Category Archives: Death

Lily, a senior lady in my church who blessed my life

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Lily has been in Heaven for some 15 years or more. She left no children, so there’s no one left of her family to read this and no good reason not to tell it.

Lily was a classy lady, about the age of my father and the widow of an executive who left her fairly well off, although not rich. Before retiring, she had put in a full career as a public school librarian.  Because she had no children she was generous with her two nieces, with her church, her college, and her pastors.

When I announced I was leaving and would no longer be her pastor, she invited me to lunch and handed me a check for $1,000. “I want you to come back and do my funeral.”  I forget my exact promise to her, but it was probably along the lines of “If I possibly can, I will be here.”  Pastors are unable to make long-range open-ended promises because of the nature of their responsibilities. (Complicating the matter was that I had taken a leave of absence from that church with no knowledge of where the Lord would be sending me next. Distance could be an issue on returning for her funeral, as well as unforeseeable circumstances.)

Over the next few years, she would repeat the “agreement” we had, that I was expected to do her funeral.

Lily was one of those members who refuses to let go of the former preacher. She stayed in touch through an occasional letter or phone call. When a relative drove her to Baton Rouge to visit a friend, they detoured down to New Orleans to see us.

One day I received a letter from her with a check for $10,000. She made it out to my church to use any way we pleased.  It allowed us to do something I had long wanted to do, a morning radio program (a live two-minute Phone Call from the Pastor) over the seminary’s Christian station.  Lily’s gift funded it for several years.

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Lessons the day we buried my wonderful mother

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(This was first posted fourteen years back, on this date in 2012. I thought it deserved a second airing. See what you think.)

Monday and Tuesday nights of this week, I slept in our family farmhouse alone. It’s the first time in my long life I’ve done that. That house was built early in 1954, and ever since my parents have lived in it, never venturing away for more than a day or so. They were the ultimate homebodies. Over the years, whenever I visited them, I never needed to call ahead to see if they would be at home.

They were always home. Always.

Now, the house is empty.

Dad died in November of 2007; Mom died last Saturday, June 2, 2012.

Mom and Pop are united in Heaven. They each lived past their 95th birthday, and Mom almost made it to 96. Longevity is a good thing if you get the living part right. They aced it.

Tuesday, we had Mom’s funeral. Her casket sat at the foot of the church altar just as her youngest son Charlie’s had in April 2006 and Pop’s did 18 months after that.

The same three preachers did Mom’s funeral as did Pop’s (Pastor Mickey Crane, my brother Ron, and I). The songs were different, and maybe the scriptures. But the congregation was much the same.

It felt like the second verse of the same song.

This Thursday morning, lying awake in bed when I wish I could have been sleeping, I thought of lessons you learn or get reinforced in family funerals that you might otherwise miss. I came up with 12; there are probably 500.

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Pastor, those scars on your soul are blessed of God

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I bear in my body the brand-marks of Jesus.  Galatians 6:17.

We all do.

I suppose it’s a vocational hazard.

We preachers walk through the valley of the shadow with people in the church and out of it. We give them our best, weep with them, tell what we know, and offer all the encouragement we can. Then, we go on to the next thing. Someone else is needing us.

That family we ministered to, however, does not go on to anything. They are forever saddled with the loss of that child or parent. They still carry the hole in their heart and return to the empty house or sad playroom. However, there is one positive thing they will always carry with them.

They never forget how the pastor ministered to them.

He forgets.

Not because he meant to, but because after them, he was called to more hospital rooms, more funeral homes, and more counseling situations. He walked away from that family knowing he had a choice: he could leave a piece of himself with them–his heart, his soul, something–or he could close the door on that sad room in his inner sanctum in order to be able to give of himself to the next crisis.

If he leaves a piece of himself with every broken-hearted family he works with, pretty soon there’s nothing left.

So he turns it off when he walks away. He goes on to the next thing.

He hates doing that. But it’s a survival thing. It’s the only way to last in this kind of tear-your-heart-out-and-stomp-that-sucker ministry.

Case in point.

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So, what do you think about in the middle of the night?

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Here is my answer. It’s from this website fifteen years ago.  (I’ve tweaked it a tad.)

The mind is a funny thing. It can be creative in the small hours of the morning and solve your problems. As a high school algebra student, I had that happen more than once. I’d go to bed puzzled about a problem, then wake up with the answer.

Great when your mind solves a problem without actually involving you in the process!

The mind can also be anxious in those hours. Half the people I know who wake up between midnight and dawn tell me they are worried about unidentified problems. Anxiety is a sleep-stealer.

