Obituary of Esther Marie Evans

Esther Marie Evans

1928 - 2024

 

Esther Evans was born in Dickson, AB, on May 12, 1928, the second child out of eleven children born to her parents, Jacob and Martha Jensen, immigrants from Denmark.  Esther grew up speaking only Danish until she started school.  Her early years were hard, times were tough, those stories are hard to listen to.  When Esther was 6, she fell off a horse and broke her left arm.  The doctor was drunk and made a mess setting her arm so that it never straightened properly again, but she hid it well and that arm was as strong as the other. 

Esther, and her older sister, Ruth, started attending Sunday School at a very early age, and that faith carried her through many hard times.  After Esther finished school, she went to Bible School in Calgary and then trained to become a nurse.  In Bible School, she met lifelong friends, Lil Anderson, Edith Anderson and the McComish sisters, which brought her to Coronation to work at the hospital.  This is how she met her husband, Tom Evans, when he was patient there. 

Tom and Esther raised four girls:  Colleen, Margaret, Angie and Barbie.  Tom and Esther worked very hard on the family farm with milk cows, range cows and grain farming.  Yet, they still made time to take the family to church regularly and assist with the many ministry opportunities there.  Esther loved to entertain and made many meals for family and friends.  She was still assisting Margaret and Angie with meal preparation up until the end of July this year.  Esther was very strong willed and didn’t mince words.  You knew where you stood with Esther and sometimes her girls wondered why she had so many friends. 

Even with her own health struggles, she managed to keep her husband at home through his long illness and we are so thankful, her family was able to do the same for her.  Esther has suffered with arthritis for many years and finally quit walking four years ago after a fall which broke her femur on one leg and dislocated the hip on the other. 

When her eldest child Colleen died, Esther truly showed her resilience and faith in her Lord and Saviour.  As sad as this loss was to her, she stayed strong for her family.  The girls wondered who her new favorite child would be, never dreaming she would adopt Edith Thulien as her daughter and favorite.  She made a good choice. 

Esther struggled sometimes with why God kept her alive so long as she felt she was becoming a burden.  Her family told her that our only purpose on earth is to point others to Christ and when your work on earth is done, you will enter His rest.  Right up until Esther’s last breath, she enjoyed listening to her Christian music and singing along, having the Bible read to her and still telling her friends and family she wanted to see them in heaven.  Esther entered His rest on August 26, 2024, after a very painful battle.  She died peacefully in her sleep in her own home with her children by her side. 

Esther is survived by her daughters: Margaret Evans, Angie Evans and Barbie (Lyle) Berg; son-in-law Dan Kinakin and family; sisters: Dagny Horth, Inga (Dennis) Petersen, Sigrid (Ron) Van Wert and Ingrid (Jerry) Baskerville; brother Ben (Phyllis) Jensen; brother-in-law Allan Boomer; numerous nieces and nephews. 

Esther is predeceased by parents Jacob and Martha Jensen; husband Tom Evans; daughter Colleen Kinakin; sisters: Eva Boomer, Carla Jensen, Astrid Jager and Ruth Thompkins; brother Cai Jensen; parents-in-laws  Enoch and Margaret Evans; brothers-in-law: Harry Horth, Bill Jager, Merle Thompkins, Bill Stannard and Ken Jensen; sisters-in-law  Nancy Stannard and Jackie Jensen; cousin  Trevor Jones; nephews:  Dennis Jensen, Ralph Jensen, Shaun Jensen, Barry Claridge, Doug Stannard and Les Wulff and niece Solveig Runars.

Celebration of Life

Friday, August 30, 2024 at 2:00 P.M.

Coronation Community Centre, Coronation, Alberta

 

 

Memorial donations may be made to the Colleen Kinakin Biblical Scholarship Fund c/o Box 336, Veteran, Alberta T0C 2S0

or to a charity of choice

 

 

 

 

Memorial Service for Esther Marie Evans               August 30, 2024 2:00 pm           Pastor Clayton Grice - Officiant

 

Welcome

We have gathered here today to honour and remember Esther Marie Evans.  In our time together we want to observe all that is fitting to convey our best regards for Esther.  Today we say goodbye to one who has made a significant contribution to our lives as a Sister, Wife, Mother, Aunt, Neighbor and Friend, Church and Community member. Esther, Tom and their family played an important role in my own life and walk with the Lord over the years. Esther was a no-nonsense type of Lady who was never one to mince words. She was honest, and sincere; what you saw was what you got. Integrity was important to Esther, and in matters that she felt were important, uncompromising.  It was crucial to Esther that her word and actions were consistent with what she believed to be true and right and good.

 

Esther was kind and compassionate; she was gifted in serving others and she loved to show hospitality to her neighbors, family and friends. There was always time for a cup of coffee and visit, which also included copious amounts of the most delicious food. Esther loved children and because of this was a strict disciplinarian. She represented well the mindset her generation in instilling godly morals and manners in her children, and any other children that God might place in Esther’s path.  I do remember as a teenager that Esther wasn’t afraid to frankly address the matter of my behaviour if she felt necessary; and while at the time I maybe didn’t appreciate it so much, looking back I can see that she only had my best interests in mind!  She loved little children, and has passed that same love on to Colleen, Margaret, Angie and Barbie.   

 

I will always remember Esther’s teasing, the twinkle in her eye and her great sense of humour. She really kept her wits about her to the very end, and my last visit with was both full of sorrow and humour.  I will not forget the way she tenaciously clung to the promises of God. Esther’s faith in Christ was genuine, and more than anything else she wanted Jesus to be glorified in her life and testimony.   We even see it in her expressed desires for her memorial service this afternoon. Esther wanted no pictures of her at the front, no slideshow and very little fuss made about her. In fact, she told her daughters that she wanted was for us  to take all the time we could just to talk about Jesus, and all God has done for us through him so that we might know a right relationship with God forever. 

 

On behalf of Esther’s family, I want to thank you all for joining them today, to celebrate Esther’s Heavenly Homecoming.  Our sorrow is Esther’s gain, for she is with her Saviour and Lord. Many of you have traveled some distance to be here, and your presence is a comfort to them in their loss, as you grieve with them and for them.  We want to hallow this time in Esther’s memory and worship our God together in the most fitting ways. So let us begin by opening our time together with prayer . . .

 

Prayer

Our Gracious Heavenly Father, we are grateful to be in this place together this afternoon to honour Esther as we knew and loved her in life.  Draw near to each of us we pray and grant to us what we need for this day.  We come to you for comfort and peace, strength and courage, joyful memories, and an extravagant measure of your love.  We want to thank you for the way that you have blessed us through Esther in life, and for the gift of precious memories in her death.  Continue with us in blessing this time of observance and remembrance, we pray, for the sake of Christ, our only hope and our only true comfort, in life and in death.  In His precious name we pray, Amen.

 

Congregational Hymn – I’d Rather Have Jesus.

 

                Scripture Readings:

                                John 5: 25-29; 11:23-27

                                I Corinthians 15:1-20; 50-58

                                Revelation 21:1-15

 

Homily-Esther loved God and she cherished His Word.  She read her Bible often, loved to listen to it preached and in it she found comfort, confidence, and conviction.  She loved to talk about all God has promised to us in its pages; and she truly was a student of God’s Word most of her life. Esther didn’t journal or write in her Bible, she committed portions of it to memory, and she would bookmark passages that she was studying.  When Esther passed away, her bookmark was placed in I Corinthian 15. Esther was keenly interested in understanding Christ’s resurrection, as well as God promise that we would be raised from the grave too.  She wanted to understand Christ’s promised return-and should he tarry, what death would mean for her as a Christian.  Esther was always reflecting on Heaven, and the life to come. With Colleen’s death just 15 months ago, and her own declining health, Esther wanted to know more about what awaited her as a believer in Jesus.

 

Let’s take a look at I Corinthians 15 once again and see what God has to say to us from it, about life, about death, and God’s promised love and salvation to all who put their trust in him!   READ I Corinthians 1:3-11.

 

In I Corinthians 15:1-11, Paul the writer of this part of the Bible lays out the central beliefs of the Christian Faith. Everything revolves around Jesus- his life, his claims to God’s Promised Savior King, his Death on a Cross and his Resurrection 3 days later from the grave, so that we might know a new relationship with God forever. This Paul refers to as the Gospel-the Good News!  If true it changes everything!  It changes how we relate to God and to one another! It changes where we find meaning and joy and hope in this life! And it was precisely these claims and their convincing proof that led to the explosive growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire and beyond during first 300 years of its existence.  Though brutally persecuted for what they believed, those who had claimed to have encountered the resurrected Jesus, held to this belief even in the face execution and death; none of those who claimed to be eyewitnesses of Jesus’ death and resurrection ever denied what they knew was true about Jesus.  Paul was once a persecutor of Christians could not believe Jesus was risen from the grave-until he met the risen Lord!

 

What should we take note of from the Text?

 

First that Jesus the Christ died and was buried for our sins. Paul makes it clear that this fulfills the Old Testament promises of God.  Jesus came to address the problems that have plagued humanity from the very beginning, the problems of sin, suffering, death and evil.  The Bible, especially in the Old Testament, makes it clear that we are corrupted from the inside out-that we have turned our backs on our God, the one who has made us and given us life, to be our own gods in his place, to assert our own selfish will over all that he has made. The evil things we do in His Creation serve as evidence that our hearts, souls, minds and wills are alienated from God.

 

 In Psalm 14, King David puts it this way, “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
    They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
    there is none who does good.

² The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
    to see if there are any who understand,^[a]
    who seek after God.

³ They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
    there is none who does good,
    not even one.

⁴ Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
    who eat up my people as they eat bread
    and do not call upon the Lord?

 

In Romans 3:19, Paul writes, “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God,’ meaning none of us lives for God or loves God or honours or respects God as he deserves.  He goes on to write in Romans 6:23 that  “The Wages of Sin, is death.” God cannot allow us to live on in rebellion against him forever. Because we have turned our backs on the Giver of Life, God gives us over to what we want-which is death. In his mercy, he must bring an end to our personal reigns of terror. It can be no other way.

 

We all know this is true.  We do not do the good we know we should do, and we do the things we know we shouldn’t just because we want to.  We are never as bad as we could be, but we are also never as good as we should be.  We are bent in on ourselves; we love self, more than God, more than our neighbours.  We are so corrupted that we cannot even live by our own moral codes and consciences, let alone God’s perfect and holy will for our lives. 

 

Esther believed this to be true.  In our last couple of conversations, she was well aware of her own leanings towards self and sin.  She had a good understanding of what she deserved had not Christ come to die for her sin. She freely acknowledged that Hell, not Heaven was her just reward. She wanted everyone to be aware of where they stood before God because of sin, to know the bad news before they could know what made Jesus good news, which leads us to what Jesus’ death for our sins and the cross accomplishes. So what does his death accomplish?

 

He dies for us so that we might be forgiven.  As God’s Son, he bears the weight of our alienation and rebellion against God. To forgive someone means that we bear the weight or consequences of their wrongs against us.  It means we take on ourselves the consequences and judgement that those who sin against us deserve.  This is what Christ has done for us.  He pays our sin debt and cancels our debt before God by paying it in full!  Read Col. 1:13-14

 

He dies to ransom us and reconcile us to God.

Read Romans 5:6-11.

 

Esther understood that Jesus alone could make her right with God, and that it was only by trusting in Christ as the sacrifice for her sins so that she could be forgiven by God and know a new right and good relationship with God.  She talked much about what God had done for her in love, through completely undeserved, and that her own attempts to be good contributed nothing to her being saved; all that was hers to do was to receive this gracious gift of life and love from God himself! 

 

This should lead us to another question, what does Jesus’ resurrection accomplish?  If it is true as Paul says it was that Jesus the Christ was raised on the Three Day, why was this necessary?

