A Message of Comfort and Hope

Pastor Bill Allison

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer

Friday, August 27, 2010

John 14:1-6
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God: trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

A seamstress is a woman who sews. She puts things together using a needle and thread. I am not a person who sews. I don’t confess a great deal of knowledge about sewing. But Thelma Penner was a seamstress – in fact, a very accomplished seamstress. She loved to sew. She put together many things through her sewing, because that’s what sewing is all about. By using a needle and thread, you put things together. Whether it’s a button on a shirt of two pieces of cloth sewed together to make a quilt or stitching letters on a communion kneeling pad or the making of the many banners we have in our church – a seamstress puts things together so they hold.

Thelma was a seamstress. She not only put things together with a needle and thread, but she was also the seamstress in your family, not so much with her needle and thread, although from time to time she may have used them to se4w or later some of your clothing, but she also used her love for you to help your family hold together. She loved you, John, faithfully for 55 years, supporting and caring for you. She loved you, David, Gary and Sara, nurturing you in the faith so that you would become the Christian people you are today. As a Christian wife, mother and grandmother, Thelma used her seamstress skills to hold your family together with her love, her care, her devotion and her prayers.

Now, the Savior, who has brought her and all of us together, has called her to eternal rest in heaven.

Jesus brought us together when we were far apart through His death and resurrection. He made us one with Him. He tells us today that He is the only way, truth and life. He is our tailor and it is his knots that hold us close to Him in our life and in death.

The first knot Jesus tells us is that He is “The Way.” Christ is the Way for you and me. He is the only way. Without Him, we are lost and condemned in our sins. With Him, through faith in Jesus as the Redeemer, we have forgiveness of our sins and became children of God the Father and heirs of heaven. Jesus didn’t say that anybody else was the way to heaven. He said, “I am the Way.” This goes against the thinking of many people. The thinking and religion of many people is to try to gain eternal life through their own efforts. This is the religion of man without Christ. God deals a most crushing blow to this kind of thinking. In His Word, He tells us: “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.” And again, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Jesus says there isn’t any possible way to get to heaven and there isn’t any possible way to the forgiveness of sins except through Him. Do you know what I mean by this? I can tell y ou what this means by giving you Thelma’s confession which I heard a number of times when I would visit her and give her Holy Communion. Thelma trusted in Christ, and placed herself completely into the hands of the Savior. Her faith was confessed in the words of the hymn that she must have sung many times in church: “I am trusting Thee, Lord Jesus, trusting only Thee.” To know that Jesus Christ is the Way to heaven and forgiveness is to believe that He is the Savior who gave His lifeblood on the cross for her and our eternal salvation; this was Thelma’s confession. You can thank God that she knew the one and only way to heaven through faith in Christ, the Savior of the world.

The second knot Jesus tells us that he is: “The Truth.” Thelma Penner was a fine Christian woman. She was a faithful follower of Christ and a faithful member of His Church. In fact, she and john have been members of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church for 50 years. Her life of faith, her walk with Christ, began at her baptism which occurred on January 29, 1933. God welcomed her into his family on that day. The Holy Spirit entered into her heart, bringing faith and life. Sins were washed away; she became a child of the living God; a solid knot was tied bringing her and her Lord together for eternity. She was confirmed in that faith on April 14, 1954 and given this Bible verse from Psalm 37:5 – “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and he shall bring it to pass.” The Lord was continuing to work in Thelma’s heart tightening that knot that would keep them together. Now drawn by her love for Christ, she regularly came to the Lord’s house seeking His words of forgiveness and love. She prayed with us, she received the Lord’s Supper with us, and she, in her own way, shared her faith with us. For m any years, she used her gift of being a seamstress in her involvement with our Lutheran Women’s Missionary League and its many activities. Yes, we thank God for Thelma penner, her many talents, her many gifts of service, her dedication and love she gave back to God and His church. We will miss her. I will miss her. I thank God for her and the blessings she was to us and our congregation.

Which brings us to the third and final knot – that is, Christ is the Life.

