Yesterday, I had the heartbreaking privilege of conducting a graveside service for Constance Neudorf, the daughter of a young couple from our church, who passed away on the same day that she was born. Several dozen of us gathered in the cold to pray, sing, and cry together. What follows, with permission, is a slightly edited version of the message I shared.
Today, together, we’re here to face the awfulness of death. We’re not going to hide from that or run from that. As we commit the body of little Constance to the ground we remember God’s curse on the sin of our father Adam: that because of his sin, he and his children would “return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return’” (Genesis 3:19).
Adam was a gardener, used to putting things in the ground, and one day he himself would go into the ground. It sounds so symmetrical—from the ground, to the ground; dust to dust—but it’s not the way it’s supposed to be. We were supposed to go from dust to glory. We were made from the dirt to be more than dirt; to be living images of the living God who would walk with him in eternal fellowship. We came out of the ground, but we were never supposed to go back to it.
There is something about death, no matter the age of the one who dies, that shocks us with its unnaturalness and its wrongness. This is not how it should be. And the shock and horror of death is accentuated when the one who dies is not old and aged, but young and small and innocent. There is one kind of sadness in seeing a blazing fire slowly burn down into ashes until the last glowing coal is extinguished. It is another matter altogether to witness the kindling snuffed out before the fire even has a chance to burn.
Nothing here seems right. Death seems wrong, and this death seems especially wrong.
But if I may, I would draw our attention to another death in history that, if it is possible, is even more wrong, even more shocking in its sense of un-fittingness.
I speak of the death of a son who was more perfect than any human child. A son who filled His father with delight. A son who was truly perfect, unstained by Adam’s sin; a son who had been given many chances to do wrong and never caved in once over 33 years. A son who took upon Himself the sins of the world and suffered in the place of His people from all time and all places.
I believe we have good reason to be confident that on the cross, Jesus died for this little one we’ve gathered here for today. We know that we are all sinners, not only by choice, but also by nature. We’re all born with a guilty status that we’ve inherited from our first father Adam (Rom 5:12-19). And yet, Scripture repeatedly tells us that the sins for which people are judged are not the sins they inherited but the ones they committed. We know from John 9:41 and Romans 1:20 that God’s judgement falls on those who reject Him “without excuse.”
And from that, I, and many others, conclude that God treats differently those who do have an excuse—those who die without the ability to see and respond to his glory. The sin they inherited from Adam cannot be ignored, but must have been graciously paid for by Christ on the cross, and thus they are welcomed with mercy into the kingdom of God.
“Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven'” (Matthew 19:14).
Jesus died for our sins—committed and inherited. And what that means is that Christ’s death has transformed this death. Because of His death, this death is not merely a return of dust to dust. This burial today is not an act of finality. It is an act of gardening—yes, even on this frigid February afternoon. We are planting a seed today, a seed that will one day bloom into beauty unimaginable.
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body… So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42–44).
I believe that we are sowing here today. Planting a seed that has fallen to the ground and died much sooner than anybody expected. A natural seed, sown perishable, dishonourable, weak. But because Jesus died and led the way on His resurrection morning, this is a seed that will be raised: supernatural, imperishable, glorious, powerful.
Now, I don’t share any of this today to try to make anybody feel better, or to take away the pain of this loss. That’s impossible. This grief is real and it is only appropriate to feel it and sit with it.
But I share this to try and situate the grief and the pain in the right story, and in the right place in that story.
Though we sow in tears today, full of questions without answers, yet shall we reap with shouts of joy on the day when, from this very spot, Constance Alma Neudorf arises to meet her saviour on the day of His return. “And so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess 4:17).
We groan in grief today, but this is a groaning that leads to life—the life of the Resurrection (Rom 8:22-23).
And one day, under the bright sky of the New Creation, perhaps some of us will gather at this very spot, and think back to today, and look back on these tears as old tales.
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:50–58).
