Help for Saying Good-bye to Our Children

After reading so much on Facebook of the trials of sending that first child off to college, I was reminded of a sermon I preached in August of 2000 when my youngest headed off to UCA for her freshman year.  If you have one leaving home for any reason, maybe these reflections will help.  I called the sermon Go with God.  My text was Psalm 121.  I would encourage you to do some kind of send off with your child and read Psalm 121 over that child as a blessing.

 

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Looking out my window, see you playing in the leaves;

It’s amazing how a little girl means all the world to me.

When I tell you that I love you, I love you more than words can say.

 

Smile, say cheese, pretty please, I wanna take your picture;

How’d you ever get so big, oh I gotta take your picture.

Hold on to the memory before the whole thing slips away.

 

I wish I could save these moments, put ‘em in a jar,

I wish I could stop the world from turning,

Keep things just the way they are.

I wish I could shelter you from everything

Not pure and sweet and good,

I know I can’t, I know I can’t,

But I wish I could.[1]

 

This is not a day I have looked forward to.  We take our youngest to college today.  From now on, when I drive up the hill to my house after work, her little red car won’t be in the driveway.  When I shout for her at the other end of the house, there’ll be no answer.  When I stick my head in her room, she won’t be there.  When we sit down to supper, her chair will be empty.  The phone will ring less.  The piano will sit silent.  And if I want to see her strawberry-blond, freckled-face countenance, I’ll have to look at pictures.  I know, I know, it’s not like she’s dead or anything.  We’ll still see her a lot.  But anybody who’s sent a kid to college knows that once they walk out that door, things are never quite the same. 

 

Just two years ago we sent our first one off to college.  Man, did I miss him!  We moved his stuff up to Jonesboro early in the month, but he didn’t leave until later.  And a couple of weeks later, when I watched his little gray truck roll down Meadowmere Terrace on his way to college and independence, it darn near killed me.  But I survived.  I think it helped having one still left at home.

 

And that one leaves today.  And will I ever miss her.  I wasn’t so sure what to think when she was born.  She was, after all, a girl.  And I knew nothing of girls.  Having been raised among three brothers and having a two-year-old son when she came into the world, I knew all about boys.  I knew about wrestling and playing ball, about getting dirty and eating like a pig, about bodily functions and acting crude.  And I knew how to discipline a boy too.  They take a spanking pretty good.  I could yell at a boy when I needed too.  But how do you discipline a girl?   When I saw her for the very first time, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to yell at her.  And I wasn’t sure I could spank her either.  So I was kind of nervous about having a girl.  Could I really enter her world?  Other than the GI Joe I played with in the mid-60s, I’d never been around dolls in my life.  And even then GI Joe was no girl doll.  He was always shooting the enemy and blowing stuff up.  He’d have had no trouble wiping out Barbie if he thought she was a Communist.  He was one bad dude.  But her girl world was gonna be different.  Dolls and tea parties, Kaboodles and My Little Ponies, jewelry and makeup, dresses and ribbons and lace.  I hoped she’d at least like sports and was so pleased when she did.  But this girl thing was gonna be a whole new world for me.  I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to understand girls.  And after eighteen years I can honestly say: I don’t understand them any better.  But I wouldn’t trade her for all the boys in the world.  She is truly my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.  And she begins a new chapter in her life today.  I’m happy for her, but I’m a little sad for myself.  Our nest feels awfully empty.

 

Maybe that’s why that Collin Raye song appeals to me today.  He sings about special moments with his little girl in the present tense.  I’m using the song to look back.  “I wish I could save these moments, put ‘em in a jar. / I wish I could stop the world from turning, keep things just the way they are. / I wish I could shelter you from everything not pure and sweet and good. / I know I can’t. I know I can’t, but I wish I could.”

 

That’s a good song for mamas and daddies who have to say good-bye.  But I’ve found another good song too.  It’s a Bible song.  It’s Psalm 121, and I invite you to open your Bible to it this morning.  Psalm 121 is the second of a group of fifteen psalms known as the “Songs of Ascent”—psalms marked by rural flavor and simple piety; psalms associated with the pilgrim’s sojourn to Jerusalem for special holy seasons.  It’s a beautiful psalm for any journey, and it’s a wonderful way to say good-bye.  Hear the word of the Lord … (read the text).

 

Life is a series of hellos and good-byes, isn’t it?  And the good-byes are usually the hard part.  Most of us know something of saying good-bye to a loved one who is going on a trip without us.  Seeing our first-born off to that first day of kindergarten.  Waving to our child as the church van pulls out of the parking lot on the way to a week of summer camp.  Watching our child in the rear-view mirror as we leave the campus at which we’ve left her.  Waving good-bye as our child and her husband pull away from their wedding reception on their way to new places, new friends, and a new life.  Giving that last hug to old friends who are moving to a new opportunity in another part of the country.  Even standing over a gurney, kissing our loved one before he’s rolled off into an operating room.  Times like these are like the time when a trapeze artist lets go of the bar and hangs in mid-air, ready to catch another support: it’s a time of danger, of expectation, of uncertainty, of excitement, of extraordinary aliveness—a wild mixture of emotion.[2]  Our loved one is moving out from under our protective wings and watchful eye.  This requires a different kind of good-bye from the kind that says, “Bye, honey, I’m off to Wal-Mart.  Be right back.”  How do we say good-bye at the big transition points of life?  Psalm 121 can help us. 

 

Psalm 121 originated as a short liturgy for saying good-bye.[3]  Perhaps originally used to bless travelers on their way up the mountains to Jerusalem, the psalm has become a bon voyage for many journeys—a wonderful way to say good-bye.

 

The psalm is very optimistic, but it doesn’t have its head in the sand.  The psalm recognizes the dangers.  This is no escapist psalm.  The psalms are just too honest.  Even amid the peace of green pastures and still waters, David acknowledged in the 23rd Psalm that he still must negotiate “the valley of the shadow of death” and the presence of his enemies.  Like that hopeful psalm, Psalm 121 never claims that the journey will be easy either. 

 

“I lift up my eyes to the hills.”  The mountains leading to Jerusalem have a breathtaking quality about them, but there’s danger up there too.  There are idolatrous shrines in the high places that seduce the traveler to be unfaithful to the living God and to worship false gods instead.  There are steep cliffs and treacherous ledges where one slip could mean sudden death.  There are dark passes where thieves and robbers lurk.  There’s the blazing sun by day, and the cold, creeping chill of night—not to mention hungry bears on the prowl, and things that go bump in the night.  Mountains are beautiful.  Hills are awesome.  But there’s danger and evil up there too.

 

There are dangers in any journey really.  Will the airplane land safely?  Will we be able to drive through the fog without an accident?  Will the freedom and new ideas of college steal away faith and virtue from the young student?  Will the surgeon find something he didn’t expect?  Will the young couple make it or wind up in divorce court?  Will the child sink or swim in his new opportunity?  Will the promotion and impending move mean success or failure?  There are dangers in any journey.  And perhaps what scares us most of all is that we can’t always protect our loved ones from the dangers of their journey.

 

We have to let them go—danger or not.  People do not belong to us; they belong to God.  They must live their own lives—follow God’s leading as best they understand it, whether we like it or not, whether it looks dangerous or not.  We have to learn to say good-bye.  We have to let them go.  Even the dangers of the journey hold the potential to build character and maturity into the one we love and let go, but it’s still a little scary when it’s time to say good-bye.

 

That’s why we really say more than good-bye, we say, “Go with God.”  Psalm 121 recognizes the danger of the journey, but its focus is on the God of the journey.

 

“I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from?”  Well, it doesn’t come from the hills, as majestic and powerful as they may to be.  “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven of earth.”  Why look to the hills when we can look to the Lord.  The Lord is larger than the hills, broader than the plains, deeper than the sea, higher than the heavens.  The Lord can hold the world in His hand.  He can spin a planet on His finger.  Don’t mistake creation for the Creator.  God is so above it all that He didn’t even have to break a sweat to make the stuff we call creation.  God spoke it into existence, and He made it all from nothing.  As Walter Sims put it:

 

Away out there, alone, above,

Without anything to make it of;

Without a saw, hammer, nail or screws

Or anything to fasten it to,

God simply spoke a word or two,

And the world came boldly into view.

 

So whether your journey takes you to the hills or the plains, to the next town or the other side of the world, every step you take will land you and your loved one in the realm of the One who made all things.  We can never get out of God’s territory or out of God’s reach.  Remember that the next time you say good-bye.

 

And remember this too: the Lord watches over us.  The psalmist describes God as a “watcher” or “keeper” six times in this brief psalm.  This reminds us that God is no impersonal executive, locked away in his office, shielded by an attack secretary, unaware or uninterested in the lives of his employees.  On the contrary, as our “watcher,” God takes the journey with us—a very present help every step of the way.  The duty of a watchman is to guard us, to keep an eye out for us, to protect us, and to stay awake at all times while he’s on duty.  The Lord is such a watchman, claims the psalm, and He is always on duty.

 

“The Lord watches over you.”

 

“He who watches over you will … neither slumber nor sleep”

 

“The Lord will keep you from all harm” (better translated “evil”).

 

“He will watch over your life.”

 

“The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore”

(which means from birth through death and all the time in between).

 

At first hearing this sounds like a sham, doesn’t it?  Either the Lord’s not a very good watchman or the psalmist isn’t telling us the truth.  We’ve all known lots of people—good Christians even—who have been on the receiving end of one kind of harm or another, people who have been battered about by the evil in our world—the victims of crime or disease, persecution or untimely death.  So what’s the deal?  Is the psalm making us a promise that the Lord can’t keep?

 

Not at all.  Neither this psalm nor the Bible as a whole promises a life free from worry, injury, accident, or illness.  What it does promise is preservation from the evil of such things.  As Eugene Peterson puts it: “All the water in all the oceans cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside.  Nor can all the trouble in the world harm us unless it gets within us.” [4]  That’s the promise of the psalm—that God will keep evil from moving in and taking over our lives: “The Lord will keep you from all evil.”  Sounds an awful lot like the prayer Jesus taught us to pray: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”  And that’s what this psalm promises—a deliverance from all the evil that assaults us in this world.  No matter what bad things come your way as you journey through life, none of that will ever separate you from God’s love or God’s purposes for your life.

 

And that’s important to remember.  When things are going badly, it’s easy to conclude that God has taken His eye off of us, or that He’s snoring soundly, unaware of our troubles, or even that He’s shifted His attention to some other Christian more interesting or more committed than we are.  This psalm keeps us from jumping to that conclusion and making that mistake.  “The Lord who watches over you … will neither slumber nor sleep.”  He watches over you day and night.  “The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”  I hope you hear the good news in that!  You are never out of His care, never out of His sight, or never out of His reach.  Never.  “The Lord watches over you.”

 

This psalm is so helpful in reminding us that our Christian lives are not defined by our struggles and our stumbles, our hardships and our trials; our Christian lives are defined by the watching, guarding Lord who keeps us always in His care.  Remember that the next time you say good-bye.  Remember that you’re really saying, “Go with God”—because God is certainly going along too.

 

I share all this today knowing that this won’t make your good-byes any easier.  Saying good-bye at the big transitions of life are, like that trapeze artist hanging in mid-air, colored with a wild mixture of emotion—no matter what side of the good-bye you’re on.  There’s nothing wrong with tears.  Some degree of anxiety is only natural.  A mixture of grief and gladness is common too.  Experiencing the power of this psalm won’t rob our good-byes of their rich emotion.  But the psalm can help us say our good-byes with more confidence—confidence in the God whose eye never misses a thing, whose heart never wavers a bit, and whose care never ceases for a second.  That’s why we can say more than good-bye, we can say “Go with God.”  And we can be equally sure that our God will remain just as faithful to those who stay behind as He is to those who make the journey.  When we know the God of this psalm, we can say our good-byes with confidence.

 

"Come to the edge," he said.

They said, "We are afraid."

"Come to the edge," he said.

They said, "We will fall."

"Come to the edge," he said.

They came.  He pushed them,

and they flew. [5]

 

“The Lord will keep you from all evil—he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”  Amen.

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[1]“I Wish I Could” by Tom Douglas and Randy Thomas, sung by Collin Raye, The Walls Came Down, (New York: Sony Music Entertainment), 1998.

[2]I owe this image to Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1980), 16.

[3]James Limburg, Psalms for Sojourners (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986), 69.

[4]Peterson, 38-39.

[5]Guillaume Apollinaire, Cited in Alan E. Nelson, Broken in the Right Place (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994), 148.



Back the Blue

I was asked to share a few words and a prayer at a local “Back the Blue Rally” in our city.  In light of the recent cop-killings in our country (77 since January, 20 in July alone), police are on edge, and communities are trying to find ways to show some support for law enforcement.  Some good things have happened already in Hot Springs: some prayer gatherings, a few churches inviting police to come rub shoulders with them.  This “Back the Blue Rally” was another attempt to let the police know the community has their backs.  That said: the following are my remarks and prayer.

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Samuel Tucker McCallum was the City Marshal in Lake Village, Arkansas.  He had served in that office just over a month when on October 11, 1928, in answering a disturbance call at a local coffee shop, he was ambushed by a drunk who shot and killed him.  He left behind a wife and six children.  One of those children, the 14 year old, was my dad.  Samuel McCallum was my grandfather.  No wonder I was taught to back the blue. 

I guess I grew up in a bubble of sorts.  My family left Little Rock when I was 8 and we ended up moving in 1964 to a small town called Branson, Missouri.  Not much crime in Branson in those days.  Not much of a police force either.  There were two or three cops as I recall.  Their headquarters was under the city library.  The policemen were friendly and pretty much knew everybody.  I remember the one named Hoss because he was a big fellow and reminded local folks of Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza.  The police would smile and wave.  And if you got in trouble they treated you more like a friend than a felon. 

My younger brother got caught with a few other teenagers for pulling a teenage prank.  They took some lady’s “Skunk Crossing” yard ornament as a joke.  She saw them, called the police, gave a description of the car, and not long after, the cop found them and pulled them over.  He lined them up, got their names, and when my brother identified himself, the policeman said, “Aren’t you Joan’s boy?  She’s not gonna like this.”  No arrest was made.  The policeman followed the boys back to the lady’s house where they returned her “Skunk Crossing” ornament and apologized for stealing it.  He then instructed them to go home and tell their parents about this.  “I know most of your parents,” he said, “so if you don’t tell them, I’ll find out, and we’ll have a problem.”  That is the kind of policemen to which I was first exposed in my life.  It felt a lot like the cops I got to know from Mayberry: kind, wise, put people first kind of officers.  Add to that, television shows of the day like Dragnet and Adam 12, The Mod Squad and Ironside, and police were real heroes to me and so many others.

My mother taught us to respect the police.  “They are an authority.  They are your friends.  You can trust them.  Treat them with respect.  Do what they tell you and you’ll be all right.”  I grew up in a bubble.

That bubble burst a little bit when I saw images on the evening news of policemen turning fire hoses on peaceful black protesters in the Civil Rights movement.  I didn’t understand that.  It didn’t make sense to me.  That did not jibe with my experience with police nor my image of how policemen were supposed to treat people.  That may have been the first time it occurred to me that even among the police there could be some bad apples in the bunch (which, of course, is true for plumbers and teachers and politicians and preachers too).

I guess I was growing up.  And as I became acquainted with police officers I realized they had the same problems as everybody else: trying to make a happy marriage, worrying about their kids’ grades and friends, making ends meet and taking off-duty security gigs to do it, just making their way in a world that can be kind of harsh sometimes.  So add a stressful home to a stressful job and it doesn’t take much for stress to become distress.  And these days there is the added pressure of all these cop killings going on and groups chanting for cops to be killed—a pretty lousy use of free speech if you ask me and all done under the protection of the police they despise.  This climate can make even a routine traffic stop a matter of life and death.  I suspect this cop-hate climate has most every policeman a little on edge these days.  I don’t know how they do this job, and to do it as well as our city, county, and state law enforcement do it.

Most Americans feel that way—which is why we’re here this morning.  After the Dallas shootings I remember thinking: “I learned something about myself today: I take the police for granted.  I need to express more appreciation and offer more prayers.”  My guess is that speaks for a lot of us.  We have a deep appreciation and respect for our law enforcement officers, the sacrifices they make for us, and the risks they take for us day by day by day.  So we back the blue.  It would never occur to me to do anything else.  But it’s easy for me to feel this way because that’s the way I was raised to feel, and I haven’t personally experienced any reason to feel otherwise.

I can’t speak for those who were raised to feel a different way, or those with first-hand experience to believe that the police are an enemy rather than a friend, that they are out to get you rather than help you, that they assume you're guilty rather than innocent.  That’s not my experience.  I can’t speak for them.  They will have to speak for themselves.

And even though it’s painful to be caught in this “black lives matter / blue lives matter” war of words in our culture, maybe one of the hopeful signs in all of this is that people are speaking up.  We’re getting these grievances on the table.  And more importantly, in many places they are not just speaking up to each other or about each other; they are speaking with each other—which is happening here in Hot Springs—building bridges of mutual respect and trust and teamwork that adds more light than heat, more hope than hurt, and makes things better and safer for everyone.

Don’t you long for the day when black and blue won’t be viewed as a bruise on society but the very colors of justice that rolls down like mighty waters and cleanses us all?

PRAYER

Father, it takes a lot of courage and a certain kind of edge to seek a career in law enforcement.  If just anybody could do it, maybe more of us would.  We can’t begin to imagine the stress they are under in these days and the worry that chips away at the peace and joy of their families.  So very few of us serve in occupations where a kiss goodbye could be the last and where a return home at the end of a shift is met with a sigh of relief and a quiet prayer of thanks.

Though our police are like us civilians in many ways, their lives are different from the rest of us in significant ways.  We get to run from danger; they don’t.  We get to avoid high-crime neighborhoods; they don’t.  We get to choose the kind of people with whom we spend time; they don’t.  We can close our eyes to the seedier side of our communities; they can’t.

Father, please give us a deeper respect for police and appreciation for all they do for us.  Forgive us when we take them for granted or treat them with contempt and anger—even when they write us a ticket we deserve.  Our city, our state, our highways, our lakes would be chaos if it were not for their presence.  Thank you for the order and stability they bring to our world.

We pray for them today.  We pray you would give every officer …

a kind heart, a keen eye, and a firm hand,

a respect for and understanding of all those they serve,

a distinct blindness to the color of anyone’s skin,

a humble heart that longs for justice,

and the wisdom to know the right and do the right, especially when they have to decide all that in a split-second.

We pray you would bless them with …

the courage to take the risks required of them,

a heart not hardened by all the evil that they see

a salary they can live on

satisfaction in their work,

and a sense that they make a difference in their communities, that their communities are better places because they are in them.

And, Lord, if it’s not asking too much, we ask for …

a supportive constituency,

the opportunities to build bridges toward those most suspicious of them,

cordiality with the public they serve,

collegiality with their co-workers,

and a sympathetic friend who can help them process what they feel.

Would you please get them safely home at the end of each day to a family that loves them and supports them and doesn’t live in fear when they go off to work?  Please bless their families.  Would you mend the frayed edges of their nerves with peace, and surprise them with joy?

And finally, we ask you would bless each officer with …

a long, healthy, and peaceful life,

and a sense that they need you to be their best as men and women and as officers of the law, so that in the words of the prophet Micah, they may do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with you, God.

In Jesus’ name, amen.

Melanie and the Last Enemy

I got the news during a worship service.  I couldn’t believe it.  Melanie Braley had died.  What?  It couldn’t be.  She’s only 34.  Everyone who knew her was shocked—her dad, mom, and sister most of all.

The privilege was mine to say a few words at her memorial service at the church.  What to say?  I hoped to say something that would honor Melanie, bring glory to God, and address the issue of the Christian and death.  For what it’s worth here were my remarks.

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If you know the story of Job in the Bible, you’ll recall that after Job’s avalanche of short-term trouble with long-term consequences in which he lost his crops, his servants, his livestock, his health, and his children, four of his friends came to pay their respects.  They didn’t even recognize him as he sat in a pile of ashes scratching his boils with a broken potsherd.  His friends were so overcome by Job’s condition and his grief, that they just sat down around him and didn’t say a word.  Not a single word for seven long days.  And when they finally spoke up, Job wished they’d have just kept their mouths shut.

Ecclesiastes 3 says that there is a time to be silent and a time to speak.  Even though this family may be best served by our silent presence, a funeral service demands a few words from those who lead it.  Here’s praying that our words today won’t spoil the silence. 

It’s in times like this that we understand why Paul called death “the last enemy.”  There are those for whom death feels more like a friend than an enemy:

The cancer-ridden patient who has no quality of life, no chance for recovery, and pain upon pain upon pain.

·         The 85-year-old whose body has worn out.  No more sparkle in the eye.  No more skip in the step.  Only walker and wheelchair and mostly bed—a bed positioned so he can see out the window and remember when he lived his life rather than endured it.

·         The son of a mother stricken with Alzheimer’s.  A woman who has no idea who she is or where she is or that strange man is who comes to visit her so often.  Her body is decimated.  She can’t swallow.  She can’t walk.  And though he loves his mother, death will be a friend when he finally calls her name—a friend to his mother, a friend to him.  Death will be release and relief and rescue and finally peace.

Today, we do not grieve this kind of death—the death that comes dressed in party clothes driving the welcome wagon.  When a 34-year-old woman like Melanie dies so suddenly and unexpectedly, death comes dressed in black, a hood over his head, with sickle in hand to reap a too early harvest.  It hurts all who are left behind. 

·       We are left with questions: “Why her?  Why now?  Why, God?  And how do we go on without her?” 

·       We are left with things unsaid and acts undone: “I was going to call her last week and thought, no, I’ll do that next week.” 

·       We are left with anger as we shake a fist at heaven shouting: “This is not fair!” 

·       But mostly we are left with grief—grieving what was and what could have been and should have been.  And grief hurts.  It feels like numbness and emptiness, like darkness and depression; it feels like a dagger straight through the heart. 

Melanie was one of earth’s bright lights.  As Mike Pounders was preparing for the service, he asked me if I could tell him anything about Melanie that would help him in his preparations.  This was my return text:

Bright, extremely caring, driven, something of a perfectionist, loved God and loved people, wanted to please the important people in her life, a great daughter and sister, a runner, Kanakuk alumni, sweet, highly thought of by those who knew her and worked with her, died way too soon.

It was my joy to know her for 18 years, though I didn’t see her much when she went off to college.  She went way off to college in San Diego.  You don’t come home a lot of weekends when you’re that far away.  Still, I saw her on occasional holidays when she was home.  She and her family began attending our church in 1998, and I had the privilege of baptizing the whole family at the same time.  I got acquainted with Melanie because she was the same age as my daughter, Kristen.  They were friends.  I still remember sitting with her out beside the old sanctuary on the little retaining wall that separated some parking places from the educational building.  She was in her senior year and she wanted to visit with me and have me pray with her concerning the choices she needed to make about her future.

And that future became a quite accomplished one for her in her nursing work and then as a nurse anesthetist which she was doing in Dallas and Austin when she died.  Her future never got her back to Hot Springs to live and work.  She was very good at what she did, took a deep interest in the patients that she served, and was much loved by her colleagues.

Of course, she loved her family.  Her mom and dad were here chief encouragers and confidants, and she was a source of joy and pride to them.  And what a sister!  She always said that when she felt like she was finally settled down and could build a house, she would build a cottage on the house in which her sister Kathleen could live when their parents died.

Melanie was no more perfect than any of the rest of us.  She had her issues and her struggles.  But she was one fine human being and Christian.  She leaves a huge hole in all those who had her in their heart.  And especially for her mom and dad who naturally anticipated Melanie would bury them, not the other way around.

Yes, Paul was right.  Death is “the last enemy.”  It kills life in full bloom.  It cheats us of an anticipated future.  And it steals, at least for a season, a measure of our faith and hope and joy and peace.

But the good news of the gospel is that death is a defeated enemy.  Death was defeated by a young man just year younger than Melanie who chose to die to break our bondage to sin and death and the grave.  Jesus took death head on.  And while it looked like death won, while it looked like death had Him, death couldn’t keep Him.   On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, spit in death’s eye, and offers eternal life to all who put their faith in Him. 

Melanie put her faith in Jesus during her youth years.  She never left Jesus, and Jesus never left her.  He has Melanie in his strong hand and nothing—not death, not life, not trouble, not hardship—can separate her from His love or snatch her from His hand.  Melanie is with Jesus today.  Of course, we’d rather have her with us.  But since she can’t be with us, how grateful we are that she is with Jesus!  She is well and she is at peace.  And death won’t even get to keep her body forever, for God will raise her body from the dead on the last day.  And we who trust Jesus will see her again when we join her in heaven or when Jesus comes again.  Like Peter Marshall used to say to those grieving a believing loved one: “Since she is with Jesus and Jesus is with you, you will never be too very far apart.”

Jesus defeated death.  That’s our hope in life, in death, and in grief.  This is why Martin Luther could say of his 14-year-old daughter Magdalena who died of the plague as the carpenters were nailing down the lid of her coffin, “Hammer away!  On doomsday she’ll rise again.”

Jesus defeated death.  That’s why Thomas Brooks could preach in a funeral sermon from 1651:

Death is another Moses: it delivers believers out of bondage, and from making bricks in Egypt.  It is a day or year of jubilee to a gracious spirit—the year wherein he goes out free from all those cruel taskmasters which it had long groaned under … .  Death is a believer's coronation-day, it is his marriage-day. It is a rest from sin, a rest from sorrow, a rest from afflictions and temptations,

See that Christ be your Lord and Master, … and then your dying-day shall be to you as the day of harvest to the farmer, as the day of deliverance to the prisoner, as the day of coronation to the king, and as the day of marriage to the bride.  Your dying-day shall be a day of triumph and exaltation, a day of freedom and consolation, a day of rest and satisfaction!

Jesus defeated death.  That’s why John Piper could write: “For believers, death is not the condemning wrath of God toward them, it is the last gasp of a defeated enemy who opens a door to paradise.”

It’s a lot harder to take and appreciate at the funeral of a 34-year-old.  But this is true for every believer whether she is 6 or 16 or 36 or 66 or 86.  It’s the gospel truth.  And it’s our only hope.

So when your grief is hardest may God stir up this hope in the deepest parts of your lives in the name of Him who conquered death and walks with us through our grief to a brighter day—Jesus Christ the Lord—amen.

A Little Pastoral Wisdom in This Strange Election Cycle

I am among a rather large group of pastors who dread presidential election years.  I have pastored a couple of church with a pretty diverse membership, so I worry a little bit about whether election year politics will create disunity in the church, whether small group Bible studies will turn into campaign rhetoric for one candidate or another.  This is my ninth presidential rodeo since I've been a lead pastor—three in the first church I served, six in the church I serve right now.  Somehow we have always survived election years with minimal damage.  On occasion a handful of folks get angry about this or that and a couple of others get their noses out of joint for a few weeks, but all in all, no harm, no foul.

 

Every cycle there are a few who think I need to be more vocal about these things, educate the church on the issues and the candidates.  I've had a hard time finding that in any pastor's job description in the New Testament, so I resist.  I speak in general terms at some point in the process: Christians should study the candidates, discern how the candidates' views conflict or agree with basic Christian morality, pray diligently, and vote their conscience as they sense the Spirit leads them.  I encourage the folks not to sell their souls, their conscience, or their vote to any political party, but to assess candidates for their own merits.  In 35 years of pastoring, I've never done anything more than that.  I have talked with people privately about these matters, but I don't use the pulpit to endorse political parties or candidates.  Usually, that is the alpha and omega of it.

 

But this is the first time in all these election cycles when I have had a number of people ask me what I think of the presidential election and how I am going to vote.  Many believe we have no good choices this year.  Many don’t like either of the presumptive candidates.  I couldn’t agree more.  So let me tell you what I’ve told them for a while now: It’s a long way to November.  Pray.  Watch.  See what happens.  See if or how things change in the next few months.  And in the end, vote your conscience as you sense God’s Spirit leading you.  Oh, and in light of America’s ongoing rebellion against God, His love, and His ways, here’s how I’m praying about the election at this point: "Lord, please don’t give us the president we deserve; give us the president we need."  Our country has always stood in the need of prayer—maybe now more than ever.  America's answers, America's healing, won't be found at a ballot box but in a prayer closet.  Please join me in praying for revival and awakening in our country.  If solutions and answers and unity are to be found, they'll be found there.

From a Distance

So I was finishing Michelle Bell’s rocking FBC-Fitness Core and More class at our gym last Thursday.  As I was helping clean up a little, Steven came into the gym with his mother.  Steven was there for Adult Upper Level Basketball.  I know Steven.  I’d never met his mother.  As we were picking up all the fitness shrapnel (Bosus, med balls, gliders, mats, weights) following the workout, Steven yells over, “Hey John, come and meet my mother.”

 

“Sure,” I said.  “Let me finish picking up and I’ll be right there.” 

 

So once the gym floor was clear, I walked over to meet Steven’s mom.  She gave me the once-over, kind of squinted a second, and said, “You look a lot younger from a distance.”

 

What do you say to that?  “Uh … I’m better looking from a distance too.”  I kind of chuckled.  She didn’t.  We chatted a moment.  I bragged on her son.  And that was that.

 

But I grinned all the way to the car: “You look a lot younger from a distance.”  And then another thought struck me.  Maybe it came from the Spirit; maybe it came from me—I’m not sure: “Live in such a way that your Christian life looks as good up close as it does from a distance.”

 

You’ve heard the old saying: “An expert is the guy from out of town.”  People almost always look better from a distance.  The guy or girl we don’t know very well almost always looks pretty good.  But get to know her, see her up close, peel back the layers that distance wraps around a person, and how does she look then?

 

Except for some of those much-deserved wrathful outbursts of God in the Old Testament, God looks pretty good from a distance too.  But when we read the Gospels, and see God-in-the-flesh, Jesus Christ, up close and personal, God looks even better.

 

I’m praying that the better people know me, the better my Christian life will look to them, the better Jesus-in-me will look to them.  I have some work to do here.  How about you?

And Mike Scott Smiled

I attended a funeral today—helped with it even.  Mike Scott died last Saturday at the end of a battle with liver failure.  And it wasn’t the liver he’d been born with.  That one gave out years ago, and Mike was the recipient of a transplant from some kind person who determined that death for him would mean life for someone else.  He couldn’t have donated his liver to a better man.  I had known Mike for the many years he and his family had been part of our church.  I got to know him a little better during his liver transplant.  But I never knew him all that well …

Until today.  The service was simple—the way Mike and his family wanted it.  Laura, his wife, and his adult children, Rachael and Bailey, didn’t want a lot of fuss.  These are quiet people.  That didn’t change with the funeral.  There was a piano medley of praise songs, one solo—Great Is Thy Faithfulness—and three speakers.  I was the parenthesis around a beautiful sentence weaved together by two of Mike’s best friends: Robert Farrell and Kevin Scanlon.  These guys were Razorback buddies in the late 70s who have maintained a growing friendship across all these years.

What rich tributes they offered to their friend!  Robert shared about visiting with Mike on the team bus as the Razorbacks were leaving College Station on the heels of a big Hog win over Texas A&M.  Robert had caught the first touchdown pass in his Razorback career.  And he told Mike, “Why is it that when I just achieved a childhood dream, I feel a little empty?”  Mike said, “Robert, it is just a football game, you know.  Maybe your priorities are out of order.  Try seeking Jesus first.”  Robert remembers that to this day, and he said that statement got him moving more fully toward the Lord.

Kevin and Mike were roommates in the athletic dorm.  Early in the relationship, Mike told Kevin, “I’m not a drinker or a carouser, and my faith is really important to me.  I also like Skoal.”  Kevin was amazed at the way so many people came to Mike for advice and how very much respected Mike was by the team and by so many others.  Mike was never shy to speak of Jesus but he didn’t blast his faith like a trumpet—loud and with a lot of fanfare.  He played it more like a flute—quiet, crisp, clean, and clear.  Kevin told a number of other stories as well.  Kevin’s presence on the team made it harder for Mike to ever get on the field as a quarterback.  And after college, Kevin even became Mike’s immediate boss with Stephen’s, Inc.  But their friendship ascended way above all that.

Mike would have rather lived than die.  He had overcome a lot in his life to succeed on so many levels.   Sadly, he couldn’t overcome this latest bout of illness.  But he was okay with that.  He was content to leave that in God’s hands.  He never worried for himself, but he was concerned for his family.  Still, he knew God would take care of them too.  So Mike faced these days with confidence.  Not long ago he talked with Laura about the apostle Paul’s line to his Philippian friends: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”  That was Mike’s sentiment to a T.  As long as he lived, he wanted his life to reflect Christ.  But when death came, he knew it would be gain for him.  He tried as hard as he could to get through that infection and numerous other complications in his illness.  He gave it his best shot.  But when a Christian gets to the place where there really is no living and he can only say “For me to exist is Christ,” then the gain of death and heaven is just too enticing to kick against any longer.  So late last Saturday, surrounded by family and friends, Mike knew the race God had called him to run was coming to an end.  He saw the finish line.  Like any good athlete, he bolted for it, and as he broke the tape, he raised his arms in praise to Jesus for getting him all the way home.  And he did so amid the cheers of a great cloud of witnesses, some of whom may well have been there because Mike helped them to Jesus.  What the apostle Paul said about himself to Timothy, we could say about Mike today.  Mike fought the good fight, he finished the race, he kept the faith, and now he is enjoying Jesus and sweet reunion and the glories of heaven.

Did I tell you it was a really good funeral service?  Hopeful, encouraging, faith-filled, plenty of laughter, and a few tears too.  But here’s what was so remarkable about it: even though Robert and Kevin told a lot of Mike-stories, somehow Jesus came off the hero.  That’s the way, Mike, Laura, Rachael and Bailey wanted it.  And that’s the way it was.

I had two thoughts as I left the service today.  One, I sure hope my funeral is not the next one to follow his J—it would be so anticlimactic.  But the main thought I walked away with today is not a thought I’ve often pondered at the end of any of the gazillion funerals I’ve been part of in my decades of ministry.  I walked away asking God to make a better Christian out of me.

And Mike Scott smiled.