As we gather here, on this poignant Thursday morning, celebrating a Eucharist of resurrection in the face of circumstances enough to make any of us rage and or weep, it can be hard to know what to say. And this morning, of all mornings, we should, perhaps, think about what Martin might say.

And that is a task which is easier than it might be - for not only was Martin a man of clear and strong thoughts and convictions, but, to my joy and my relief, amongst the remarkable preparations he made for his death, he left several pages of story and history about his life, meticulously written in his characteristic handwriting and blue ink. And so I can tell you, with some authority, what Martin would want to say to us this morning.

And it begins, appropriately, at the beginning, when Martin relates that he was born on July 17th, 1961, at 61 Albert Street, to the delight of his parents Ben and Eileen. He was born into a remarkably close-knit community of terraced houses, long since demolished, where four generations of his family lived from 1905 to 1975. As he himself said, a relative was never more than a few doors away, poised to praise or chastise, whichever was required!

He started his school career at St Mary's School, shocked at the apparent desertion of his mother on his first day there that he cried for most of the morning. It was his grandad who was subtle enough to cheer him up, by giving the promise of two days off if he saw it through until Friday afternoon! A good church school, every Tuesday morning they attended a eucharist at St Mary's, and it was here that Martin, with so many others, picked up the threads of the Christian faith, as they worshipped with the little red books of a now bygone age.

The 1970s saw the family move to Thorngate Street, and Martin start at Bishop Stopford, where he rapidly dispensed with his over-shiny new satchel for a duffle bag. Arguments over platform shoes, long hair and flared trousers raged in the Freeman's house, just as much as they did in the homes of just about all teenagers as the seventies took their grip.

While much of that was normal for a teenage boy in the 70s, Martin's way of earning money was distinctly unusual. While his peers were busy with paper rounds, Martin worked for a family of bookmakers - running errands for them with paperwork and also with cash, for they could see in him a young man in whom they could place an absolute trust. Here he learned the value of money - and also the relative wisdom of bookies and punters, noting that it was the bookies who all drove Jaguars!

In 1975, Martin, Lynda and Joy's grandparents moved to a flat on the London Road which had a walled garden that was surplus to requirements. His grandad suggested that he might make it a vegetable plot, and in that extraordinary drought summer of 1976, Martin did just that - starting 35 years of work on the plot, supplying the family and many others with a constant supply of fresh fruit and veg.

To the disgust of his English teacher, who recognised Martin's gift with words - a gift that I and many others have seen reflected in letters of great poise and beauty that Martin seemed capable of writing with remarkable ease - Martin left school to work at the Borough nursery, and attended Moulton College from 1977 to 1979, from which he qualified with distinction. From there he took up his post at the General Hospital, where he was to work for the rest of his life, bringing remarkable love and care both to plants and people for over 30 years.

Martin talks with surprise about how visible his job made him, and how many people wanted to chat with him, although my own interpretation of this is that it says at least as much about who and what Martin was as a person, as about the role of those working in the gardens and public spaces.

In 1993, Martin embarked on creating a Pocket Park for the hospital - the first ever Pocket Park in a hospital, and, with the help of a team of enthusiastic helpers, it has grown and grown, with footpaths, wild flower meadows, a butterfly garden and a natural pond. This remarkable project married Martin's strong commitment to biodiversity and love of nature, with his profound instinctive affection for his fellow human beings - most of the seats, trees and plants being memorial donations, discreetly and sympathetically arranged by Martin. The park won many awards, and is a very particular credit to Martin's work with the NHS, to the ideal of which he remained loyal and committed throughout his life, often remarking how the people it employed were amongst the most friendly and dedicated colleagues for which one could ever hope. We should all hope that the Park will remain, despite the developments and new buildings on the hospital site.

Martin met Denise at a Valentine's disco at Wicksteed Park in 1983, and they were married here in this church in 1987, on a remarkably stormy day that was not an indication of the kind of marriage they were to enjoy! They were blessed by Sam's arrival in 1993, and in the following year, by the dramatic and premature arrival of Becca, who was only 2lb 4ozs when she was born. Martin found himself visiting two intensive care beds, as Denise and Becca both coped with the physical traumas around her birth, but eventually the family were all able to be united at home.

