Funeral, Eulogy, and Memorial Talks
FUNERAL ADDRESS FOR RONNIE RHODES
[Talk given by By John E. Enslen Ordained High Priest The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on January 19, 2005.]
It is a privilege to be a part of this unique service which matches the unique personality of Ronnie Rhodes. We have run the gamete of emotions from sobbing sadness to foot-stomping joy. I felt like asking Carl Stephens if I could have this dance when the country song was playing. Actually, Ronnie has done it to me again. Every time I hear that song in the future I will think of Ronnie Rhodes.
I am thankful to the entire Rhodes family for the honor of being asked to give a spiritual message today. Ronnie and I have been friends for a long time. When I began my senior year at Wetumpka High School in the fall of 1964, over 40 years ago, Ronnie was beginning his 8th grade year just down the hall in the same school building. His older brother Dusty was one year behind me and in the same class with my sister Emily. We all walked the same hallways and were neighbors at the lockers. My life has been blessed over the years through my associations with Ronnie and his family. I suspect that we all have a good stock of nutty Ronnie stories we could tell and by which we will remember him.
My desire today is to hopefully provide at least some small measure of comfort to those who stand in need of comfort. No matter how strong we are, or how well we may know the certainty of the forthcoming death of loved one, we cannot fully prepare for its impact. There is still a powerful emotional trauma to face.
For a spiritual message of comfort, I would like to share some of Ronnie’s fundamental beliefs about life and death. We had numerous discussions about these beliefs over the course of many years. He and I believed them to be a part of the doctrines of our Savior Jesus Christ. As I share them with you, I hope that you find them to be logical and fully supported by the Holy Bible.
Each of us is composed of two separate and distinctly different parts. One of those parts is our physical body. That’s the part of us that we can touch. It’s the flesh-and-bones part of us. It’s our tabernacle of clay which is composed of the same elements that we find in the dust of the earth. It’s the part of us that, over time, becomes old and weak and worn out. Our physical body is a temporary possession which has been given us for our short time here on planet earth.
There is another part of us. It is not a mere temporary possession. It is the eternal part of us. Each of us is a spirit person. Our spirit person in housed within our physical body, thus making our physical body the temple of our spirit. As Paul declared, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (I Corinthians 3:16
Like our physical body, our spirit body is in the form of a person. After all, don’t angels look in form like me and you? Yet each of our physical bodies look distinctly different. Likewise, each of our spirits is special and has a unique personality. But unlike our physical body which comes from the elements of the earth, our spirit body comes directly from God who is the father of our spirits. Our reference to God as “Our Heavenly Father” is very literal. We are all children of the same Father in Heaven, “Father” being the title which God has selected for Himself. Man is of divine origin. In referring to God, the author of the Book of Acts stated, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; for we are also his offspring”. (Acts 17:28)
It is the spirit person within us that gives our physical body life and movement and animation. It is the spirit part of us that possesses intelligence—the ability to learn, think, reason, and make deliberate choices.
A spirit person’s identity is eternal. We have always been and will always be the same person that we are now, although we have the opportunity and privilege to improve on our character over time by repenting and then remaining true to those proper choices.
We each lived as spirit children with our Heavenly Father before we came to this earth. Just as the Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah: “Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee…” (Jeremiah 1:4-5) As Jesus told Nicodemus: “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven…” (John 3:13)
Although we all once lived with, and in the presence of, our Heavenly Father, the knowledge of our pre-earth life is withheld from us at birth so that in this mortal condition we can learn to walk by faith instead of memory. Our inability to remember our pre-earth life with Heavenly Father allows our faith to be tested. Life is a test. Hopefully, we are taking advantage of this time on earth to increase our faith and thus our ability to control our appetites, desires, and passions so that they are exercised within the bounds that the Lord has set to insure our happiness.
One of the great challenges of mortality is to continually remind ourselves that we are not permanent human beings who occasionally have eternal-like spiritual experiences, but rather we are eternal spiritual beings who are having a temporary human experience. As mortals, we rejoice for the new born babe and then mourn his later passing. On the other hand, the angels of heaven mourn for the new born babe thrust to a wicked world, and then rejoice at his later release through death.
Thus, Ronnie has received from angels and loved ones who preceded him in death a joyous welcome to the world of spirit persons. He would not want to hurt our feelings by telling us that he had no inclination to want to return to this earth. Free from the worries and pains of this world, he will wait with great anticipation for the resurrection to commence.
