A Funeral Sermon for Edward Malinka. Psalm 119:49-56.

This sermon reflects on the life and faith of a man named Edward Malinka, emphasizing his deep love for the Psalms and God's Word. Edward's camping stories and his passion for hymns and scripture exemplified his commitment to living by God's promises. Tim particularly highlights Psalm 119:54, "Your decrees are the theme of my song wherever I lodge," as a verse that resonated with Edward, illustrating how God's Word was central to his life, regardless of where he was.

Edward's faith was rooted in the belief that God's promise preserves life, as echoed in John 3:16, which states that belief in Jesus grants eternal life. Despite knowing Edward for only three years, Tim affirms Edward's understanding of human sinfulness and God's grace. Edward's life was marked by a desire to know God more deeply and to share that knowledge with others, from his youth through to his later years, often bringing conversations to focus on eternity.

We conclude by celebrating Edward's enduring faith and his eagerness to share God's love. His love for camping serves as a metaphor for the greater hope he had in God's promise of an everlasting home. We encourage everyone to place their hope in God’s promise, just as Edward did, confident that Jesus is preparing a place for us in eternity.

This Funeral sermon, based on Psalms 119 verses 49-56, was preached at Powell Funeral Home  on July 15, 2024.  This sermon is preached by Pastor Timothy J. Walsh, a member of WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod). Scripture selections come from the New International Version.

Outro Music "Divenire" by Ludovico Einaudi
copyright (℗) by: Ludovico Einaudi (in 2006)              

Transcript

Grace and peace to you, friends. The Lord is our Good Shepherd, we lack nothing. Amen.

I was thinking of Edward two weeks ago, as my wife and I set up our family tent. Edward loved telling me camping stories when I visited him. He always had a recommendation for a campground, or a hike. The camping story he told me more than once was of traveling with friends as a young man, making camp with army surplus ponchos for a tent. 

I thought of that story again as I read over the portion of Psalm 119 we’re looking at now. Edward loved the Psalms. Every visit I had with him, at some point, we’d end up reading the psalms together. The two psalm readings in our service today were the particular ones to which he’d return again and again. Let me read for us these verses from Psalm 119.

“Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life. The arrogant mock me unmercifully, but I do not turn from your law. I remember, LORD, your ancient laws, and I find comfort in them. Indignation grips me because of the wicked, who have forsaken your law. Your decrees are the theme of my song wherever I lodge. In the night, LORD, I remember your name, that I may keep your law. This has been my practice: I obey your precepts.”

It’s verse 54 that stuck out for me as I thought about Edward. “Your decrees are the theme of my song wherever I lodge.” Whether it was under army surplus ponchos or in the house he bought back when the other side of the canal was just woods, wherever Edward lodged, God’s Word was the theme of his song. He loved listening to hymns. He showed me some of the websites he frequented on his iPad to listen to hymns at home.

Why? Why did God’s Word matter so much to Edward? Because he knew what the writer of Psalm 119 also knew: Verse 50, “Your promise,” God’s promise, “preserves my life.” 

What is God’s promise? It’s what we heard in another one of our readings just now, another section of Scripture which Edward delighted in. John 3:16, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Edward knew that God loved him. He knew it because God gave his own Son to die in his place.

Edward needed that. Edward was a sinner. I was only able to be Edward’s pastor for three years, so to be honest, I don’t have direct evidence of his sinfulness. I only knew Edward as an earnest man who loved the Bible, who loved to tell camping stories, who always kept chocolate ready for the neighbor children. But I know Edward was a sinner because I know we are all sinners. We all fall short of the standard God sets forth for our lives.

When Edward and I read the Bible together, these were the things we discussed. The glory and holiness of the God who made all things. The shame of human sin. The undeserved love of God for us sinners. The life of the man Jesus Christ, God in flesh, come to reconcile us to him. The promise through him to bring us to life forever. Death defeated; graves not the end; seeing our living Redeemer with our own eyes, in our own flesh, when he returns in glory. 

That hope - that promise from God - is what drew Edward into the Bible. And he found there that God had done everything necessary to give Edward life forever. He had given Edward his life. He had brought Edward into his family through baptism. He had put the desire in Edward’s heart to go and question his pastor as a youth, to ask himself as a young man, as he told me many times, “Does Billy Sunday really believe what he preaches?” Edward wanted to know the answer to that question. Edward wanted to know God, and God made sure that Edward did know him. God placed parents and preachers and friends and family into Edward’s life who could share God’s Word with him, and in turn God placed people into Edward’s life with whom he could share God’s Word. 

Edward was doing that right up to the end. If you got on the phone with him, he almost certainly brought the conversation around to eternity. He cared. He wanted everyone he loved to know God’s love, shown to us all in Jesus Christ. 

Edward loved camping. He loved recommending a camping spot. But far better than any camping spot he could recommend, Edward would recommend to us all that we place our hope in God’s promise of an everlasting home, where Jesus is preparing a place for us. Amen.