited with Charles and Pauline when she became homebound, she always mentioned growing up in Manitowoc near the lake. She lived for years here in Racine near the Root River. But her new home is along the River of Life, in a room overlooking the green pastures and quiet waters of paradise.
Though Alzheimer’s stole Pauline’s memory from her so that she did not know her family at times, her Good Shepherd always knew His precious lamb. She heard His voice calling, holding her hands in His nail-pierced hands and followed Him to eternal life. For as Pauline’s Shepherd led her for 81 years here in this life, so He has led Pauline through the valley of the shadow of death and into the life of paradise.
Though the last few years Pauline was not able to live in her own home with Charles and Marco Polo because of her debilitating disease, now she has moved to her permanent residence where nothing bad or sinful or harmful will ever trouble her again. Surely goodness and mercy have followed her all the days of her life, for she is dwelling in the house of the Lord forever.
It is Pauline’s room. Through Jesus. Free and clear. Lock, stock and deed. For eternity. Thanks be to God. Amen.
September 10, 2010
(Jesus said) "In My Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" John 14:2
Here's a question for you. What has 90,000 square feet, 23 bathrooms, 13 bedrooms, 10 kitchens, a 20-car garage, three pools, a bowling alley, an indoor roller rink, a two-story movie theater, a video arcade, a fitness center, a baseball field, and two tennis courts?
Give up? I thought so. The answer is Versailles. No, not the palace of French kings; this is Versailles the mansion of tycoon David Siegel. Siegel started building the mansion when his business in timeshares was booming. He stopped building the mansion when the timeshare market got clobbered by the recession.
Right now the mansion is for sale. For those of you who are curious, the cost of the joint is a mere $75 million. If you wish, you can buy the place in a completed state for a paltry $25 million more.
Now, although I don’t know many of you, I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that most of you don’t have that kind of change in your petty cash box.
Now here’s the point, if we cannot scrape together the money to buy an earthly home, how short are we going to be when it comes to purchasing a nice place in heaven?
Honesty compels me to inform you that you cannot purchase a place in heaven. Not a mansion, not a condo, not a starter home, not even a closet space. You cannot buy a home in heaven. You cannot even get close enough to peer over the pearly gates.
Your sin separates you from God. Your ungodly lifestyle causes you to fall short of the glory of God. Your spiritual bankruptcy keeps you from your eternal dream house. If those rooms in heaven are going to be bought and furnished by us, they’re going to sit empty and unfilled for a very long time – for an eternity.
But, thanks be to God, those heavenly spaces with our names on them are not based on what we do or don't do. Those places, even now, are being prepared for us by the Savior. The down payment was made on them with His Bethlehem birth; the monthly charges were picked up as He lived His life, and the last disbursement was made when Jesus laid down His life on the cross. His third-day resurrection from the dead says that all who believe on Jesus Christ as their Redeemer from sin have been given a heavenly home.
And that’s why we are here today. To thank God that Pauline has entered the mansions of heaven. Not by being a good wife or a loving mother or even a faithful Christian. Her heavenly home was purchased for her by the precious blood and innocent suffering and death by her Savior, Jesus Christ. It is through her faith in Jesus that she has moved into her glorious new room.
A faith that she did not earn or deserve or work for. But a faith that was given to her in her baptism as a baby. It was a faith that was fed with God’s Word and nourished with Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper.
A faith that she expressed in her musical talents. Pauline joined the psalmist (Psalm 150) in praising God with the guitar, piano, trumpet, clarinet, organ and probably a few more. She sang solos and sang for many years in the choir in our church. With her breath and with her hands she praised the Lord. But now Pauline has put on the white robe, is standing around the throne of the Lamb, and she has joined the heavenly choir of saints gathered from every nation, tribe, people and language (Revelation 7). Together they are singing, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
For many years, Pauline called Epiphany Lutheran Church her home church. But now she has been transferred to the Lord’s temple in heaven where she will remain a member for eternity. Whenever I visited with Charles and Pauline when she became homebound, she always mentioned growing up in Manitowoc near the lake. She lived for years here in Racine near the Root River. But her new home is along the River of Life, in a room overlooking the green pastures and quiet waters of paradise.
Though Alzheimer’s stole Pauline’s memory from her so that she did not know her family at times, her Good Shepherd always knew His precious lamb. She heard His voice calling, holding her hands in His nail-pierced hands and followed Him to eternal life. For as Pauline’s Shepherd led her for 81 years here in this life, so He has led Pauline through the valley of the shadow of death and into the life of paradise.
Though the last few years Pauline was not able to live in her own home with Charles and Marco Polo because of her debilitating disease, now she has moved to her permanent residence where nothing bad or sinful or harmful will ever trouble her again. Surely goodness and mercy have followed her all the days of her life, for she is dwelling in the house of the Lord forever.
It is Pauline’s room. Through Jesus. Free and clear. Lock, stock and deed. For eternity. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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