Funeral of Ryan Sheppard

Grace, Comfort, and Peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

We all knew Ryan. We knew the kind of man he was, both good and bad. I fondly remember him as a rockstar. The guy that introduced me to metal and sent me on a musical journey that has so far lasted to this day. I remember once I told him I was going to see the band He Is Legend, and I was telling him, and he said, “Oh, yeah I know those guys.” I didn’t believe him until he showed up to the venue and hugged Schuylar Croom, the vocalist.

We knew the goals and the dreams that we all wanted him to achieve, and we knew the struggles he dealt with. Struggles that ultimately brought us all here today.

The big question we have to ask ourselves is why? We may pontificate about life circumstance, upbringing, nature vs nurture. But ultimately we are all standing around this grave for one simple reason: Death is the wage of sin.

While Ryan had his own struggles, we should not be blind to the fact that we also have our struggle with sin. It may not look the same, but for each and every one of us, our struggle with our sinful nature will come out on this same road, and bring us to this same place.

I don’t want to spend what time I have here eulogizing my brother, and I don’t think I need to beat home the nature of death for you. I think, standing here in this place, we all understand what death is in a personal way.

But the thing is: God is not content to sit idly by and let us stand at the mouth of an open grave and contemplate either death or the dead. Thankfully, Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us a third option: Life.

I chose today’s reading specifically because Saint Paul is telling us about life! It is a great mystery I tell you now: What is planted in corruption will be raised incorruptible, and what is planted in death will be raised in life for all those who have their lives hidden in Christ.

You see, Dearly Beloved, Jesus Christ – who is God – saw the sinful state of man. He saw that, on our own, each one of us would end up in a grave like this one and go no further. He saw that, on our own, we are powerless to beat death. Yes, truly, as it is written, it is appointed once for each man to die.

But God loves us, each and every one of us, and was not content to let this be the end. So He came down from Heaven, became incarnate in the Virgin Mary and was made man. He lived a sinless and perfect life, one in which He was not owed the wage of death. And yet He willingly submitted Himself to death under Pontius Pilate. He hung on that cross, taking your punishment and mine, receiving on Himself the wage of our sin.

At every step of the way, He did what we are powerless to do: Resisting every temptation, standing firm against every sin, obeying every command, taking upon Himself the full wrath of God. And finally, at the last, He did the ultimate thing. He did the best thing.

Beloved, He rose again from the dead!

Jesus wasn’t content to let you, or me, or Ryan, or anyone else in this world wallow in the grave. Instead He conquered death on our behalf. And He promised us that all those who hid their life within His would be raised to life again one day. This is what Paul means when he says that what is planted in corruption will be raised incorruptible.

When we die, our sinful nature dies with us. And our bodies are planted in these graves. And one day, Jesus will raise us all back to life with a shout of an archangel and the blast of a trumpet. And when He reaches down and pulls us from the grave we will be raised incorruptible. That is to say: Our sin died with us, but it will not be raised with us. We will be brought back in newness of life at the resurrection.

The Apostle’s Creed, some of the most ancient words spoken by Christians, says that we believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Beloved, the grave doesn’t have to be our final resting place. God is both willing and able to call us all out of this dirt, and one day He most assuredly will. And that is where our hope is. That is where our life is.