John 6:24-30; 1
Peter 1:3-9; Lamentations 3:22-33
In the Name of the Father and of the
+ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear Tracie,
Jen, Ken, Chris, and Maria, brother Colby, beloved grandchildren and
great-grandchildren, dearly beloved family and friends of our departed brother
in Christ Russ Kullman, grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father
and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
We are
gathered here today to remember and to celebrate the faith and life that our
Lord God granted to His humble and faithful servant Russ. And, there is a great
deal to celebrate! Russ was named and claimed and sealed in Jesus Christ when
he was baptized as an infant over seventy-two years ago. Since then, Russ lived
nearly his entire life in the service of His Lord and His Church. Russ served
as parochial school principal at Our Savior Lutheran Church in the Bronx. After
moving upstate to Dover Plains, he and Joyce, another faithful servant and
child of our Lord and God, raised their family and began attending The Lutheran
Church of Christ the King in 1979. Russ had been a member at Christ the King
for over thirty-five years! Throughout those years he served as a Sunday School
teacher, as an Elder, as a Communion Assistant, and as a Congregational
President. In fact, Russ became the Congregational President, for the second or
third time, I believe, just weeks before I arrived at Christ the King over
twelve years ago. He served in that position for over a decade before retiring
from church leadership as his health began to decline.
Now, many of
you here today, who are not direct family members, have known both Russ and
Joyce over those thirty-five years, and I know how Russ’ passing, just three
years after Joyce’s, is a particularly hard loss to bear. It’s not just the
loss of a brother in Christ, or even a friend, but it’s a loss of a significant
part of your own lives. Many of you raised your children together with the
Kullmans in this church. Many of you had either Russ or Joyce, or both, as a Sunday
School or a Confirmation teacher. Many of you have served with them in groups,
councils, and committees, and studied the Word of the Lord with them in Bible
studies. And, many of you were friendly with them outside of church. Therefore,
their passing is experienced and felt in many ways by many people.
Still, others
of you may have known Russ from the Maplebrook School, where Russ taught Math,
or even from Our Savior Lutheran School in the Bronx before that. One thing
that struck me throughout Russ’ illness, and then in his passing, were the many
posts from his former students on his Facebook wall wishing him well, giving
thanks for his teaching and mentoring, and wishing his family well. There is no
question that Russ touched many, many lives in a positive way, and he will
continue to be remembered by loving and thankful hearts and minds.
But, then,
there are you, his family, his children and grandchildren, his brother, and
extended family. What did your father, grandfather, and brother mean to you?
Russ was loving, caring, compassionate, and, perhaps most of all, supportive.
You were his family, and he was fiercely loyal to you and supportive. Russ was
not the kind of guy to be judgmental, but he sought to find the good in
everyone. And, when he found it, he supported it and he encouraged it to help
that good to grow and to increase. Family was everything to him, and he was so
very proud of each of your accomplishments and successes, even if the success
was sometimes only perseverance through the challenges. I think that Russ saw
life like that, as a challenge. But, that was no cause for him to be gloomy or to
despair. He was up to the challenge. Maybe he didn’t have unrealistically high
expectations, but he expected to persevere, he expected to get through the
challenge, and often, better off than he was before. For Russ, life was full of
challenges even as it was full of blessings, but in God’s mercy and providence,
even the challenges became blessings. That’s faith. That’s faith in God, and
faith in Jesus Christ, God’s Son. And, that’s what Russ, and Joyce, worked so
very hard to instill in you, to pass on to you, and to have you embrace so that
you would persevere and prosper through times of blessing and through times of
challenge, and find that even the times of challenge become times of blessing
through the Lord’s mercy and providence.
Russ was a
great example of this kind of faith. When trial and tribulation came, he would
never think to say that God had abandoned him. As a matter of fact, the
response I typically heard from him was, “Ho-hum.” Now, I suppose some would
interpret that as negativity, and maybe I did at one time, but it was not
negativity, but it was an acceptance that, at times, the Lord permits trial and
tribulation to come upon those He loves so that their trust in Him might
increase. This is what the Prophet is saying in our reading from Lamentations
this morning: “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him
sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; let him put his mouth in the dust
– there may yet be hope.” That hope, says the Prophet, is in this: “For the
Lord will not cast off forever, but, though He cause grief, He will have
compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love; for He does not
afflict from His heart or grieve the children of men.” Likewise, we hear a
similar exhortation to hope in the words of St. Peter from our second reading:
“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have
been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith –
more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be
found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus
Christ.” Because of his faith in Gospel promises like these, Russ was not
negative, he was not a pessimist, but he held a realistic view on life and the
challenges and the blessings we all face. He simply said, “Ho-hum.” And, in
this simple sigh, Russ meant to say: “Why should this momentary trial distress
me? I am a baptized child of God. Nothing can separate me from God’s love in
Jesus Christ. They can take my life, goods, fame, child, and wife, though these
all be gone, my victory has been won, and the kingdom mine remaineth.”
Of course,
those last words are a paraphrase of Martin Luther’s words in his great hymn “A
Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” This is most appropriate as Russ was a lifelong
Lutheran Christian. Moreover, Russ shared Luther’s hope in the face of trial
and tribulation, even as he shared Luther’s joy and praise in the Lord’s
ongoing grace, mercy, and blessing each and every day of his life. Russ
believed in Jesus’ words: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the
food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For
on Him God the Father has set His seal.” And, because of this, Russ was a
humble, gentle, and kind man. He knew what truly mattered, and it wasn’t all
the stuff in this world, or money, or fame, or anything else – all that stuff
is the “food that perishes.” But, what truly mattered was the “food that
endures to eternal life.” What is that food? Well, Jesus answered that
question: “I AM the Bread of Life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and
whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
Jesus gives
you this promise: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever
comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do
my own will but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who
sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it
up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks
on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise Him
up on the last day.” Russ believed and trusted in this promise, and now he is
experiencing it in an even fuller sense in the presence of Jesus, with Joyce,
with grandmas and grandpas, and with all the faithful who have died in the
Lord: “Blessed are those who die in the Lord from now on.” You can take comfort
in this promise fulfilled for Russ – He is with the Lord, where there is no
trial and tribulation, no hunger or thirst, no labored breathing, no heart
failure, no suffering, no tears, and no death. And yet, still, he, and all the
saints, and we along with them, await that “yet more glorious day [when] the
saints, triumphant, rise in bright array.” Yes, we all await that “yet more
glorious day” when Russ and Joyce, and all the saints who have died in the
Lord, along with all the faithful, now and then, will be raised from death to
new and eternal life, in resurrection bodies like unto Jesus’ own glorified
body. This is His promise. This is our hope. And, with this faith and trust and
eternal perspective on our lives, truly, even to death itself, we can say
“Ho-hum.” For, death has become as sleep for the faithful – sleep, from which
we can expect to awaken and live forever with the Lord in His kingdom without
end. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His
great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is
imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.”
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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