Safe in the Arms of the Good Shepherd

Revelation 7:9-17 Last Saturday morning our sister in Christ Donna departed this earthly life.  David lost his wife and best friend.  Their children lost their mother and their kids their grandmother.  Our congregation lost a beloved member and our community lost a businesswoman and musician.  The presence of her many nieces and nephews and friends who have traveled a great distance to be here today testify to her place in our hearts.

But what God wants us to know and believe is that-- in that moment when her earthly life came to an end—as rich and blessed and wonderful as it was—her true life began—a life where there is no sorrow or suffering or separation from those we love.

What we know and experience as loss and pain in Donna’s passing, she knows to be joy and gain and blessing beyond what any of us can imagine for she is safe and sound in the arms of the Good Shepherd and God has wiped every tear from her eye. 

In his mercy, God speaks to us today in his Word so that we might believe the same—that we too are part of the flock of the Good Shepherd and he embraces us with his love and dries our tears with his promise that Donna is safely home.  The Bible says that:

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.

            The last image we have of our loved ones who depart this life is often times distressing.  Illness or injury or just the frailties of old age have done their work and we are left with an image of our loved one is very different than the one we carry in our heart.  And that is burdensome.

Doctors and nurses and hospitals do all they can to minister to our loved ones, to bring God’s healing into their lives, but the wires and hoses and tubes only add to what is a painful scene of our loved ones last moments on earth.

God in his mercy does not want to leave us with that image of what living in a dark and dying world does to our loved ones who depart this life and so in his Word today from Revelation, he pulls back the curtain that hides our departed loved ones from our view and lets us see what is true of them right now.

There is that great multitude that no one can number is Donna.  What she hoped for and lived for as a child of God (to dwell in the house of the Lord forever—to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord in his temple) God in his great mercy has granted to her.  What she believed in and laid hold of by faith in Jesus—she now sees and experiences in the presence of Jesus.

The loved ones that she once mourned who departed in the faith are there with her in that great multitude and there at the center of all that is happening is the Lamb, Jesus Christ, the perfect sacrifice of Calvary whose blood forgave her all her sins and whose resurrection has brought her home.

There she is in that multitude, clothed in the white robe of Christ’s holiness and righteousness bestowed upon her in baptism, holding a palm branch in her hand as a sign of Christ’s victory over sin and death. 

We may experience her death as defeat, but for Donna, the moment of her passing from this earth was the moment of her entrance of a victory celebration that has no end.

She is not just gone from us, but she has gone home.  We have to say our sad goodbyes to her but what she heard in that moment of passing were the cries of “welcome home” and an invitation to come and take her part in the great, unending song of victory that is being sung at this very moment by the whole company of heaven.  The Bible says that those in heaven:

…cried out in a loud voice:  “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”  All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying:  “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” 

            I’ve tried to think of the best way to describe Donna.  We all have our memories.  The kids remember a devoted mom, involved in their lives, who was also an avid birdwatcher.  David remembers especially the early days of their marriage, traipsing around the world as he traveled in the oil business.  Caroline and I had the best time with her as we were looking at houses here in San Angelo as she rode around in the back seat, holding on for dear life, doing her best to not be a back seat driver.  

            But what I finally decided is that the best way to describe her, what really captures who she was, is that she was a musician, looking for every opportunity to perform, even if the only audience was a herd of cows next to a lonely cemetery.  That was Donna.

Every musician begins the same way—learning to play their instrument and read music.  There is a lot of time spent alone, doing the hard work of playing scales and various exercises designed to increase proficiency.  There is a lot of time spent practicing your own part in some composition and all by itself it doesn’t sound like much.

But then there comes that magical moment when the band or orchestra gets together, and the conductor lifts his baton and the individual musicians become part of one another—greater and more beautiful together than they were before by themselves.

It is a transcendent moment of joy and Donna never lost that joy or sense of transcendence that is found in God’s good gift of music. 

Donna continued to perform every chance she got.  She helped organize the San Angelo community Band and the Icehouse Brass Band—groups that have been a blessing to this community for years.  She was Part of the Angelo State Wind Ensemble and who can count the number of worship services in churches in this area have been blessed by her music. 

When she went to heaven, that gift was not lost.  The Book of Revelation is arranged around songs that are eternally sung by all the company of heaven.  In other words, music is what gives voice to the worship of heaven. 

There are flashes of lightening and rumblings and peal of thunder—no doubt the percussion section.  There are angels with trumpets and there are harps that are played. 

And right there in the midst in that great musical multitude is Donna, happier and more alive than she has ever been, joining her voice to the song of heaven: 

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!  Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, for by your blood you ransomed people for God.  Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” 

In that great, unending song of heaven there is never a broken reed, there is never an out of tune instrument, there is never a missed note—there is simply the most beautiful piece of music ever composed or performed in thanksgiving for the salvation we have in Jesus—and there is Donna, using her gift to praise the One who gave her the gift of salvation.  The Bible says that:

One of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”  I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Over the last one hundred years of our modern age it has become unfashionable to talk about art—including music—as aspiring to what is beautiful and good and true.  But Donna still held to this traditional view.  She said, “Music reveals the essence of life.  Through music we experience God’s love, his creation, and how to treat each other.”  She was absolutely right.

Artists and musicians like Donna who still hold to this ancient aesthetic do so—not because they don’t know that the world is full of tribulation—but because they know a truth that is even deeper and higher and greater:  that beyond the trials and tribulations of this life is something that is beautiful and good and true and they desire in their music to capture that.

Donna knew that the something that is beautiful and good and true—that something that all great music and art must ultimately bear witness to--was a “someone” named Jesus. 

Yes, his death on the cross was a brutal and ugly thing.  There was rejection and ridicule—there was sorrow and suffering.  But in the midst of that—flowing from that-- was a love that rose above it all—the love of God for a world full of sinners, including Donna.

Through faith in Jesus, the blood he shed on Calvary—the death he died there in her place—the life he claimed for her in his own resurrection--has transformed her forever.  He has clothed her for eternity in his own righteousness and claimed her as his own precious lamb.  The Bible says that the lambs of the flock of the Good Shepherd:

…are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.  ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst.  The sun will not beat down on them,’ nor any scorching heat.  For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

            This is a day of sorrow and loss for us.  We see in a new and painful way that we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.  There are tears that are shed.  But none of that is true for Donna.

The trials and tribulations of life in this broken world are over for her.  There is no pain or sorrow or loss.  She lives today- and will live forever- in the presence of the God who has always known her and loved her and planned eternity for her.  The Good Shepherd she followed in life has wiped every time from her eyes and wrapped her in his arms.  Amen.