Funeral meditation for Herman de Jong, delivered by Pastor Peter Slofstra on July 31, 2004 in Jubilee Fellowship CRC, St. Catharines, Ont.
(Note: Click on "Herman de Jong - Memorial" below and listen to the -somewhat expanded- audio version of this sermon - sdj)

Text: For none of us lives to himself alone and none of dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living." (Romans 14: 7-9 NIV)

Jubilee has on its website something that we call the Bible Marathon. It is an index of readings which enables one to read through the Bible in one year.

What do you think is the reading for today in the Bible Marathon? This very same passage! One of those serendipitous, miraculous occurrences that only the Holy Spirit can orchestrate.

So, it means that for this congregation and for those who like to read the Bible using this particular method on our website, every time you come to this date, you will come to this text and remember Herman.

Herman was a self-described "good little protestant", more interested in the sounds and the colors and the fragrances experienced in church, than another sermon filled with three- and four-syllable words.

Herman was a composer and a comic, a writer and a story-teller extraordinaire.

Because he felt deeply, he was both cursed and blessed. Cursed, because he felt life's injustices and limitations, and would find himself questioning, struggling, doubting in the Prison of Depression:

Prison of Depression
"I cannot pray, my Lord, I cannot pray...
I locked the door to you and
cannot find the key to open it.

Since childhood
-- now I lay myself to sleep --
you always heard,
but now You seem to rest
and slumber deep.

My prison has a door
which only locks
from the inside,
yet, I cannot escape.

My prison has a window,
a cross-barred, grimy window,
when night is gone,
my tumbling thoughts are gone,
I pull myself up on the bars
and look through the cross
longing for the dawn of grace."

Blessed, because he found beauty and humor and reasons to write and choose the right music and settings where others would be blind and deaf to the possibilities. Blessed because he never lost his faith or his longing for the dawning of God's grace.

I know, my Lord, it isn't so!
You're always there, cupping Your ear
with nail torn hand, resting the other
on your Father's arm, waiting...waiting

I know that soon You will whisper:
My son, my son...long ago,
one day, long ago,
I saw you put your key
on the ledge of that cross...
did you forget?

Herman never forgot and his faith always shone through; a faith that saw all living and all dying in the context of Christ's victory and Christ's resurrection.

The theme of Paul's life was the theme of Herman's life.

"For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living." (Romans 14:7 - 9)

Like Herman and all of us, Paul, too, knew hardship and joy; reasons to feel frustration and reasons to organize a celebration. But Paul made a simple stand, what Neil Plantinga has called "A Place to Stand." A grounding, a rooting, a staking one's claim in a confession that covers life and death, living and dying.

That confessional place to stand is simply this: Whereas humans are known to live and die, we know that Jesus died and returned to life.

That makes Jesus, Lord of life and death.
That made Herman want to be his servant in life and in death.
That made everything he did something done "to the Lord",
whether that was loving and supporting Stiny, or being a father to his children, or teaching in a school, or upholstering a couch, or writing songs, poems or stories, or encouraging people to support Salem or start a new Friendship Group, or adding tear-producing laughter to a pastor's farewell, or good-naturedly poking his grandchildren, or even burying a fridge in the backyard.

For Herman and for every believer, all living and all dying finds its purpose, its hope and its deepest meaning from the resurrected Christ who is Lord of both the dead and the living.
-Everything is "To The Lord!"

On the "Herman De Jong" website, his son Henry wrote: "Now he is gone."
-Where did he go?" A child would ask, his grandchildren might ask.

The believing Christian's answer for dying is the same answer that we give for our living: "To the Lord!"
- this allows the believer to live in peace and to die in peace.
- Jesus is Lord of life and death
- In both realms "we belong to the Lord." Not to himself and not alone; to the Lord!

Herman ended his poem with the words, "Did you forget?" It was his way of issuing a reminder to himself … and to all of us.

Don't forget that the key which unlocks the Prison of Depression or any other prison for that matter is faith in the One who suffered, died and rose again.

Keep believing and trusting in the One who, as John Murray writes, "established His supremacy in both domains (i.e. life and death), so that in whatever realm believers have their abode, they are embraced in his lordly possession." (New International Commentary, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 183)

That faith, that confessional key which unlocks life's ultimate purpose and meaning, is expressed beautifully and memorably in the Heidelberg Catechism, words obviously inspired by our text, Romans 14:7-9:

"My only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own but belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ."

Herman didn't forget that he put the key, his confession of faith, on the ledge of his Savior's cross. Not for a moment.

As you reflect on the stories of Herman's life (and there are so many great stories) and the grand story of his Lord's life (the greatest story of all), don't you forget the key to living and dying and returning to life.

It is recognizable by the three one syllable words engraved on it, three words repeated three times in quick succession in Romans 14:8, like a triumphant trumpet voluntary: "To The Lord!"

May those words comfort and strengthen and excite you as you contemplate the life and the death of a creative Christian servant and a loving husband, father, grandfather and friend named Herman.

(Reprinted by permission of the author)