Funeral for Edna Earl Goodman
December 8, 2025

Psalm 23

A day or two after Edna Earl entered hospice care, Jimmy and Peggy Burke visited with her. She looked them both in the eye and said that she was going to get stronger and she was going to get better. Truer words have never been spoken, for Edna Earl is better today than she’s ever been.

Jesus told about a man who knew pain and suffering but who got so much better: At a rich man’s gate “was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores” (Lk 16:20-21). That is suffering! However, Lazarus, like Edna Earl, died: “The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side” (Lk 16:22). The rich man—that man at whose gate Lazarus was laid—also died and ended up in torment. When he saw Lazarus at Abraham’s side, he begged Abraham to send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and cool his tongue. Abraham replied to the rich man, “Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here” (Lk 16:25).

Edna Earl knew great suffering in her 99 years on this earth. Yet, last Friday, angels gathered around her bedside and carried her soul to the Paradise of God, where she knows nothing but comfort. God promises his people comfort: He “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev 21:4).

While the former things will pass away into eternal bliss, Edna Earl’s memory hasn’t passed away. Because my wife Tammy works fulltime, she often doesn’t get to know people as well as I do. Last Christmas, I volunteered to take the church’s gift basket to Edna Earl, and I told Tammy that I wanted her to go with me because she just had to meet Edna Earl. We stopped by one evening, and as we were getting back in the car, Tammy looked at me and said, “That is the most lovely lady I have ever met.”

Edna Earl was such a lovely lady because she allowed the Lord Jesus to live in her. She was one of the founding members of the Church of Christ Deer Park. Although her health no longer permitted her to assemble with the church, her concern for the congregation never wavered. Every Sunday Edna Earl watched our services online, and I don’t believe I ever visited her but that Edna Earl didn’t have some comment about my previous sermon; not only did she watch, but she paid attention. Edna Earl mailed her contribution to the office every month (her check showed up just like clockwork). Jimmy and Peggy Burke visited with Edna Earl shortly after she entered hospice care, and she told them that she wanted the Deer Park church to remain strong. Well, Edna Earl, we ain’t going anywhere!

But Edna Earl didn’t just care about her spiritual family, but she loved her physical family, too. I met with the family last week just to hear their stories about their Mimi. That’s the only time a family has ever asked to meet with me specifically for the purpose of sharing stories about a departed loved one. And I found it unusual, but as the family began to talk, I quickly realized why it was so necessary—because Edna Earl was in a class all by herself. I’ve never conducted a funeral for anyone like Edna Earl before because there has never been someone like Edna Earl before.

One word ran through the family’s stories: Servant—Edna Earl was a servant. In fact, Edna Earl was such a servant that she struggled when it became time for her to be served. You see, the holidays were important to Edna Earl, so important that, until the last decade, she prepared the entire Thanksgiving meal all by herself—the turkey, all the trimmings, and the deserts. All the family did was show up and eat. But as she began that inevitable decline, she couldn’t do all that work, and it was difficult to let others help.

That’s so much the attitude that Jesus taught us to have: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt 20:25-28).

One story especially touched me, partially because it brought back memories of my own grandmother and great-grandmother. I heard how Edna Earl always sent birthday cards, never failing to miss a single person in the family. And the amazing thing: I was told that each year on the person’s birthday he or she would walk to the mailbox and there would be a card with some money in it—not a day early and not a day late.

Edna Earl herself celebrated 99 birthdays in this world, but she won’t celebrate another. For she’s gone to a city where time is no more, where she’ll never grow old, but where she’ll enjoy God’s joy forever and ever.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Prayer