Bernice Runstadler (1922-2011), dear friend and long-time church member at Juanita (60 years), finished her race just a few days after celebrating her 89th birthday. Proverbs 4:18 came to mind as I reflected on her long life and our long friendship.
The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day. But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble.
The famous pastor of Boston’s Trinity Church in the 1800s, Phillips Brooks, once defined preaching as the "communication of truth through personality." He had in mind, of course, the personality of the preacher. In a funeral sermon, however, we want to look at truth as it is demonstrated or reflected in the life of the person who has died. We have come together, after all, both to honor Bernice and to glorify God, whom Bernice loved and served for most of her life. In these verses in Proverbs, Solomon invites us to consider the life of the righteous – not the self-righteous moralist or legalist, but the man or woman who has been justified by grace through faith alone. Bernice was not a teacher in any formal sense, but she taught us by who she was and what she did. Let me suggest a few things that we can learn from God through Bernice.
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Pastor Bruce Ray has been senior pastor of Juanita Community Church in Kirkland, Washington since 1976. He also serves as a Police, Fire & EMS chaplain. Books include Withhold Not Correction and Celebrating the Sabbath (both published by P&R Publishing). He is a member of the...
