Isaiah 43:1-3a, 5-7
Psalm 23
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 14:25-27
In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Jacquie Tiedeman was made God’s child in Holy Baptism: washed in cleansing and saving waters, marked with the cross of Christ forever, and anointed with the Holy Spirit. In this time where we who loved Jacquie are filled, even overcome with grief, we must also take a breath, and remember God’s mark on her.
We named it at the beginning of this service, our Eucharist, our thanksgiving to God for ensuring a promised future in Christ. Did you hear it?
All who are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Jacquie was clothed with Christ. In the days of Christ’s coming, she shall be clothed with glory. (Funeral Rite, Evangelical Lutheran Worship).
So many people have Jacquie stories, or lasting and deep impressions. Those that I have heard demonstrate a singular honor. “You don’t know how important Jacquie’s welcome of me was when I first came to Christ the King.” “Oh, Jacquie Tiedeman! She was a fixture in the Birch Hill Elementary School Community.” “Jacquie was an anchor to us, especially in those scary days when we were leaving the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.” “She was such an inspiration throughout her cancer treatment. I admired her courage in the face of so much adversity in her life.”
For many people from this congregation, With Bruce, Jacquie was among the first to greet them. She wore a genuineness of heart that won newcomers over easily. She noticed children and showed a real interest in the stuff of their lives. I daresay that young John Ackerman has more company than he may think in children and youth who came to think of Jacquie as an adopted grandmother, including my own children. I daresay Joanne Ackerman has more company than she may think in people who came to think of Jacquie as an adopted mother, including me.
Jacquie loved life. And Jacquie loved people. She had many gifts, through her nursing background, a love for fine music, gardening talents, an eye for decoration. She enjoyed travel, seeing the world, and she and I grew to be postcard-sharers. She was extremely generous with time and with money, and even until the end saw to it that friends and needy alike were thought of with gifts. This short list alone would make anyone worthy of appreciation. There was something though about Jacquie’s authenticity, her humility, her easy way that caused so many of us to love her.
Here is what she taught me: how to be a blessing, living each day with gratitude.
From the psalm that Jacquie wanted to be read today, the 23rd psalm, the Shepherd’s psalm, one most known and known from memory, this one verse suits Jacquie to a tee: You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
I sat at Jacquie’s beside in her dying days at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center, which Jacquie and others of her generation called by its old name: Memorial, and read this psalm to her. She smiled and mouthed many of the verses that she knew by heart. The scriptures were clearly part of her. I sensed smiled her smile as she struggled for breath. I asked her, “Jacquie, what do you think of when you hear about the feast that is laid out for you in the midst of your struggles?” She cocked her head, and with the honesty of a child of God said, “I think it means peace.”
This is exactly what Jacquie wanted in the end, and it is exactly what she received: peace. Christ’s peace.
In the gospel of John, peace is what Jesus offers to his followers in two places: once when he is saying farewell, and again after he rises from the dead.
First, as in today gospel, this peace is offered as part of what is called Jesus’ farewell discourse. He is saying his goodbyes to his closest friends while assuring them of the gift of the Holy Spirit. When he says peace, in Greek eirene, he surely means the same as the Hebrew shalom, each of which can mean “hello” or “goodbye.” But more than a greeting, and more than a sentiment, both in Greek and in Hebrew that peace is global, restorative, making whole whatever is broken and pieces. Jesus’ offering of peace is the same as salvation or eternal life. It’s big.
Near the end of the John’s gospel, while Jesus’ disciples are in a locked room because of their fear of the world around them, which crashed in on them, Jesus appears to them with nail wounds in his hands and feet and a spear’s wound in his side. It says that he breathed the Holy Spirit on them. This is the second place where the Spirit is given. It too is big. Through his offering of peace, after dying on the cross and on Easter Day, by the offering of peace, he revived them. He instilled them with hope.
In his life, and through his death, Jesus breaks through whatever barriers we face, to God and the way to God.
This is what Jacquie said when inspired by the Psalm and God’s Word she said “it means peace.”
And because of her genuineness, and her openness, and in her brokenness, Jacquie lived and died into the peace that is Christ’s peace, not as the world gives.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Back in the hospital, in her dying days, I had to ask her, because I wanted to learn from her. I said, “Jacquie, throughout your illness, through Bruce’s death, in the very down days of chemotherapy, when I have asked you how you are doing, how you can possibly cope, you say, ‘everyone’s been so good to me.’ You are always so full of gratefulness when everything is so bad. How do you do that?” And with her oxygen mask on, she pointed up and smiled her smile.
The cup that Jacquie held, which is the cup that serves Christ, even in sadness, even in grief, even in uncertainty, always overflows. Jacquie taught me thankfulness in the face of adversity.
Today we will offer thanks to God for the peace that Christ offers, as a loaf of bread is broken and a cup of wine is poured. While we may come to eat and drink bereft of a dear friend, a mother, or a grandmother, and feel as if our breath has been depleted, the Spirit of the living Christ is offered freely abundantly and lovingly to the broken-hearted.
While we sing, while we pray, while we eat and drink, we might also take a breath, and know that we are given the Holy Spirit, and can share that Spirit, as we remember and give thanks for Jacquie Tiedeman. We might sense her smile and say “I think it means peace.”
In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
| CtK Home
| Back to Pastor's Page
|