Once in a while, I have awakened with a great article that just cried to be written. On one occasion, I got up and wrote it down. Next morning, far from being disappointed, I was impressed. Good stuff, I thought. I worked with it over the next few days and then sent it off to several magazines to see if the editors had a use for it.

InterVarsity Press’ His magazine bought the article and ran it in a choice place–the inside back cover. Over the next 15 years, from time to time I would receive small checks in the mail from other magazines that ran it. Several notes from editors in foreign countries like Korea and New Zealand advised me they were running the article.

So, I learned that when something is hammering on my brain in the middle of the night, to get up and write it down.

So, one morning this week, I was lying in bed thinking about this world we’re privileged to live in. About this planet we are privileged to live on. This is the result…

NO VIBRATIONS.

Here we are on this globe we named Earth, hurling through space at so many thousands of miles per minute. The most amazing thing to me is the absence of vibrations.

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Waiting to cross the river to the other side

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“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand” (2 Timothy 4:6).

The morning paper contained a tiny article about the Fort Morgan ferry that runs across Mobile Bay to Dauphin Island.  The cost for one car and two passengers, this fellow said, is $20.50.  That’s up considerably since the last time my wife and I rode it with our grandson.  Grant was about six, as I recall.

We had arrived at the ferry landing and took our place in line with other cars. I bought the ticket and we were milling around waiting for the ferry to arrive from the other shore.  Grant was apprehensive.

“Grandpa, are we going to cross that river?” I assured him we were.

“But there’s no bridge. Are we going to drive out in the water?”

I explained about the ferry boat.

“Grandpa, I’m afraid.”

I said, “Grant, you are with grandpa and grandma.  Do you know how much we love you? We are going to take care of you.  You have nothing to worry about.”

A half hour later, in the middle of Mobile Bay and standing on the deck of the ferry, my beloved grandson looked up, beaming. “Grandpa, this is fun.”

Almost anyone is apprehensive about taking a trip he’s never experienced, to a place where he’s never been, and with no visible means of transport.

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The resurrection of Jesus: The Ultimate Game-Changer

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“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus” (I Thessalonians 4:14).

If Jesus really did rise from the dead as Scripture claims and as Christians hold, then nothing is the same and everything has changed forever.

The reason Christians are positively giddy about the Easter Event–the resurrection of Jesus–is that in walking out of that tomb and leaving it forever empty,  He broke the stranglehold in which death had held humanity.

We are free.  We are free forever. We are free to live forever.

It doesn’t get any better than this.

Everything stands or falls on whether Jesus rose from the dead that first Easter Sunday morning.

The resurrection of Jesus was Heaven’s imprimatur on Jesus’s ministry, the Father’s validation of Jesus’ every claim, eternity’s “amen” to Jesus’ promises, and convincing evidence that Jesus Christ is everything He said He was.

Prove that He did not rise, that His body is still lying in some grave somewhere, and you will have put a stop to the entire Christian movement.  Thereafter, the few remaining followers of the Man of Galilee would form themselves into a Jesus Memorial Society. Not long before they stopped meeting altogether, they would quit writing “Man of Galilee” and “He” in all caps.

Even the most notorious atheist, adamantly opposed even to the idea that Jesus could have risen from the dead, would concede that if indeed it did happen, it was a game-changer from that moment on.

The ultimate game-changer.  Nothing would ever be the same.

A new reality. That’s what it was.

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God has big plans for you. Just you wait!

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“I would have despaired had I not believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord. Be strong. Let your heart take courage. Yes, wait on the Lord” (Psalm 27:13-14).

I believe.

I believe I will see.

I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord.

I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord (over there) in the land of the living.

Without that faith, I would have despaired.

Believe or despair. Those are the choices.

There are no other alternatives.

No matter how we try to dress atheism up as a noble choice of right-thinking people, its only logical outcome is darkness and oblivion. The only thing such a philosophy promises is despair.

The Lord’s goodness will be on full display in the “land of the living.”  This world is not the land of the living but of the dying.  The land of the living lies just over the hilltop.

It awaits the faithful.

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Looking for Mayberry, as well as the Garden of Eden

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(This was originally posted on my website in 2012.  I decided to repost it here and not tweak or update it.  Bear that in mind. I was living in New Orleans at the time, retired for three years.)

Pastors are always looking for sermon illustrations. See if any of this works for you.

TWO FUNERALS.

This week, C-Span televised the funeral of South Dakota statesman former Senator George McGovern, who had run for the Presidency in 1972 and lost in a landslide to Richard Nixon.

Whenever there is a funeral of a national leader on C-Span, I try to watch as much of it as I can. The fascinating part is hearing stories from colleagues, some of whom are often well-known in their own right, tales from earlier years, stories that never made it into newspapers.

