“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4)

Funeral. It’s quite a unique setting, right? Quite an unusual situation for most of us. Quite unusual thoughts may come to our minds. And then there is that one thing that funerals make crystal clear – everything in this life comes and goes.

Everything ends. Even those things which we may value the most. And eventually even our very lives. So, this is a good time to reflect, what is real for you, is there anything that will remain in your life? Is there anything that will last?

You will know this from your own experience; your loved ones, your work, your friends, your career, success, fitness, beauty, fame, hobbies, you name it, they all seem to be rather important, very real for us.

They are tangible. They are right in front of us. Around us. But not so with this God. Not so with this Jesus Christ. Yes, we hear about Him, we sort of know about Him, literally everyone has heard about Him, but… that is not the same.

Think about this – your family, your spouse, your children, your parents, your studies, your work, career, business, hobbies, interests – they are right here and it is easy to focus on them. They demand our attention. They feel so real.

It is quite easy to believe that they are more real than that Jesus of the Bible. It may be nice to hear about Him, from time to time, sure, it may be nice to be told that He loves you more than you know, perhaps, we can even spare a couple hours for Him on Sunday mornings, or on Christmas, but then we need to rush back to the real-life stuff.

Sounds familiar? Sure, this is how we experience our life. But there is something we all are blessed to learn as we go through this life, some sooner, some later. All those seemingly real and urgent things in our lives, those that seem so much more real and urgent than the God of the Bible, they are not here forever. They all fade away.

This is true also about people, even the most important people in our lives. We don’t live forever. And even while we still live, our relationships tend to deteriorate and sometimes go sour. The excitement of our career may turn into burden and toil.

Fame, beauty, fitness fades. Wealth can disappear. Even our very lives one day come to an end. They do. There is no way around it. Everything is only temporary, whatever important it may appear at any given moment. Then what remains? What will last?

The answer is – true God remains. Jesus Christ remains. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We may run and strive after God’s good gifts – good marriage, good family, good work, good friends, good health, good life… and we may forget about the Giver, we may ignore Him, even reject Him. Especially when things go well in our lives. Especially when those very real things that we mentioned take up all our attention and time. But… none of them remains. Sooner or later they all are gone.

What will remain? True God will remain. Jesus Christ will remain. Caring for you, calling you, waiting for you. Always ready to embrace you, even if you come to Him bruised, broken and desperate, He will embrace you. He is always offering you freedom; He is always ready to restore the relationships that we have ignored.

He always remains with you. We don’t deserve such faithfulness, we can’t appreciate it fully, we are not capable of fully rejoicing in it, but He remains. Betrayed, but waiting. Despised, but waiting. Not needed, but waiting. Jesus Christ always remains with you.

What a beautiful wish expressed in Psalm 27: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.”

As we heard Murray has many interests. He enjoyed the good gifts of gracious God. Marriage, family, work, friends, hobbies… But he also knew from his own experience that sooner or later everything we value in this world… disappears.

Murray knew what was that one thing that we needed to ask for, that we needed to seek for – that we may dwell in the house of our God all the days of our lives and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and inquire in His temple.

It’s interesting how we may inspire others in ways we don’t even imagine. Murray did just that. Even with his health deteriorating and his strength and abilities leaving him, he still was seeking after that one thing… to dwell in the house of His Lord.

For most of us it is easy to make it to the Divine Service on Sunday morning. Not much effort required. But too often we are too busy with those seemingly real things we have right before us, we just don’t care much about that God…

Even when that required quite an effort from Murray and Anne, they were there. Every Sunday. Holding to that one thing, or rather – to that one person who will remain. They responded when invited by the One, who remains with us here and in the life to come.

Murray is gone. He is not among us anymore. But he has received one thing that he was seeking for with all his being “that he may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple.”

That is where he is now. I can only pray that we all sooner or later are able to see clearly, what is real, what matters the most, what will remain forever, in this life and the life to come, and then seek with all our hearts for that one thing, for that one person. For He is always patiently waiting to embrace each one of you. Seek that one thing!

Seek true God and He will find you.

Amen.