For Sera: We Shall Go to Her.

A week ago, we gathered with Diem and Yen for the baby showers. Today, we gather here with deep sadness for the baby's memorial. Just last Friday, Diem's doctor said that baby Sera was fine during the check up. Four days later Yen rushed Diem into the hospital. He called on us for prayer support; and the prayer chains spread quickly. But only an hour later, the devastating news also spread through the prayer chains: Sera was declared dead upon arrival.

Just because children are unborn, it doesn't mean that they are not our children. Bonding and relationship occurs early. Yen often read for the baby every night. Hopes and dreams attached to a person long before he or she is born. My wife and I was trying to talk Diem and Yen into an arranged marriage for my four-year-old son, Timmy. And the fullness of God's image was bestowed upon us even before conception. God said, "I created your inmost being; I knit you together in your mother's womb. My eyes beheld your unformed body. All the days ordained for you, were written in my book, before one of them came to be."

Yet when Sera passed through our life so quickly, making her entrance the same as her exit. We felt so deadening and empty and sad.

But there is a significant difference in Sera's death...

There are two types of funerals we often attend. One leaves us wondering where would the person be in the after life, and one we leave knowing so certain that they will be in the presence of God. Sera's case was the later. We absolutely know for sure where she is. Jesus himself gave us the assurance. In Matthew chapter 19 we read about some children coming to Jesus and some of his disciples tried to stop them from disturbing Him, and Jesus said: "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the-kingdom-of-heaven belongs to such as these." The kingdom of heaven!

There is another instance in the Bible, which this truth is even clearer. In 2 Samuel 12, King David had a child who was terminally ill. Starting from verse 16 we read:
David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.
On the seventh day the child died. David's servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, "While the child was still living, we spoke to David but he would not listen to us. How can we tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate."
David noticed that his servants were whispering among themselves and he realized the child was dead
"Is the child dead?" he asked.
"Yes," they replied, "he is dead."
Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
His servants asked him, "Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!"
He answered, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, 'Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.' But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me."

"I will go to him!" We all know where King David went. The man after God's own heart spent his eternal life with God; and that where his child went. It is also where Sera went.

A few people and I had the privilege to witness a glimpse of Sera's passing through. It was Wednesday afternoon when the doctors induced Diem's delivery. We were waiting outside for a while for everything to be finished. Then Yen came out and took his mom and Diem's mom inside. When they came back out, the two women were full of tears. Then it was our turn. We silently gathered around the bed. Diem was holding Sera in her arms. It looked like the baby was just sleeping. I asked to hold the baby. And I prayed for her. We welcomed her into our world and we also said farewell. We reminded ourselves in the depth of God's heart, he also knows what it's like to lose His own child.

After I returned Sera back to her mom, Yen asked for the Bible and came right next to the bed. Trying to suppress his tears, he held his wife's hand and started reading this text:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."
Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
He said, "Go and tell this people:
'Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.'
Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed."
Then I said, "For how long, O Lord?"
And he answered:
"Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged,
until the Lord has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken.
And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land."

Then Yen started praying. He told about how he and Diem used to read this passage for the baby; and how Sera got her name from this passage. And as her namesake, they now returned Sera to the throne of God. Yen said that they had no questions, and they demanded no answers. And he ended his prayer, saying that they would trust in God.

Then in my mind's eyes, I saw a vision. And I spoke forth of what I saw to the parents. I said that, "There shall be a day when you come to the gates of heaven. As you adjust your eyes to the glorious splendors surrounding; and you saw a being of light approaching you. And you ask, 'Who are you?' And the being of light shall answer, 'I am the daughter you thought you never have.'"

Yen, Diem; the Word of God affirms, "You shall go to her."

Your eternal destiny was set when you chose to put your faith in Jesus. He stated, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies." Not only He said so, but He also demonstrated it well. Yen, before you know God, you spent two years investigating Jesus, His claims and His actions. And the irrefutable fact of Jesus-Christ-rise-from-the-dead sealed your trust in Him.

You, who believe in Him will live. You shall go to her. All of us who believe in Him shall go to her. We will see Sera; we will get to know her! We will get to love her! Who said that death is end of relationship? "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through Jesus Christ. For thousands of years death reigned as final-destination for all human lives. But when Jesus was raised from the dead, it was a signal of the end of death-as-final-destination. He broke through death and led the way for us into eternal life!

Perhaps some of you here today cannot be certain if you will go to Sera or not; and that understandably so. From the sacred text Yen was reading, the seraphs in the throne room of God exalted Him, "Holy! Very Holy! Most Holy!" God is so holy that no sinful man could be in His presence. Unless according to a seraph, "your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." In that brief encounter, the seraph carried the message of forgiveness and salvation. Similarly, in the brief encounter we have with Sera, she caused us to stop and consider our eternal destination. Sera also carried a message from God to us as well. The message is simple, "She will not return to us, but will we come to her?" And she pointed us to the way to God, to the truth of God, and to the life in God. She pointed to Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the life.