Why did Thelma give of her life in service to Christ and His Church? Why did she follow her confirmation verse and “commit her way to the Lord”? Because she knew that God had loved her so much that He sent Jesus to be her Savior and that she needed Jesus who died on the cross for her sins and rose victoriously from the grave, giving her what she is experiencing right now: ETERNAL LIFE. The truth that you and I must hear and believe is this – that God loves you in His Son Jesus Christ. Christ has redeemed you. He has taken away all of our sins. Because Christ is the only Way and because He is all truth, He can and does bring the message of hope when He says, “I am the Life.”

Thelma Penner was a seamstress. She sewed things together to make them one. She believed in Jesus her tailor who is the Way, the Truth and the Life and who made her one wit him through His death and resurrection. She now lives victoriously with Jesus. Those of you who mourn this day can thank God that Thelma is safe with Christ. Because on Monday morning, Thelma heard the voice of Jesus call her to His heavenly home. And by faith in Christ, Thelma held out her hand and the Lord took her home to be with Him in heaven. For where there is such a faith in Christ, as Thelma had, God promises that there is that assurance that death is but the gate to eternal life. Death becomes not an end but a new beginning, the beginning of a new and eternal life with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

MAY THE PEACE OF GOD WHICH SURPASSES ALL HUMAN UNDERSTANDING KEEP YOUR HEARTS AND MINDS IN CHRIST JESUS UNTO LIFE EVERLASTING. AMEN.

August 25, 2010
Thelma Marie (Gerhardt) Penner
Jan. 10, 1933 - Aug. 23, 2010

Thelma Marie (Gerhardt) Penner, 77, Kokomo, went to be with her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Monday, Aug. 23, 2010. She was a resident at Waterford Place Health Campus, Kokomo.

Thelma was born to the late Harry Albert Emil and Louise Marie (Stuenkel) Gerhardt on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 1933, in Netawaka, Kan. (Jackson County). God welcomed her into His family at baptism on Jan. 29, 1933, and confirmed her faith through the rite of confirmation on April 14, 1946. She married John Edward Penner of Peru on Sept. 12, 1954.

Thelma worked as a cook and cafeteria supervisor at Maple Crest Middle School in the 1970s and was self-employed as a seamstress. Thelma enjoyed sewing, needlework, travel and time with family. She was a member of the Beta Sigma Phi social, cultural and civic sorority and a missionary and quilter within the Lutheran Women’s Missionary Service Guild at The Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Kokomo. Thelma was an active member at the church for more than 50 years.

Thelma is survived by her beloved husband of 55 years, John. She was the beloved mother of two sons, David Wayne Penner and wife Janet Kay (Dammann), Lake Zurich, Ill., and Gary Edward Penner and wife Janis Gale (Walters), Fort Wayne; and one daughter, Sara Louise Schamerloh and husband Richard J., Fort Wayne. She was also the beloved grandmother of four grandchildren, Andrew, Alison, Janie and Claire; and two sisters, Lois, Topeka, Kan., and Dorothy, Omaha, Neb.

Preceding her in death were her parents, Harry Albert Emil and Louise Marie (Stuenkel) Gerhardt; and siblings, Linda Kay (Auten) Gerhardt, Raymond Gerhardt, Lyle Gerhardt and Eldon “Joe” Gerhardt.

Funeral services will begin at 10 a.m. Friday at The Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Kokomo, with the Rev. William Allison officiating. Burial will follow in Sunset Memorial Gardens. Visitation hours are 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday at Shirley & Stout Funeral Home, 1315 Lincoln Road, and one hour before the service Friday at the church.

Preferred memorials are to Thelma Penner Memorial, Lutheran Women’s Missionary Service Guild at The Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, 705 Southway Blvd., Kokomo, IN 46902, or Thelma Penner Memorial, Alzheimer’s Association of Greater Indiana, 50 E. 91st St., Suite 100, Indianapolis, IN 46240. Messages of condolence may be left online at www.stoutandson.com.