(Note: Last names have been intentionally deleted from the text of this message.)

Prelude music

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil; for Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
Thou hast anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we ask for a special awareness of your presence as we gather here today to remember the life of this loved one. Please, we pray for your comfort and strength as we reflect. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Obituary:

Margaret  was born on November 24^th, 1912 in Larkhall, Scotland, the eldest of five children born to William and Agnes. She left this life to be with her Lord on Sunday, April 9^th, 2000. She was 87.

Margaret’s family moved from Scotland to the Greater Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada when she was nine. She grew up loving to sing, and performed solos for various Scottish societies and the First United Church. For over a decade, Margaret would sing regularly for church services which were broadcast by radio. She married Alexander on May 22, 1936. The couple later lived in the British Colombia towns of Ioco and Port Moody before moving to Van Nuys, California in 1951 where Margaret was employed assembling televisions for Pacific Mercury. After she retired as an inspector in 1959, the family moved to Brownsville, Oregon, where she helped establish and direct the choir at Brownsville Presbyterian Church. Alex and Margaret moved to Lebanon in 1973. Alex died in June of 1987. Margaret was a member of the Highway 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home. She loved canning, knitting, and flower gardening.

Margaret is survived by her daughter and son-in-law Sheila and Pete, and son and daughter-in-law, William and Mary, all of Lebanon; brother Harvey of Ottawa, Canada; grandchildren Angie of Scottsdale, Arizona, Greta of Albany, Oregon, and Beverly, Ellen, and Brent, also all of Lebanon; and six great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband Alex, sister Barbara, and brothers Daniel and John.

Speaking from personal experience, may I say that it was a joy to know Margaret during the time she was a part of our congregation here. She was very interested in the things of God and was always willing to hear and speak about the Scriptures. She expressed joy to me each time she was able to attend the services of the church in her later years. During the times I visited her in the Manor where she spent the last part of her life, she would nearly always ask me about a passage from the Bible. She listened eagerly when we read from the Scriptures and also to the sermon tapes that were brought to her after she was no longer able to attend the services of the church. She was a Christian woman who was not afraid to say so, and she wore her faith well.

Margaret had a wonderful singing voice. As has already been mentioned, she sang on the radio and during church services in her earlier years. Bill described to me this week how she used to love to sing outdoors as they worked in their garden. In fact, her singing outdoors was always appreciated by her neighbors who would stop what they were doing to listen when Margaret began to sing. A favorite song of hers from this period of time was "Take Me Back to the Black Hills of Dakota," which she sang, but replaced the words "black hills" with "green hills," referenced to the countryside she was so fond of.

Margaret loved the outdoors, especially the mountains. She loved walking around in the mountains and singing as she went. Even in later life, she loved it when Bill would take her to the mountains.

Margaret was very proud of her Scottish heritage (I mean "proud" in the good sense, of course.) Prominent on her apartment wall was the depiction of her membership in the Scottish "Clan Anderson." In fact, if you will glance at the memorial folders you were given at the door, you will see that the "flowers" depicted there are actually Thistles. I did a bit of a double take myself when they were pointed out to me. Bill and Mary had to explain to me that the official Scottish flower is the Thistle. Legend has it that it was the spreading of these Thistles upon the ground (or their already being there) that one time kept the Scots from being overrun by a British invasion. The British soldiers took off their shoes in order to make a quiet, nighttime approach to surprise the Scots, only to have their plot exposed when their screams in the night from stepping on the Thistles alerted their opponents.

Margaret will surely be missed among those who have known her. None of us likes to lose our loved ones to death. Thanks to our God in Heaven, though, there is a life beyond for those who desire it.

(Poem and other family readings)

You have each been given a piece of paper tucked inside your memorial folder. It is a place for any of you who wish to record your recollections of Margaret for the benefit of her family. If there is something special that you remember, some event, some observation, some lesson Margaret taught you, please write about it in the space available there on the sheet and place it on the back table when you go out today. These will be kept for the family.

While you are attending to that, we have another musical selection.

Musical Selection: (Recorded)

Scriptural Remarks:

In a passage well known to most lovers of the Scriptures, Jesus said in John 14:1-3:

"Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

These are precious words to those of us who are believers and who have come to realize our mortality. They are precious for several reasons.

1. They Contain Jesus’ Steady Reassurance.

"Let not your heart be troubled…" Jesus said. Trouble in our hearts is what all of us experience when we have lost a loved one and we are contemplating life without them. We’re also troubled because the prospect of death and our own mortality have come uncomfortably close and we don’t like it. Jesus’ words here were intended so that we might calm our troubled spirits on the basis of what He said.

It is as though He has reached out to us through these words, placed His strong hand on our shoulders, and administered His peace. "Have faith in God… have faith in Me…" he says. That’s where all of our hope lies – in God through Jesus.

These words are also precious to us because:

2. They Contain Our Future Residence.

Jesus said, "…I go to prepare a place for you…"

He gave no further elaboration to His disciples in this passage, but later, after his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, He made it clear though the Apostle John what He meant. He has gone to prepare a place alright - and what a place it is! Listen to John’s words in Revelation 21 and 22:

Rev 21:10-27

And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper. It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them, which are those of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west. And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And the one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city, and its gates and its wall. And the city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width; and he measured the city with the rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal. And he measured its wall, seventy-two yards, according to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements. And the material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. And I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. And the nations shall walk by its light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it. And in the daytime (for there shall be no night there) its gates shall never be closed; and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Rev 22:1-5

And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. And on either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His bond-servants shall serve Him; and they shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall no longer be any night; and they shall not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall illumine them; and they shall reign forever and ever.

This is what Jesus meant when He said, "I go to prepare a place for you."

"Believe in God, believe also in Me…," He said. Margaret has done just that.

These words are precious also because:

3. They Contain Jesus’ Firm Resolution.

"I will come again and receive you to Myself."

Probably Jesus had in mind here His Second Coming – that time when He will, as Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4, "…descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God…"

But there is another sense of His receiving His followers to Himself. When Stephen, the church’s first martyr, gazed into heaven as he was dying, he saw Jesus, according to Acts 7:56, "standing at the right hand of God." (Other passages depict Jesus sitting at God’s right hand. In this case He is standing.) Why was He standing? Stephen made it clear when he said in those last moments before his death, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Jesus "receives to Himself" the spirits of those who die in Christ. These He will bring with Him at the time of His Second Coming.

His firm resolution – His steadfast promise to us then, is that He will receive those of us who are His.

So today we say "goodbye" for awhile to one who has now gone before us. What I have spoken here today, we see by faith. Margaret now sees these things as they really are.

Prayer: Heavenly father, thank you for the hope we have through Christ. Thank you that you reached out to Margaret, because of her faith, and called her to Yourself. Thank you also, that you have fulfilled your promise and received her into Your presence. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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