The Funeral of James Edwin Shaw
Rev. Dr. James Edwin Shaw
Romans 8:28-30, 38-39
January 8, 2024
A four year-old boy climbed the steps to see his sick grandmother. She was in great pain, and soon to die. The little boy said, “Don’t worry, Grandma. You are going to be with Jesus.”
That little boy was James Edwin Shaw, who would not want this sermon to be about him. But we have to say a little. His childhood pastor had an exceptionally gifted intellect, and while Jim was interested in being a pastor, didn’t think he could measure up academically. During the Korean War he was drafted, and came into contact with Army Chaplains. That kindled in him the desire to serve others the same way.
The truth is, while there is plenty of place for working in the original languages and in-depth theological study, the four year old Jim had already grasped the essence of preaching: announcing to dying sinners the victory of Jesus over death.
So he went to Concordia Theology Seminary, graduating in 1959, and served in the Army Chaplaincy, eventually rising to the rank of Colonel. He was also the endorser for the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, a critical position that authorizes confessional Lutheran pastors for service in the armed forces; and he oversaw the entire LCMS ministry to the armed forces.
Whether to his dying grandmother, or to hardened soldiers brutalized by war, Chaplain Jim Shaw confessed the heart of the Gospel: Christ is risen, and He is the first fruits of them that sleep.
That’s the subject of his favorite chapter of the Bible, 1 Cor. 15. There, St. Paul starts with the objective reality of Christ’s work. Christianity is not an ethic or a philosophy; it is grounded in the Person and Work of Jesus, the Son of God who brings us to the Father. St. Paul starts out 1 Cor. 15 by saying this is the gospel “by which you also are saved, if you hold fast [the] Word.” And right away, he gives us the heart of it, words that become the basis for the Apostles’ Creed: That
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present…
Meaning to the original audience, you can go check it out; there’s a plethora of witnesses. That eyewitness testimony is critical to the Gospel. Jesus died for our sins and rose again, and that is the foundation for our hope and our future. Nothing can take that away from you, which is a theme of another of Chaplain Shaw’s favorite passages: “[Nothing] shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” [Rom. 8.39].
Here is where everything gets laid on the line. We have a corpse, and the gunshots that will go off at the cemetery seem so final. Taps is the sleeping song, and it seems there is no waking from that sleep of death. So if the eyewitness accounts of Jesus are not true, then it all was in vain. From the four-year-old’s consolation to his grandma, to the thousands of sermons of an Army chaplain, what good is it? That’s the concern the Apostle addresses head-on:
If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! 18 Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. 20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
What appears before us as an enemy is already vanquished. Here, at the graveside, and every day, we honor this father, grandfather, friend, and chaplain best by confessing the same faith: that Christ is coming to demonstrate His victory over this last enemy. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. [Taps is not the final word!] For [another] trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
During his time in DC, Chaplain Shaw was a member of this congregation, Immanuel. And the theme of Immanuel, “God is with us,” was the conclusion of the notes he left for his funeral. “For the Christian,” he wrote, “death is the entrance to paradise. Christians have trials in this life… but the bereaved have [this] sure comfort…[: Jesus promises] He is with us always”—and here he cites Mt. 28, where Jesus says, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” We just celebrated Christmas, where Matthew’s account of the birth tells us that the Christ-child is Immanuel, God with us. “I AM” is shorthand for the sacred name of God, YHWH; so Matthew’s Gospel closes with that same Immanuel theme, with the words of Jesus, Immanuel, “I AM with you,” God is with you, Immanuel.
As we pass through time, we experience loss. The words of Jesus remind us that He is not lost, and nothing in Him is lost. He is with us, and those who are with Him are not lost to us. So now we wait. We wait for the resurrection. We wait to see the last enemy destroyed. In God’s time, it’s already done. Do not lost heart. Be joyful! Christ is risen, and has become the first fruits of them that sleep. This body shall rise. You be faithful unto death in the same way, for your Lord Jesus shall give you also the crown of life. +INJ+