Understanding the nature of our being helps us to understand death. Death is the separation of our spirit person from our physical body. Death occurs when the body, as the Bible says, “gives up the ghost” or gives up the spirit person that lives within it. Artificially produced heartbeats or brainwaves do not sustain life unless the spirit remains in the body. Mortal life exists as we know it when the body is quickened by the spirit. Heavenly Father is the God of both the quick, meaning the living, and the dead, for he is still the God and Father of his spirit children whether we be in the body or out of the body. (See II Corinthians 12:3) Only God has control over the timeliness of the spirit’s departure. In Ecclesiastes we read, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes 12:7) God is the all wise giver and taker of life. There is among us here today the next person who will die, the next person whose funeral will be held, and not a single one of us can say with the least degree of assurance that it will not be me.
Death is inescapable. It is universal. It comes to all of us. “For as in Adam, all die…” (I Corinthians 15:22) Our response to death, like our response to life, varies with our knowledge and faith. When we come to understand God’s plan of happiness for each of us, then we know that death is as indispensable to our eternal development as mortal life itself. Death is actually one of Heavenly Father’s many merciful provisions for his children. Death is a necessary end to mortality and a necessary beginning of immortality in preparation for the resurrection. Death will be seen as kind and right when we view it from the perspective of eternity. It is life and death that provides the means for obtaining a resurrected body. A spirit person cannot have a perfect, immortal, resurrected body of incorruptible flesh and bones, totally free from imperfections and disease, without first taking on an imperfect, mortal, unresurrected body of corruptible flesh and bones.
What is the resurrection? It is the uniting of our spirit person with a perfect physical body, a physical body that doesn’t get tired or sick, or hurt or ache, or get old or deteriorate or die again.
We could never, worlds without end, from eternity to eternity, be able to resurrect ourselves. The power is not within us to do such. Without Jesus, there would be no resurrection, and our spirits would remain forever without a body. Without a body, we could never be like Jesus who has a glorified immortal resurrected body. Without a body there could be no fullness of joy.
But because of the love and kindness and mercy of God, we will all be resurrected. None of us will be able to prevent being resurrected any more than we can prevent our own death. Neither death nor the resurrection is a product of our choice in this life. Both the “just and unjust” will be resurrected (Acts 24:15), and in that very same order. (I Thes. 4:16; Rev. 20:6) “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.” (I Corinthians 15:21-23; see also 1 Thessalonians 4:16)
The resurrection is free. It is a gift. It is not earned. It comes by the grace of God.
As the literal only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ had power over death. As recorded in John, Jesus explained, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This commandment I have received of my Father.” (John 10:17-18)
In the week preceding his crucifixion, the Savior said: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” (John 12:24) The mortal seed dies in the ground, but by doing so brings forth new life.
In the end because of Christ, the only thing that really dies is death itself. We can come to know that death has no sting. (See 1 Corinthians 15:55)
There is only one type of resurrection. It is the type of resurrection that Jesus Christ has provided. As the great perfect example in all other aspects of his life, so it is with the resurrection. We shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. (Romans 6:5; Philippians 3:21) The scriptures record with specific detail the tangible, physical, flesh-and-bones nature of the Savior’s resurrected body as he appeared to his apostles. Said He: “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” (Luke 24:39)
On that same occasion, the resurrected Savior ate fish and some honeycomb to demonstrate the physical nature of his body. (Luke 24:43)
Christ has not died again, but He lives as a glorified resurrected being, and our resurrection shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. We can know that when He shall appear again, we shall be like him. (Romans 6:5) (See 1 John 3:2) As Job powerfully declared with a sense of blessed assurance, “And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” (Job 19:26) The New Testament records that immediately after Christ’s resurrection, many righteous Christians were also resurrected, and the walked through the streets of Jerusalem and were seen by many people.
The resurrection deals with the quantity of embodied life we shall have, but not the quality of embodied life we shall enjoy in the hereafter. The fact that we will all be resurrected and live forever does not guarantee that all of us will inherit the celestial kingdom. The celestial kingdom is not free to every man regardless of the manner in which he has lived his life. After our spirits have been united with our resurrected bodies, we will each stand before the judgment bar of God to be judged. As a result of this judgment, we will be assigned by a just and perfect and all-knowing God to a quality of life that perfectly rewards us according to the life we have lived. (See 1 Corinthians 15:41-42)
In referring to the final judgment, the apostle John records in Revelation 20:12:
This same apostle spoke on a later occasion these words:“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened:…and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”
No man can predict with certainty what may occur to another at the judgment bar of God following the final resurrection. Only God can announce a man or woman’s ultimate fate. Only God can take into account every fact and circumstance that influences what we do and what we are. Only God knows the full intents of our hearts.“Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” (John 5:28-29)