The Rev. Frank Logue
Delivered at Victory Baptist Church
St. Marys, Georgia
November 15, 2001

United in Resurrection
Romans 6:3-8, 8:15-19, 28, 35-39

We gather today to mourn the loss of Jayne Bell. For those of us who knew Jayne, it is a time for grief. We mourn her loss and we grieve for Tom and for Eric and the rest of Jayne’s family and friends in their loss. Yet, we are Christians. We know that death is not the final word. We Christians are an Easter people, even at the grave, we praise God saying alleluia, alleluia.  

Being an Episcopal priest, I am well acquainted with the saints. We Episcopalians do not pray to the saints, asking them to intercede for us. We know that we have our one intercessor before God in Jesus, the Christ. Instead, we often look to the lives of the saints for the ways they teach us what a life lived faithfully to God looks like.  

Scripture teaches us that all Christians are saints. We might not always act like saints, but we are saints nonetheless. Paul often addressed the saints in a given town. He wasn’t writing to the holy few, but the whole Christian community. In that way, we know that we can declare confidently that Jayne was and is a saint. I want to look with you this morning at how the life and Christian witness of Saint Jayne Bell can be an example to us. 

When we look to Jayne’s life in recent years, and certainly in recent weeks, a quick glance shows more suffering than we can bear. None of us would have wanted Jayne to suffer the way she suffered with cancer. None of us would want Eric and Tom to have to see Jayne slip away from them suffering as she did. It’s enough to make some people question God. How can we understand such suffering?  

I honestly don’t know how people of other faith’s can bear the suffering of this world. But as Christians, we know that God is not unaware of or unmoved by human suffering. God did not create the world, wind it up like a watch and sit back for the show while all creation winds down. No, God entered in to creation. God himself has intervened in human history.  

God’s greatest plan was the incarnation, being made flesh. God became man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was fully human and fully God. Being fully human he knew all about the suffering of our world. The prophet Isaiah had foretold that the Messiah would be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Long before the cross, he knew the pain of grieving the death of people he loved. And then following the betrayal of his friend Judas and the abandonment of all his disciples, Jesus suffered unimaginably on the cross to bear our sins. He who did no wrong suffered and died for our sins. We do not worship a God who knows nothing of our suffering. We worship a God who knows all about human suffering. Jesus was abandoned in his suffering, but Jesus did not abandon Jayne in her suffering. 

Jayne came to faith in her suffering and was made whole by God even as the cancer was robbing her body of life. I want to share with you some of what Paul wrote to the Romans. In chapter 8 he said, 

 “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.” (Rom 8:15-19) 

God has adopted us as God’s own children. The word Abba Paul uses is the word for Papa, Dad, or Daddy. This is a loving familiar term. We can cry out to God as a perfect father who knows us well and loves us. Jayne did receive that spirit of adoption and Jayne did not fall back into fear. She was unafraid of her death. 

The spirit of God testified to Jayne in the deep recess of her own heart teaching her that she was a beloved child of God. Then Jayne could join Paul in saying that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing to the glory that was about to be revealed in her. Jayne grabbed hold of God’s love for her. Jayne grabbed hold of God’s promises to her and they transformed her life. Jayne knew well what Paul went on to write, 

“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” 

Then further in this same chapter of Romans Paul wrote,  

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? …." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

Jayne knew that God was working all things, even her cancer, to the good. Jayne knew that absolutely nothing could separate her from the love of God. Jayne’s concern was no longer for herself, but for her son Eric and her husband Tom. Jayne and Eric were baptized together here at Victory. But Tom did not join them in baptismal waters. This gave Jayne her last great task. Jayne refused to enter heaven with Tom’s eternal destiny in doubt. Jayne loved Tom and could not bear the thought of entering into God’s glory without him. Jayne wanted Tom to experience the power of the resurrection before she died. 

Paul used that sort of resurrection language to write about baptism. He wrote the Romans saying,  

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” 

Jayne had experienced newness of life. Cancer could rob her body of the old life, but it could not take that new life away. Two Sundays ago, I got an afternoon call from Kathy Sue Whitten who spoke a few moments ago. Kathy Sue said that Tom had accepted Jesus Christ as his savior and wanted to be baptized. Jayne’s deepest longing came true. Less than an hour and a half later, we were wading out into Crooked River. Now friends, I don’t want to scare you today, but I have been told that it is a sure sign of the end times is when Episcopal priests start baptizing in the river. But there is no greater sign of baptism than sinking into the waters to rise again in new life in Christ. 

Paul said it like this,

“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” (Romans 6:5-8) 

Here’s what happened that Sunday afternoon. Jayne sat in a wheelchair on the bank beaming while Tom waded out to meet me. Tom was buried with Christ in the waters of Crooked River and he came up a resurrected man. Tom told me that he had a feeling in his chest he couldn’t describe. He assured me that it wasn’t the temperature of the water. He could feel the power of God deep inside him. 

Jayne put it this way, “My family is all taken care of.” Saint Jayne Bell showed us the way. The power of resurrection she felt in her own life was not for her alone. Jayne’s deepest desire was to share that newness of life with Eric and Tom. Her deepest desire was also the deep desire of God’s own heart. Jayne, Eric, and Tom have all been united with Christ in his resurrection. 

So we gather today as a people in grief. Jayne is gone from our daily lives. The days ahead will be hard. But we are not a people without hope. Jayne died in the sure and certain hope that she had already been united with her savior Jesus in his resurrection. Jayne did not fear her own death. She faced her death knowing that her family was taken care of? In that Jayne is example to all us saints. How can we rest until all the people we love are taken care of. Or to look at it more broadly, how can we rest until all the people God loves of taken care of?  

Saint Jayne Bell’s work is done. She is already making her song Alleluia, Alleluia! We know that her suffering has ended. The suffering that she counted as nothing compared to God’s glory has ended. For us the grief goes on. But even in grief we can look to the life and witness of this saint who lived among us and join her in saying alleluia, alleluia. Praise God who makes all things new. 

Amen.