Funeral Sermon for Ron Wiste: Staying Cheerful

Proverbs 15:13-17
A glad heart makes a cheerful face,
    but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed.
14 The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge,
    but the mouths of fools feed on folly.
15 All the days of the afflicted are evil,
    but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast.
16 Better is a little with the fear of the LORD
    than great treasure and trouble with it.
17 Better is a dinner of herbs where love is
    than a fattened ox and hatred with it.


Dear Friends in Christ,


About 15 years ago, on a hot summer day, I looked out my office window and saw that Ron had pulled up with a pickup truck and a hedge trimmer, and he was trimming my bushes.   I went over there and inquired and in his kind manner he indicated to me that my bushes looked awful and he was going to take care of it.   When I said that I would change clothes and help, he said in no uncertain terms that I would not be helping him.  That I had more important things to do. That scene was repeated 8-10 years in a row, once or twice a year, Ron Wiste showing up with a glad heart and a cheerful smile, helping out, insisting that I go back to my office and do what he considered the important work, pastor stuff. There’s no doubt in my mind, that dozens and perhaps hundreds of folks around town and throughout the area would have similar and even more impressive stories of Ron showing up in all hours of the day with a smile and a kind word and a helping hand- just because he could.  

Some how and in some way, Ron found a way to stay cheerful in a consistent manner, even  when he spent days butchering cattle and hogs and deer  cutting meat and dealing with endless customers, even as he was afflicted with years and years of a rare blood disease, even  when he was bent low with grief  as he laid his son into the grave.  Proverbs 15 teaches us that a glad heart makes the face cheerful, but that a broken heart drains us of energy and confidence.   Solomon isn’t talking about outward circumstances in this chapter.  He’s saying that what really affects us is what’s inside of us, what is in our hearts. The Book of Proverbs deals throughout with behavior, but time and time again it takes us back to the source of what we do and what we say – the heart.  God’s Word always aims at the heart, and this is what I would like to aim at in this message – the heart and how to stay heart healthy.  Specifically, I ask you to think with me about how Ron Wiste found it possible to stay cheerful and whether it would be possible during this All Saints Week to imitate the good qualities of Ron Wiste moving forward.   Staying Cheerful is the theme of our message today.  Two truths I invite you to learn again about the secret of staying cheerful, or to say it in other ways – staying joyful and pleasant in all the chapters of life.  

The first lesson we want to learn again today is to keep on looking backwards, and the second is to keep on looking forwards.  Looking backwards, and looking forwards as a strategy for being joyful always.


When I suggest that looking back is a way of staying cheerful, I am simply referring to remembering all that God has given you in both body and soul.  In Ron Wiste’s case, he could look back and see that God had blessed him with Christian parents, a strong family life, and all kinds of opportunity.  He could look back and remember that he had been baptized into the name of the Triune God, that Jesus Christ loved him enough to live and die and rise again on his behalf, and that the presence of the Lord was wherever he went.  One of my favorite memories of Ron is when he and Peg would come forward to the Lord’s Supper and he would look me in the eyes and then take the little cup of wine and hold it in the air toward the altar as if to offer a toast and then give me a bit of a wink and then down the hatch it would go.  Drinking in the very forgiveness of sins as if he really was in the midst of a celebration of something far bigger than he.

A few years ago, Ron asked me if I would visit with him and him alone.  He had a question for me, and for me alone.   After the usual conversation where he showed absolute interest in and concern for Debi and me and our children and grandchildren, he got this serious look on his face, and with tears in his eyes he asked me if I thought he was good enough to get into heaven.  With tears in my eyes, I answered no.  I think I surprised him a bit.  Of course I explained that none of us was good enough to merit a place in paradise, that all of us have sinned and fallen way short of the glory of God, and that my best advice for him was to throw himself on the mercy of God and cry out for forgiveness.  I couldn’t really think of any particular sins on his part, other than him being really annoyed with a few Packer fans on occasion.   His brother Roger did share with me yesterday a time when he was sitting in a reclining chair as a ten year old and Ron snuck up behind him and hit him with a hammer.

Lesson #1 today on the subject of staying cheerful and contented in life is get down on our knees and cry out to God for Him to have mercy on our souls.  It is to rejoice every day in the forgiveness of sins. To fight off sadness and deep disappointments in life by naming and writing down and counting blessings in both body and soul.  To resist the temptations of the sinful flesh to complain about what we don’t have in life by fixing our hearts and minds on the daily bread we do have and so much more.   Paul learned the secret of contentment and wrote about it even as he sat in prison on death row for confessing his Christian faith, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.”  Lesson #1 for being contented and holding onto true and lasting Christian joy is to keep on looking back at the perfect life Jesus lived on our behalf, to keep on looking back at the cross where our Lord was slapped around and spit at and beaten up and crucified until He was dead and buried and to keep on looking back to the empty tomb and Jesus standing nearby in glorious resurrection and keep on looking back at every single promise of God including the one that says I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

Which brings us to Lesson #2 on how to stay cheerful – to keep on looking forward to resting from our labors in the presence of Jesus Christ with all the saints who have gone on before us.  To keep on looking forward to that day of resurrection when Jesus will commend us for giving some food to the hungry and he will commend us for giving a drink of juice to a thirsty child and for visiting the sick and those in prison.  To keep on looking forward to that Last Day, that day when the trumpet will sound and the archangel will shout and our bodies will be resurrected and all baptized believers will be clothed in white robes and given a palm branch to wave around in victory and we will see Jesus face to face and every tear will be wiped away from our eyes and there will be no more trouble and no more leukemia and no more ventilators.  We can only imagine.   Peg and you sons and daughters and inlaws and grandchildren and all you who must be separated for a time, as a way of moving on and being contented and staying cheerful – do look forward to that when Ron will be commended for all of those times when he looked in the eyes a lady who wasn’t feeling very beautiful and said, “Hey there beautiful, what can I get for you today……and for all those times when he cried with those of you who were crying and laughed with those of you who were laughing.  For all those times he kept his sense of humor with you Packer fans doing your Lambeau leaps and rubbing in the latest victory, for all those times he gave you full and undivided attention – these are the words he and all who have held onto their Baptism faith through thick and thin, for better and worse – well done good and faithful servant.  Come, blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” 

 An entertainer named Joe Brown once said, “I have no understanding of the long-faced Christian.  If God is anything, He must be joy.”   Another said it this way, “If you have to cross the street to be happy, you’re not seeing things properly.” My prayer for each one of you here today is that you would see life properly in the days ahead.   That you would live each one of your days by faith alone in Jesus Christ understanding that true Christian faith never comes alone.  It always comes with good works that were ordained by God before we were ever born.   That you would live one day at a time here and now by the grace of God, looking forward to living forever in the full glory of the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world.  That you would cry your tears of sadness today and in every one of your days until you can’t cry any more, and then get up and get on with life knowing that you can do all things that God is asking you to do in life with the strength of Christ.  That you would spend your days imitating the good qualities of Ron Wiste to the best of your ability and keep on running for refuge to that same meal where Ron and Peg kept running. The meal that was instituted on the night Jesus was betrayed and for the particular purpose of comforting and strengthening broken and messed up sinners who aren’t feeling a bit beautiful. As often as you cry out for mercy, that often the angels of heaven will be rejoicing over you. As often as you eat this bread and drink this wine, your sins are forgiven, that often the Spirit of living God will give you strength, that often you will be in communion with the angels and the archangels and Ron Wiste and every saint that has gone on before us.  In that meal, you will be experiencing a foretaste of the heavenly banquet where there will be really good meat, really good wine, and the rest we can only imagine.   In closing, I pray for you, Peg and for all of you who were loved and blessed by Ron in so many ways, to keep on looking forward to the church triumphant, even as you try to stay cheerful as you fight the good fight and run the straight race here in the church militant.  Close your eyes, if you would and listen to the words of Mercy Me, in a song called I Can Only Imagine.

I can only imagine what it will be like
When I walk by Your side
I can only imagine what my eyes will see
When Your face is before me
I can only imagine
 
Surrounded by Your glory
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for You Jesus?
Or in awe of You be still?

Will I stand in Your presence
Or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing, Hallelujah?
Will I be able to speak at all?
 I can only imagine when that day comes
And I find myself standing in the sun
I can only imagine when all I will do
Is forever, forever worship You
I can only imagine 

Surrounded by Your glory
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for You Jesus?
Or in awe of You be still?

Will I stand in Your presence
Or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing, Hallelujah?
Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine
  
When all I would do
Is forever, forever worship You
I can only imagine.

May God bless and keep each one of you strong and growing in your Christian faith, do stay cheerful, and may Ronald Oliver Wiste rest in peace.  Amen.