It’s funny and a blessing how God sometimes works in our lives.  Just before Easter, I started planning the sermons between Easter and Memorial Day Sunday, my last Sunday at Christ Church.  That is just to say that I picked the scripture for this Sunday, 1 Corinthians 15:19-26, and named the Sermon “Victory in Jesus”.  Most of you know by now that Yesterday (Tuesday, 5-06-2025), we found out that my mom’s cancer is not responding to the chemotherapy treatments, and decided with her that she will be under hospice care. 

So perhaps it's not so funny as it’s providential that, as I write today's blog for Christ Church, the scripture for Sunday is about Christ's Victory.  At the risk of preempting the sermon, let me say that the scripture and the thrust of the sermon will be about Christ's final Victory in which He takes control of all things on Earth and in Heaven the last verse for Sunday is verse 26 which reads: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”.  We know Christ overcame and defeated death when he rose from the grave. Yet death still exists.  Physical death comes to us all, or at least until He returns.  But the day is coming when He will destroy death, and death will no longer come to humanity.  The dead will be raised in perfected bodies and share in Christ's splendor.  Read all of 1 Corinthians 15 sometime.

Mom has asked me to include 1 Corinthians 15:51-55 in her funeral service:

51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. The trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”[h]

55“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

Even for us now, the sting of death has been diminished because we are assured that it is not final.  When Death loses its finality, it is like a defanged snake. 

Now, to be sure, those of us left behind mourn, but we mourn for our loss, not that of the dead.  We mourn as those who have pierced behind the veil and seen the joy that awaits us. 

The Winn family (my mom was born Martha Winn) has always handled death well.  In part, that is because in decades past, when families lived in multigenerational groups near each other, death was a part of life.  We experienced the deaths of great-grandparents and grandparents alongside those who had already buried their ancestors; in many cases, they washed and prepared the bodies for burial themselves.  They dug the graves by hand themselves. 

In our family, we handle death well, partly because we were raised in the Methodist Tradition, where we have a theology of Assurance of Salvation.  I grew up with two great grandmothers and my grandparents Winn, just three houses down.  I spent as much time there as I did at my parents' home.  So, I remember the deaths of my Great Grandmothers, Grandparents, Father, and being with some of them when they passed. 

As a pastor, I have walked with families as they have had loved ones die.



Family is different, and Mom’s passing will be unique for me, as she and I have always been so close. Still, she lives in the assurance of her salvation, as do I. I will mourn my loss and celebrate her victory over death in Jesus Christ. I will cry, I am crying right now.  But I will live in Joy and Peace because I also have the assurance of my salvation.  I know that death is defeated and that I will join all this family and a great host of believers when that day comes for me. 

55“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

Peace,

Burt