This funeral was held, I believe, in the sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church of Sioux Falls. I did not watch the entire service, so my observation is not about this funeral specifically.

Pagan funerals–in our culture–look back; Christian funerals look ahead.

It’s that simple. The pagan service will celebrate all the good the subject did in his life while ignoring any unsavory parts; the Christian service may indeed bring in some of the accomplishments from his lifetime, but mainly looks forward. As the Apostle Paul said, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award me on that day–and not to me only, but also to all who have loved His appearing” (II Timothy 4).

Something else about George McGovern intrigues me. In World War II, he flew bombers over Germany. He was a full-fledged American hero and thus entitled to all the trappings of macho-ism (machismo?). But the American public never saw any of that bravado from him as a senator, politician, and candidate for the highest office. In fact, he came across as rather nerdish.

And, by a strange coincidence, so did George H. W. Bush (our 41st president). In World War II, he was a fighter pilot who on one occasion had to parachute from his stricken plane. And yet, in one of his campaigns for the presidency, Newsweek magazine ran a cover with his picture and the words: “The Wimp Factor.” (Wimp? The man jumps out of planes to celebrate his 80th birthday? He is anything but a wimp!)

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Perhaps the most important “re-post” I’ve ever done

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Google J. B. Phillips.  This British pastor lived 1906 to 1982.  Wikipedia says, “During World War II, while vicar of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Lee, London, he found the young people did not understand the KJV Bible. During the hours in bomb shelters, while Germany bombed London, Mr. Phillips began translating the New Testament into modern English.  He started with the Epistle to the Colossians.  This was so well received by the young people, he kept at it.  After the war, he finished the entire New Testament and in 1958 published The New Testament in Modern English.  Time Magazine said of Mr. Phillips, “…he can make St. Paul sound as contemporary as the preacher down the street.”

His later books included classics like Ring of Truth and Your God is Too Small.

But here is the portion I wanted to share with you today.  Taken from his book Ring of Truth, which I strongly recommend.

The basic text for what follows is John 8:51.  “Whoever keeps my word shall never see death.”  Phillips writes:

Christ taught an astonishing thing about death–not merely that it is an experience robbed of its terror but that as an experience it does not exist at all.

For some reason or other Christ’s words (which Heaven knows are taken literally enough when men are trying to prove a point about pacifism or divorce, for example) are taken more with a pinch of salt when He talks about the common experience of death as it affects the man whose basic trust is in himself. If a man keeps my saying, he shall never see death (John 8:51); Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die (John 11:26).  It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the meaning that Christ intended to convey was that death was a completely negligible experience to the man who had already begun to live life of the eternal quality.

Jesus Christ abolished death, wrote Paul many years ago, but there have been very few since His day who appear to have believed it.  The power of the dark old god, rooted no doubt in instinctive fear, is hard to shake, and a great many Christian writers, though possessing the brightest hopes of ‘life hereafter’ cannot, it seems, accept the abolition of death. ‘The valley of the shadow,’ “death’s gloomy portal,’ ‘the bitter pains of death,’ and a thousand other expressions all bear witness to the fact that a vast number of Christians do not really believe what Christ said.

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Getting ready for the final exam

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“Pastor, my aunt Bernice would like you to visit her this week. There’s something she wants to talk with you about.”

I knew this young deacon’s Aunt Bernice. She was up in years and sickly, and while not a member of our church, she was related to quite a number. I figured with her years and health, she wanted to talk with the minister about getting read to see the Lord.

She did, but not in the way I had expected.

The next afternoon, as we sat in the living room of her small shotgun house, she said, “Pastor, I know I’m saved. I have no doubt about that. I remember being saved. But there’s something else bothering me.”

“Pastor, I haven’t done right by the church.”

She continued, “As a young adult, I got away from the church and quit going. I raised my son without the church and really came to regret it. And now I’m old and can’t even go. But if you’d let me, I’d like to put my membership in and become a member. I’ll pray for you all and send an offering from my monthly check.”

I assured her we would be honored to receive her, and took care of that the next Sunday.

I never forgot her statement—“I haven’t done right by the church”—and have had occasion over the years since to tell her story, then ask my hearers, “Have you done right by the Lord’s church?”

A man in our congregation was dying. On one occasion as I visited in his home, he asked to speak to me privately. I felt it coming: he wanted to confess something that was bothering him before he went to meet the Savior.

I was right.

“Pastor,” he said, “when I was a much younger man, I did some experimentation in my personal life that I’m ashamed of.”

He told the story, then said, “I’ve asked the Lord to forgive me, but it still troubles me. I don’t want to go into eternity with that on the record. Can you help me?”

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