Nobody here needs to be reminded how his family were, to use Martin’s own words, "his greatest pride and joy" and that "he remained devoted to them to the end". Reading what Martin wrote in preparation for today, having talked with him on many occasions in recent months, and talking with his family, I'm not alone in recognizing that his greatest regret, as his four-and-a-half year battle with cancer entered its last stages, was that it was going to prevent him seeing how Sam and Becca would continue to grow towards adulthood. But even in his last weeks, which coincided first with exam leave, and then the summer holiday period, he was able to celebrate family milestones such as Rebecca's prom, Sam's successful driving test (allowing Martin to buy her first car), and his own 50th birthday, which was the last time he came to this church until he was received here last night.

I could go on, and on, and on. After eight privileged years as incumbent of this parish, I have my own precious memories of Martin, remembering his Confirmation, alongside Denise and Sam in 2005, and the myriad ways he offered support to the church community, and, indeed, to me personally. I tell you that all too few parish priests have had the blessing of receiving such carefully-worded, affirming and loving letters as I had the joy to receive from Martin on several occasions.

I could go on and on by sharing more of Martin's reminiscences about his too short but very full life. About his skill at badminton; about his passion for history and his research into his family; about his huge joy in belonging to and being part of the Body of Christ which assembled in this parish church Sunday by Sunday by Sunday. God is a loving God, but the time he gives us does not always feel very loving, let alone very adequate, and I suspect that everyone gathered here today feels that Martin lived a life far shorter than should have been the case, let alone the fact, trivial by comparison, that it is not remotely possible to speak about his life with any sense of completion in the time decently appointed for such an address.

What else, then, we might ask in these final minutes - what else might Martin say to us now as his parting words? Well, as I have already said, I was blessed to receive from Denise and the girls several pages in Martin's inimitable handwriting that give a beautiful account of his life, written with his consummate care and clarity, that is both full of history and full of character. I have also read other loving tributes to him by those close to him, that are moving and profound.

And perhaps the most moving thing of all was that at the top of Martin's own account of his remarkable life was the heading Funeral Address - Needs an end by the Family. And this, just to be clear, is of a document that takes us up to about the last week of his life.

Well, I want to suggest that, in a way, Martin’s final words to us are a real family ending. And an ending for a family bigger than Denise, Sam and Rebecca, precious beyond precious though they were to him. An ending for a family bigger than Lynda and Joy; an ending for a family even bigger than all those of so many generations clustered in and around Albert Street for so much of the previous century. For the final words, on a morning so tragic, and yet so wonderful as this, the final words need to be the echo of those words from near the end of Matthew’s gospel, which John has just read for us - words that are among the earliest and most formative words for this family - the family of the church, both in this age, and in countless ages gone by - a family which mattered to Martin very profoundly.

For, 2000 years ago, there were some women who were grieving, and for whom their cornerstone had been all too suddenly and prematurely removed from them. There were some women who went to grieve at the place of burial of the dead. And something - something in this final journey was not what they were expecting. And they left the tomb quickly, with fear and with great joy, and they went to tell the remarkable truth they had discovered - a truth that death is not the final word, and that life and love - the life and love that God gave to Martin and gives to each one of us in the name of Jesus Christ - that life and love are stronger, and that they have the final word.

And so, if there is an end to his life story to be completed by the family, I want to suggest that it is completed not just by Denise, Sam and Becca, but by all of us who knew Martin and loved him, and that it is a story which ends with those final, critical words of Good News, that sees women leaving the place of the dead in order to proclaim the unstoppability of the living.

And that isn’t necessarily something which it is always easy to do - Matthew is honest enough to record that the women left the tomb with great joy, but also with fear. Denise, Sam and Rebecca, we all know that there will be times of sadness and anxiety as you adjust to life without Martin in the weeks, months and years to come. But I hope and pray that you, and that all of us, will rejoice with great joy as well. For we should rejoice not only in a life that was exceptionally well lived and loved, but in a life that endures inside our own hearts, and which endures with God. And I hope and pray that we might hear, in this great liturgy to celebrate the many blessings that Martin both received and gave to so many others, I pray that we might hear final words, a final ‘family ending’, that echo the great command of the resurrection that, ultimately, we should and we must be people of great joy, and that we will run and tell the ever-waiting world of all the goodness and love that was - and is - Martin, and of all the goodness and love of the God who created him, died for him, and, in the power of the resurrection, will surely redeem him. Amen.