"The One who is Himself the resurrection and the life has the last word!" Funeral of Joyce Hofmann

21. March 2026
Funeral Sermon for Joyce Marilyn Hofmann
John 11:1–45 | Psalm 46 | 1 Kings 17:17–24 | 1 Corinthians 15:51–57

 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (Jn 11:25–26).

Dear friends in Christ, grace, mercy, and peace are yours in Jesus Christ, your Lord. Amen.

She was not supposed to outlive her husband. She was not supposed to outlive her daughter. That is not the way the order of things is supposed to go. And yet it did. Tom is gone. Betty is gone. And now Joyce is gone, too, and here you are.

Death does not ask permission. It does not consult the calendar. It does not wait until the family has had enough time. It comes. And when it comes, it takes what it wants.

This is what Martha learns on the morning that Jesus finally comes to Bethany.

She has sent word. She has waited. And her brother Lazarus is dead. Four days dead. Whatever moment there was for Jesus to do something useful, to intervene, to fix this — that moment is gone. The stone is rolled against the tomb. The mourners have filled the house. And now, here is Jesus, four days too late, and Martha goes out to meet Him. She does not wait for Him to come to her. She goes out to the road, and she says what she has been thinking for four days:

"Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died" (John 11:21).

You know that feeling. You have thought it yourself, about Joyce, about whoever it is you have lost before today, about this day right now. Lord, if You had been paying attention. Lord, if You cared the way You say You care. Lord, You could have stopped this.

Martha believes in Jesus. That is not the question. She believes so completely that she says, "Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You." She believes. And yet, her brother is still dead. Faith does not guarantee you against grief. Faith does not make the grave disappear before its time. Faith means bringing your grief to Jesus and saying it plainly. Lord, You could have done something. Lord, where were You?

And Jesus says to her, "Your brother will rise again" (John 11:23).

Martha hears that. And she files it away in the right folder. She says, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." She has her theology in order. She knows the doctrine. She believes what she is supposed to believe. But the resurrection on the last day is a long way from here. And her brother is in that tomb right now.

You know this, too. You know what Joyce believed. You know she was baptized on May 3, 1931, a little girl in Skokie, Illinois. You know that at that font the name of God was put on her. Father. Son. Holy Spirit. She was claimed. The water and the Word of Christ reached down into her and gave her something that no one and nothing could take back. Not her years, not her illness, not even death. Baptism does not expire. It does not have a shelf life. It holds into eternity.

She lived in that same faith. She served her neighbor as she taught hundreds of children over thirty years. She was a beloved teacher — "Mrs. Rogers," they called her, for the joy she brought into the room. She brought children into learning. She made them feel safe. She understood, in the way a good teacher understands, that love and patience open a child in ways that severity and urgency cannot. Tom Hofmann saw her on a dance floor in 1952 and apparently could not look away. She was that kind of woman. Joyful. Generous. The life of whatever room she was in.

And now, she has died.

That is the whole truth of today. Both parts of it. The baptism and the death. The faith and the grief. You do not have to choose. But you are allowed to hold both. Jesus does not rebuke Martha for her grief. He does not tell her to trust harder and feel less. He asks where they have laid Lazarus. And then the text says something that stops us cold. "Jesus wept" (John 11:35).

The Son of God, who is about to raise a dead man, stands at the tomb of His friend and weeps. This is not a performance. This is not for calculated effect. This is God in human flesh, doing what we do when we stand at a grave. He weeps. He is moved in His spirit. He is troubled. He loves these people — Martha, Mary, Lazarus — with real human love, and the weight of death is real to Him.

This matters for you today. The God you are dealing with is not a God who observes your grief from a safe distance and issues instructions. He stood at a grave and wept. He knows what death smells like. He knows what a house full of mourners sounds like. He knows what it costs to lose the people you love. He has been here.

And then He does what only He can do.

"Lazarus, come out!” (John 11:43).

That is all. His voice, into the darkness of the tomb. And Lazarus comes out. Still wrapped in his grave clothes, but alive. Standing in the sunlight, needing someone to unwrap him.

Now. Lazarus died again. You know this. This is not the eternal resurrection. Lazarus went back to Bethany, ate dinner, grew old, and died. What Jesus did that day was a sign, a preview, a down payment on the thing He is actually promising. The thing He promises is this: "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die" (John 11:25–26).

That is a promise. We don’t need a philosophy of grief management. We don’t need sentimental, trite, or euphemistic comfort. Jesus is staking a claim. He is the resurrection and the life. Not He points to resurrection and life, not He teaches about them, not He facilitates them. He is them. Wherever Jesus is, death is losing.

This is what Elijah knew when he took that widow's dead son to his room and stretched himself out over the boy and cried out to God, and the boy breathed again. Life comes from outside death. It cannot come from inside death. Death cannot generate life. Life has to come in from the outside, from the God who gives and takes away and gives again, from the God who says to the dust: stand up.

This is what Paul is talking about when he says, "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:54–55). He spent his life watching people die for this faith. He knows what death looks like up close. And he still says: death is losing. The sting of death is sin, and sin has been dealt with. Jesus dealt with it. At the cross, He took the sting into Himself and died the death we have coming to us. And then He walked out of His own tomb.

That is the thing that changes everything. Not sentimental words. Not the comfort of memory, though memory is a gift. Not the reassurance that Joyce lived a good and full life, though she did. The thing that changes everything is an empty tomb on a Sunday morning outside Jerusalem. That tomb is empty. He is not there. He is risen. And because He is risen, the grave that holds Joyce Hofmann right now is temporary. Her baptism still holds. The name put on her in Skokie in 1931 still belongs to her. The resurrection that Jesus is — the life that Jesus is — she is in it.

"We shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet" (1 Corinthians 15:51–52).

Not gradually. Not partially. All of it, all at once, when the trumpet sounds. The same voice that called Lazarus out of his tomb will call Joyce out of hers. The same Jesus who wept at the grave of His friend will stand on the last day and finish what He started in that baptismal water ninety-four years ago.

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way" (Psalm 46:1–2). He is present. Right now. At this grave, the way He was present at Lazarus's grave — weeping with those who weep, and promising what only He can promise.

She was known as Joy. That was her name at Cypress Cove, among the people who loved her at the end. Joy. She lived it. She gave it away generously for almost ninety-five years. And now the One who is Himself the resurrection and the life has the last word over her. He says it plainly. He says it to you today, and He means you to take it home.

Lazarus, come out! Your brother will rise again. Joyce, come out! And the same for you, your mother will rise again!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin