A legacy full and genuine: Grandad's memorial sermon

Note: Cameron preached this memorial sermon in Muskegon, Michigan, at Shores Community Church on April 9, 2018.

To begin, I just want to say how incredibly honored I am to be able to stand and testify to the life of my Grandad. Thank you for allowing me the privilege to stand and speak today. Oh how I loved him! From the age of 20 until his last breath, Grandad lived his life with a laser focus on the One he now sees face-to-face: his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Never was his faith in question by anyone who knew him, and that legacy literally reverberates from the shores of Maranatha to the ends of the earth.

            Grandad was a family man. He desperately loved his wife, his five children, his 26 grandchildren, and his 16 great-grandchildren. Even the word “love” seems too soft for the heart-wrenching, hurricane-like affection Grandad showered on all of us. From the youngest great-grandchild to the oldest of his children, Grandad always carved out time to speak to us and pray daily for us by name. And obviously, looking around at the many people here, Grandad’s family extends far beyond biological ties. Ever kind to friends, neighbors, and strangers, we all remember how the family cottage on Lake Harbor Road was always packed beyond fire code capacity with men, women, and children who absolutely adored Grandad and his magnetic personality.

            Along with everyone else here, I always knew that no matter where God took me, I’d always have a welcome place beside my Grandad. “I love you, old handsome boy,” he’d say, as he’d plop a big wet kiss on my cheek. In my younger years I’d try to dodge that kiss, always unsuccessfully. Then we’d sit on the cottage’s porch swing rocking away as he’d listen to my boyish ramblings that, if I could go back and analyze them now, probably sounded so outrageous and disconnected.

            I often return in my thoughts to that porch swing. Maybe I’m an eight year old kid again sucking on a piece of watermelon Grandmama picked up that morning from Meijer. My legs dangle back and forth. It’s summertime at Maranatha, with a promise that my dad and Grandad will take my brother and me to the beach soon if we’re good. We might even swing by the Sweet Shop.

Maybe I’m 16 and telling Grandad how tough it really is entering a new high school. “You have no idea!” I’d insist. Soon, though, he’d have me throwing back my head in laughter, just like him. The world always seemed lighter and brighter after those talks.

Or maybe I’m 26 and newly married. My Grandad laughs his long, hearty laugh as he sees my eyes light up when my bride, Jessica, walks through the creaky door to sit next to me.

I’ll never outgrow that porch swing.

            For, in my mind, on that swing sits a man with a heart as wide as Lake Michigan. Buford Armstrong, my Grandad, lived and loved well for 80 years. It is hard to underestimate that kind of legacy. How many lives were touched by his life? How many people brought into God’s kingdom because Grandad first said yes to Jesus? Countless!

In preparation for this message, I asked Grandad’s five children – my dad, Cal (or Buzz), Uncle Daran, Aunt Valorie, Aunt Veronica, and Uncle Brooks – if they remembered some of Grandad’s favorite verses and hymns. Here are their responses:

Dad (Buzz): “I remember him referring to John 1:1 often. (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”) My dad also really loved many of the Proverbs about wisdom. As for songs, one of my earlier memories is of him singing a gospel song that I think is called, ‘Have a little talk with Jesus.’”

I was able to track down this song. Here are some of the (very fitting) words:

“Now let us have a little talk with Jesus
Let us tell Him all about our troubles
He will hear our faintest cry and we will answer by and by
Now when you feel a little prayer wheel turning
You'll know a little fire is burning
You will find a little talk with Jesus makes it right”

Daran: He always loved “Up from the grave He arose” and “How Great Thou Art.”

Up from the grave he arose

With a mighty triumph o’er his foes;

He arose a victor from the dark domain

And he lives forever, with his saints to reign

He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Val: I remember my dad singing Ring the Bells at Christmas and teaching me that song. Also Heavenly Sunlight. And at Easter we sang Up from the Grave He Arose over and over. My dad memorized a lot of Scripture as a new believer and he told me how amazing that was. I have many sweet memories of my dad singing old love songs to my mom. I used to ask him to sing The House of Blue Lights (which I loved to hear him do), Sixteen Candles, a bunch of Sam Cook, the Platters, The Silhouettes. In our home we really only listened to 50s music.

Veronica: My dad loved Isaiah 40:31 that says we will soar on wings like eagles, run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint. Grandad loves that verse because he is looking forward to having his new heavenly body and being in heaven with Jesus. Also Psalm 139. He was so thankful that the Lord knew him before he was born in the womb and protected him before he became a Christian during his wild, dangerous teenage years. He feels the Lord protected him until he brought Grandad to himself when he met Grandmama. He loves the hymns “What a friend we have in Jesus” and “Heavenly Sunlight” and “Rock of Ages,” and that one was sung at his dad’s funeral and your great grandpa Armstrong often sang that when Grandad was a little boy. I also love thinking about Sunday mornings at First Baptist Church in Wayne when I was a little girl – I would walk into the sanctuary, wait to hear my dad’s big laugh, and then I’d know I was safe. Grandad always said that that was the most wonderful time of his life.

Brooks: Isaiah 40:31 comes to mind first for me. He loved the image of the eagle. As for music, he loved old hymns, especially Amazing Grace (he would say he was a wretch before he met Grandmama and through her he came to know the Lord) and How Great Thou Art. He loved music and was always singing oldies to the kids – Calendar Girl, My Girl, What a Wonderful World by Sam Cook, so many to name. He would sing Zippity Do Da, the cattle song or I’m a Lonesome Polecat from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He’d always put in your name (whoever he was singing to) to any song, and I thought he made up the song Pretty Blue Eyes just for me when I was a kid. He loved to read Buford and the Little Big Horn. All of these and many more but mostly I will miss his laugh and how much he loved life and all the simple things like spring and the color yellow, mornings and going to breakfast, and just telling stories and being with his family.   

It is right and good to remember Grandad like this. It is right and good because his is a life worth remembering, through smiles and laughter as well as through tears and sorrow. And we know that whenever God calls any of his saints home that their death is precious to him. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints,” writes the Psalmist in Psalm 116:15. Grandad is not here physically anymore, but we are not unaware of where he is. In the little letter of 1 Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul writes:

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. (1 Thes. 4:13-14)

            So it is ok to grieve. It is ok to cry. It is ok to sit and think of Grandad and weep at his death, because by weeping we testify that death isn’t how things should be. There is an end coming even to death, and the Bible says that death itself is conquered by the sacrificial atonement of Jesus on the Cross. Death has lost its ultimate sting. “We do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.” Grandad knew and lived and prayed and sang and proclaimed that hope all of his days.  

I’ll never forget visiting him in mid-February at the hospital. Fresh out of surgery, I expected just to watch him sleep. Instead he lucidly (and miraculously) asked my wife and me about our lives and about our baby and later remarkably led all four of us who were in the room in prayer from his hospital bed! Surely, Grandad loved Jesus! If I could pull back the curtain of this world and we could see him now, I think he’d say something like this: “Don’t worry, loved ones. I am dancing and laughing with Jesus, my forever Lord. My bones are strong and my strength is back. I’m home.” I also think Grandad would look each one of us in the eye and say, “Don’t miss this chance to know my Savior. Repent and believe the gospel. It’s really all about Jesus today.” And, of course, the three words we’ve all heard thousands of times, “I love you.”

Finally, I think Grandad might fall silent for a moment, smile that big grin we all adore, the grin that says “see you soon, son/daughter, grandson/granddaughter, beautiful wife,” and joyfully sing these powerful old words to another favorite hymn:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Save from wrath and make me pure.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyes shall close in death,
When I rise to worlds unknown,
And behold Thee on Thy throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.