Homily preached at the Requiem Mass for Martin John How MBE (1931-2022), Croydon Minster, 22nd August 2022, after the reception of his body on the eve of his funeral.
Romans 6.3-9 If we have died with Christ, we
believe that we will also live with him.
John 11.17-21 Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
‘But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also
live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die
again; death no longer has dominion over him.’
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In our
gospel reading Martha says to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother
would not have died’.
But,
because Jesus was now present, her brother Lazarus, who had died, was called
out of the tomb and raised to new life.
In his
ministry the Lord sets a pattern of bringing light into darkness and life out
of death.
In his
resurrection he seals the triumph of life over death and invites all humanity
to receive that life: ‘life in all its abundance’ (John 10.10).
In the
words of an Elizabethan poet, a text set to music by William Byrd, ‘O lively
life, that deathless shall persever’ (‘An earthly tree, an heavenly fruit’ : A
Carol for Christmas Day, Son of sundrie natures, 1589, nos 40 and 25))
This
is what St Paul is distilling in his letter to the Romans, saying that ‘if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also
live with him’.
By his
baptism our friend and brother in Christ, Martin, like us all, died with Christ
that he might be raised with Christ.
By his
baptism Martin was part of Christ’s pilgrim people, the Church, and was fed by
the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, in the Eucharist.
Martin
died just as the feast of St James, the apostle and patron saint of pilgrims,
drew to its close.
What a
day for him to die; the feast of a saint who intercedes for us on our
pilgrimage, our journey of faith on this earth, which finds its destination and
home in heaven.
Martin
walked in that path, indeed, as a runner well into his 80s, he positively ran
eagerly the path of Christian faith.
A text
that leapt to my mind is a verse from St Paul’s letter to the Philippians:
“But I am still running,
trying to capture that by which I have been captured” (Philippians 3.12)
The
text continues (albeit in a different translation),
Beloved, I do not consider
that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies
behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal
for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3.13-14)
Martin’s
earthly pilgrimage is now complete.
Martin
had been captured, captivated, by Jesus Christ, the source and object of his
many gifts and talents.
Tomorrow
at his funeral we will, of course, remember what ‘lies behind’ because that is
what we know of Martin: his music, his gracious, kind, generous character; the
signs of the tremendous grace and power of God that shone out of him.
Curiously
Martin sat very light to what he had achieved in his life.
He was
never one to wallow in what ‘lies behind’, to dine off his reputation or sit
back and say ‘do you know who I am?’
Martin
had cracked a wonderful gift, that he lived his life as one who could savour
the day and look forward in hope and
confidence to tomorrow; what lay behind was lovely, but it was not what shaped
who Martin was when he met another person.
As
Martin ran the race that was set before him, he gathered friends and
companions: a companion is literally ‘one with whom we break bread’.
We
break bread tonight with the body Martin – our companion in the faith - in our
midst and we offer this Eucharist of Requiem asking that Martin’s sins will be
forgiven, that he may indeed receive ‘the prize of the heavenly call of God in
Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 3.14) and eternal rest.
The
pilgrim has now come to the end of his earthly journey.
All
that remains for us now is to pray for him, to watch with him for the signs of
the coming kingdom.
This
evening, after the words, ‘Go in the peace of Christ’ we have the tough task of
walking away.
But we
walk away confident that Martin is embraced in the love of his Lord, that he is
surrounded by the angelic host, who are represented in the quire of the church
as holding musical instruments and in full song - what better place for
Martin’s mortal remains to rest on the night before his funeral?
And
then our faith and hope is that he will be wakened into the new life of heaven
in the splendour of light perpetual: the Lord is here: our brother lives!
As
verses from psalm 30 put it:
Sing praises unto the Lord, O
ye saints of his : and give thanks unto him for a remembrance of his holiness.
For his wrath endureth but the
twinkling of an eye, and in his pleasure is life : heaviness may endure for a
night, but joy cometh in the morning.
(Psalm 30.4,5)
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