 

To prove that he was indeed God in human flesh and that his words and teaching were true!  In John 5, Jesus claimed to be God’s Son, and to be God the Son-He claimed that he had the power and authority of God himself to forgive sins, to die and rise again, and to raise everyone who has ever lived from the grave.  These claims are clearly outrageous if they are not true.  Only his own resurrection could prove that he was indeed God’s Son in human flesh who was given power to both die and to be raised from the dead!  And because Jesus lives, we can trust his promise that he will one day raise us too! 

 

To give us access to God through the person of the Holy Spirit, who takes God’s forgiveness and uses it to change our hearts and minds, who moves us to turn away from our sins and self-centeredness, to love God and to love one another as we love ourselves.  The Holy Spirit binds us to our God and applies what Jesus has done so that we can live with God and grow in an ever-deepening relationship with him!   Jesus makes this clear it us in John 14:15-17. Read John 14:15-17.

 

To give his inheritance, everything he had earned because he loved God with all of his being and obeyed God’s will. His inheritance is eternal life and God’s love. John 3:16. 

 

Jesus rose for the grave to raise us from the dead, to give us victory over sin and death, and to restore and transform our mortal bodies so that we will no longer experience the corruptions of sin, sickness, suffering, and death anymore. We will live with him in a New Creation where none of these will be experienced ever again! Read Revelation 21:1-5.

 

Paul closes I Corinthians 15 with these words:  Read I Corinthians 15:50-56.

 

Esther believed this to be true.  She treasured the Holy Spirit’s work in her life, treasured Jesus as her rightful King, she loved God because he had first loved her. Esther looked forward to the simple promise that though her body would die, what God had for her and for all who believed in him was far better than anything this world could afford her! Esther held tightly to God’s promise that if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that he was risen from the Grave that we would be saved-from our sin, and in the end even death, to know live with him, and his love forever!

 

In John 11, Jesus says at the funeral of his friend Lazarus, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believe in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” Then He asks, his listeners then, and us now, “What do you believe?”  Have you confessed to God that you are a sinner, and that you deserve his judgement?  Have you turned to him, accepting his offer of forgiveness that Jesus has opened to you by dying in your place on the cross? Have you accepted his gift of right standing with God, and new life and the gift of a deep intimate relationship with God through the offered Holy Spirit? If you have, then take this time to thank the Lord for the way he has worked and continues to work to save you from sin and reconcile you to Himself. 

 

If the answer is no, then I would ask that you stop to consider what is at stake; we cannot inherit or receive eternal life from God because of our own goodness.  Confess your sin and self-centeredness to him. Turn away from self rule and receive Christ; ask him to come and extend his rule over your life. Ask Him to fill you with his Holy Spirit and then step out in faith and trust that what he says is true!  You will never regret receiving what he has to give you-a new relationship with Him!  

 

Maybe you are unconvinced, of both the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ or your need of him.  Maybe all of this talk of Jesus being raised from the dead is simply foolishness to you. According to Paul, it was to him too.  There is good evidence for the truth of his words here, over 500 people saw Jesus resurrected. It wasn’t just Jesus’ followers; it was also those who at one time couldn’t or wouldn’t believe that Jesus had risen from the dead!  There is more evidence for the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ than any other ancient person that has ever lived-even more proof for his resurrection than the life and existence of Julius Ceasar.  As crazy as it may sound, I would encourage you to look at the evidence! 

 

Solo-Nolan Thulien The Old Rugged Cross

 

Closing Prayer O God, our Creator, Healer and King, whether we live or whether we die, we know that we are always in your care.  We thank you for Esther, and for the privilege of sharing life with her.  Surround us, we pray, with your gentle care, grant us your peace in our grief, and help us to comfort one another, and to show grace and compassion to one another in the days to come. We thank you for the food and fellowship we are about to enjoy, and we pray your blessing on those who have prepared it for us!

 

We know close our time together, praying as you taught your disciples to pray, and we say . . .

 

Benediction And now may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ bless you and keep you and guide you in the ways of His peace.  Amen

 

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