Robert Kreinheder Funeral

The Chapel at Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C.

Revelation 21:1-7

September 27, 2024

Hazel, John, &c.: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
What impressed me immediately when I first met Bob were the books. Shelves and shelves of glorious books, and more piled nearby. Yet while Bob was a reader, he didn’t boast about what he’d read or what he knew. He asked questions.

He cared about this city. What it is supposed to do and be, what it represented, and who played baseball for it. Retired more than a decade by the time I met him, he and Hazel both had careers protecting the interests of our nation. He wouldn’t talk about it, despite my occasional prodding. He also didn’t like to talk about himself. But we should note he was a graduate with honors from Cornell, and that same year went to work for the NSA as a cryptologist and language analyst. He was humble; he loved and was proud of his family, and he cared about America, the shining city on the hill.

But Bob was at the same time a citizen of a different city. A lifelong Lutheran, he was from a family deeply invested in the Lutheran Church. His uncle, Oscar C. Kreinheder was the President of the English District of the LCMS in the 1920s, and for most of the 1930s was President of Valparaiso University. He wrote that to me in an email in 2021; he apologized for the delay in replying to my email. He answered two days after my email, and the fact that he was needlessly apologizing shows what a gentleman he was.

That gentlemanly behavior was partly due to his upbringing, but it also indicated he was always a citizen of that heavenly city. God’s Word describes it today as beautifully adorned, like a bride ready for her wedding. This city, which Scripture calls the New Jerusalem, needs no Iron Dome, for war is no more, hostages are no more, strife is no more.

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man,” the loud voice cries out, announcing the new creation. This is what was meant to be in the beginning, before the corruption of death entered the world. God made man for life, and for communion with Him. God made man to receive His benefits, His gifts. He made man for marriage, for children.

Part of the strife in our country is we are no longer one people. And we are not one people because we are not God’s people, which is to say, God’s Word does not shape our cultural thought. But in this new city, the city which is to come, the heavenly voice announces, “[God] will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.” This God is the source of life. To dwell with Him is to be vibrant, not subject to corruption or decay, nor the fading of memory or the pain of loss. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

In the resurrection of Jesus, He has begun to make all things new. The grave to which we now go is not the end. At the last trumpet the tombs shall burst forth, and like blossoms in spring Bob and all the baptized shall emerge as something unexpectedly, unfathomably beautiful.

The Word of God contains many genres of literature, and some historical and linguistic knowledge is helpful to hear and understand. But it takes no cryptographer to grasp these simple truths: The world is now shrouded in death and enslaved to corruption. The Lord Jesus is the incarnate God. In His death sin is judged. By His death, death is trampled down. Christ is risen. He is ascended. He is coming again, and those who are in Him shall live and shall die no more.

These promises belong to Bob, and to all who believe & are baptized. Christ is risen! By the power of His resurrection, Bob’s body will be transformed. He has already entered the realm where death is overcome by Life.  +INJ+