Anne Wiensczyk

For everything, there is a season. As we sit here today, we live in the strange irony of this statement. As we mourn Ann’s death, we are in a season of loss and death, yet we can look around us and see that the world is in the literal season of life and new growth. Our lives are full of these strange ironic moments. While we live in a new situation, something else pulls our hearts in other directions, so we find ourselves mourning, while celebrating, while hopeful, and looking forward. In this way, God is consistently reminding us of our reality as Christian believers. We live in a broken world, where loss, fighting, and brokenness are all around, and yet God is consistently trying to point our way forward, to see the new life rising up around us and to know the hope that in Him death is not the end.

All three of our readings remind us of this. The psalm we read through together, speaks about how God will not leave us to suffer or die. He cares deeply for his faithful children. So, even in the midst of our loss, we can still know and be reminded of God’s constant love and protection. The gospel tells us that even as we say goodbye to Jesus, we actually know his leaving is for our greater hope, as he goes to prepare a place for us in eternity. Even Ecclesiastes with its worldly perspective, recognizes that death cannot be the end, because a season of life will come again.

Anne lived very much in this strange ironic reality. She was somehow shy, reserved, and easily embarrassed, yet she was also strong, independent, and dedicated. She spent a lot of time staying home as the kids grew up and yet, she was involved in so much from music to sports. She was fiercely supportive and protective of Michael. She would sit down to type out her kids’ reports, and garden, and yet outside of the home, she had a very active social life. She lived on both sides consistently. And now for us, she may be dead, but the truth is that only now has she begun to truly live in God.

In the northern hemisphere, Easter lines up perfectly with spring and so as we celebrate Jesus' death and resurrection, we experience the resurrection of the world. We live in the reality of what winter has done to the world around us, just like at Easter we live in the reality of what Jesus’ death means for us and the world. That death is then overcome by God’s potent and powerful life, as Jesus rises from the dead and as the world around us comes back to life, it reminds us of this reality.

So that is the added irony of the seasons expressed in Ecclesiastes. We experience that seasons sometimes come at once, but we also experience that we don’t want all of them. Death, loss, fighting, and tearing down don’t feel natural, because they aren’t. God wants to transform them all to become seasons of life, love, and joy.

Jesus' death was ultimately his being lifted up and it was our life and salvation. Our deaths, even while we live, in Jesus Christ can be new life, redemption, hope, potential and so much more. That is why today we celebrate. Not just because we are thankful for all that Anne was and is, but because we celebrate her new life in God, the joy and the bounty she must be experiencing and we hope that we will see her and God in the bounty to come. Now we trust, that if we too follow Jesus - the way, the truth, and the life - we will see her again in this great and wonderful Kingdom to come. AMEN