FUNERAL SERVICE FOR Hans - Jörg Möller
(b.15th October
1965 ; d. 18th JUne 2016)
Sunday 3rd July 2016
Perspectives and Reflections
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| Hans and I on his catamaran, "Manatee" |
My dear family
and friends,
Hans’ brutal death has shaken our family and our community and it
has raised many questions in our minds. It has also brought forth deep grief
and a great sense of loss, for Hans was only 50 years old at
the time of his death.
I speak to you as
Hans’s cousin. He was in many ways a brother to me. We were always genuinely
happy to see each other.
I also speak to you as a pastor, a shepherd of souls
for many years now, and so I speak from a
family perspective, and
also from God’s perspective.
A violent death has taken a
family man away in the midst
of his years. Hans was murdered by unscrupulous men. Why?
This is perhaps the most fundamental question in our minds. And I suppose,
some related questions would be, Where is
God in this? What shall we say about this murder, and what about justice? What
about the essential forgiveness that the Bible
speaks about? What about Hans’s
widow and the children and his parents
and his sister?
So then, as many people are angry, confused and bewildered and as many may be asking these ultimate questions at this time, I come
to you with the perspective of God’s
Word. Ultimate questions need ultimate answers, and for this we need the Bible,
the Word of God.
The ultimate
question is, Why? I wish I could tell you why,
but I can’t, and that does not mean that
I am now confused and that my faith in God is now destroyed. In
fact when asking “why?”
we are in very good company. Read the Psalms of the Bible and note how many times the Psalmist asks that question of God, such as this one in
Psalm
10:1, “Why oh Lord do you stand far away? Why do you hide
yourself in times of trouble?”[1].
The why of suffering is also the great theme of the book of Job.
The cry of
Jesus from the cross, “My God , my God why
have you forsaken me?“, is perhaps one of the ultimate big why’s
of the Bible. Even the Son of God, in His great hour of anguish
asked, “Why?” [Matt
27:46] Aren’t you glad, that Jesus
never made that anguished “why”
an excuse to escape the cross, by which He would secure the salvation of all that would trust in Him for this work?
Aren’t you glad that Jesus persevered through the agony of the “why” to finish the work that God the Father gave Him to do? So, it’s not wrong to ask “why”,
provided that you are looking for a genuine answer from God.
There is however also the
angry and defiant “why?”
that blames God, turning it into a grudge against God and against others by allowing it to settle in
your soul in terms of a pathological anger and bitterness. I warn you against harbouring
such ugly emotions which tend to
make an ugly, bitter person of you (Hebr. 12:15).
So, where does God
fit into this?
It is clear that
wicked men killed Hans. As
such they are
fully responsible for this wicked
act, and we will talk a little more about that in a minute. But the
other fact we need to grapple with is that God did nothing to prevent this from happening. This is true
whether we think of the people who recently died at Brussels
airport or at Istanbul airport
this past week at the hand of
ISIS terrorists, or whether we think of our dear Hans.
So, what is God up to
here? In fact, what was God up
to when He allowed wicked men to kill His Son on a cruel cross?
I want to give you a biblical and
profound answer to this question. In Acts
2, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was sent,
people were confused and they needed
clarity concerning this event. So the apostle Peter gets up and
explains to thousands of people the purpose of the work of God on earth, and
then in particular, he explains to them
the person of Jesus Christ and the work He came to do on the cross. Listen to
what he says in Acts 2:22-24:
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a
man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did
through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up
according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and
killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of
death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”
There are two important statements made here:
(i) Men are fully responsible for what they
did to Jesus and as such will suffer the consequences.
(ii) …and yet we also learn that God is positively at work in the midst of such chaos and calamity. Think of it. The
cross was the cruellest form of death
that evil men could think of at
the time. It was slow and torturous.
But God knowing that this would
happen, was able to use this
terrible event by turning it into something so big and so spectacular
that it leaves us quite breathless. In
His horrible death on the cross God in Christ
did two great things in securing the salvation for
all that would believe in Him. Firstly, on the cross He satisfied the just and righteous wrath of God. Secondly, he
fully justified sinners by paying
the penalties accrued by their sin in
His death on their behalf. On the
cross He fully paid the penalty that was
due to us.
So then, Hans’
killers are fully responsible for what
they did. They will have to answer to our Namibian
system of justice for this wicked
deed, and they must bear the consequences to the fullest extent that our courts will
allow. But even more so, they will have to give an account to God for this deed. I assure you from the Bible, that
God’s wrath on defiant sinners is infinitely more terrible than the Namibian justice
system. It is much more terrible than our feeble sense of justice and the anger
that we
may feel in our heart. Jesus confirms this for us in Matthew 12:4,5:
“I tell you my friends, do not fear those who kill the
body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you
who to fear: fear him who after he has killed , has authority to cast into
hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!”
So with this in mind
then, I must counsel you further.
You must now learn to think in a very different way about this sad happening. You must learn to apply Christian logic and not conventional logic. Jesus
is giving you a job to do right
now, knowing what awaits these murderers before God, should they continue in the hardness of
their hearts.
Jesus wants you
to forgive your enemies, these
murderers. He says, “I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may
be sons of your Father in heaven…” (Matt.
5:44,45). And just in case you tell me that
this is easier to say than to do,
I remind you that Jesus as a man himself forgave His murderers on the cross, when He said:
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do…” [Lk. 23:34].
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do…” [Lk. 23:34].
I tell you as I would tell myself,… and as one who is a close member of this family:
pray for the murderers, and do not bear hatred in your hearts against them,
whilst upholding the terms of earthly
justice that must be done in our
courts of law. In Romans 13 we learn that
God has given such responsibility
to the governing authorities. But as for
you, I must remind you that your heavenly Father will not forgive
you, if you do not forgive your enemies (Matt.
6:14,15).
The apostle Paul also reminds us in this regard:
“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay , says the Lord…. Do not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good…” (Rom. 12:19-21).
“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay , says the Lord…. Do not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good…” (Rom. 12:19-21).
Jesus says : “Pray for your enemies”.
Pray that they may repent of this great sin which they have committed and pray that they may live to tell others, and warn others of the great judgement of God that is soon coming on the face of the earth (Matt 25:31-46).
So the big question is this: “Can God bring good out of this unspeakable
evil done by men?” The answer is “Yes!”
Much more than you think. In the Bible
and in the history of the Christian church, by this uncommon logic, supremely
demonstrated in the cross of Christ, God
has shown Himself to be mighty
and awesome in this world. Let us
trust God to show us great and wonderful things as a result
of this death, as we trust Him
for the outcome. May glory come to God
and may joy come to us!
One more word
concerning the care of widows and
orphans – our duty to Carol Ann, Heidi
and Riana. God’s heart
is with these vulnerable people (James 1:27). It is our duty under
God to love them and protect them and
not to exploit them. And to you I say:
the best gift that God has given you on earth for your protection, apart from having a godly family is being a
member of a godly and biblical church. Make sure that you are part
of one.
And to Heidi and Wilfried, the parents of Hans-
Jörg, my aunt and uncle, and to Mischka
his sister and my cousin we say: “May the Lord Himself comfort you and
counsel you in this dark hour.” May He
direct you into Christ Himself, so that you too will
know Christ both now and in eternity.
May the peace of God the Father and the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit surround
you all.
Amen !
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