Who is this guy?

Texts
Luke 1: 68-79
⁶⁸ “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. ⁶⁹ He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David ⁷⁰ (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), ⁷¹ salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—⁷² to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, ⁷³ the oath he swore to our father Abraham: ⁷⁴ to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear ⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

⁷⁶ And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, ⁷⁷ to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, ⁷⁸ because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven ⁷⁹ to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

Luke 23: 32-43
³² Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. ³³ When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. ³⁴ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

³⁵ The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” ³⁶ The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar ³⁷ and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” ³⁸ There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.

³⁹ One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” ⁴⁰ But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? ⁴¹ We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” ⁴² Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” ⁴³ Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Colossians 1: 9-20
⁹ For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, ¹⁰ so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹ being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, ¹² and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. ¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

 

The essential question in these passages concerns the identity of Jesus. Zechariah’s song lets us know that someone is coming; something is about to happen. The cross show several responses to the one who came. Paul tells us clearly who Jesus is and what hinges on knowing him.

Luke’s Gospel

When John was born, Zechariah names him, and at that moment receives his sight back. His song is a prophecy sent from God concerning John, and concerning the one whose way he prepares—Jesus the Messiah.

Zechariah sings: God has come to his people to redeem them, to save them, to rescue them and enable them to serve him through David’s line. The note of “David’s House” lets us know that this refers to the coming Messiah. We hear this song as it applies to us—that God is here to redeem, rescue, and save us, and to empower us for service. John, then, will be a prophet of God to prepare the way for God’s Messiah, the son of David, to come, so that people will know him and his salvation and so that they will see his light.

Zechariah’s song sets us up for the question that recurs in the gospels: “Who is this man?” In Luke 3:15-16 and 21 Luke implies that John introduced Jesus to his followers. In Matthew 3:13 and Mark 1:9 the identification is stated more clearly; it is stated most clearly in John 1:29-34. This introduction begins the question that Jesus repeatedly forced on those who met him: Who is he?

Luke answers the question in chapter 3 with John’s implied statement that Jesus is the Messiah, and with the baptism and genealogy, which show that Jesus is the Son of God. The question recurs then in Jesus’ ministry over and over.

5:20-21—Jesus heals the paralyzed man, and the Pharisees wonder, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy?”

6:11—Jesus heals the man with the shrivelled hand; the Pharisees and teachers of the law begin to plot against him. They had started to answer the question with rejection.

7:6-9—The centurion answers the question with his affirmation that Jesus has been sent by God.

7:16—Jesus raises the widow’s son. The crowds answer the question with the affirmation that Jesus is a mighty prophet.

7:39,49—The Pharisee questions his identity as a prophet, but the other guests are wondering about his ability to forgive sins and may go further that saying he is a prophet.

8:22-25—Even his disciples begin to wonder, “Who is this who commands even the winds and the waves and they obey him?”

Chapter 9 comes to the climax: “¹⁸ Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, ‘Who do the crowds say I am?’ ¹⁹ They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.’ ^20 ‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’ Peter answered, ‘God’s Messiah.’”

The road to Jerusalem (which begins in Luke 9:51) is then the road to the resolution of this question, asked over and over again: Who is this man? Who is he? Finally in Luke 23:33 we meet the two criminals who were crucified. One of them says: Can’t you save us? (Implying that he was a fraud.) The other says: Remember me when you come into your kingdom. (Accepting that he is the king of the Universe.) This is the question for us today as well. Who is this man? Is he the centre of reality, as he claimed, or was he a teacher who said some good things, but who was for the First Century only? 

Colossians 1

Paul tells us what the early church understood all of this to mean, as they reflected back on Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. This passage stands along the other great Christological passages of the NT in John 1, Philippians 2, and Hebrews 1.

¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Jesus is the one who shows the invisible God to us. Jesus is the one in whom God’s creation takes place—cf John 1: “In the beginning was the Word … By him all things were created.” Jesus is the one who sustains and preserves the whole of creation. If you know Jesus, you know God. If you do not know Jesus, you do not know God!

Verse 17 is wonderful: “In him all things hold together.” Some translations say, “cohere”. One translation that I found renders this phrase as “in him everything makes sense.” God in Christ is the one who makes sense of life for us and brings everything into a coherent whole.

Competitors

Some people today say that there is no organizing principle to reality, but nobody lives as though there is none. Everyone lives as though life is about something. What’s life about? What’s going in our universe?

Agnosticism/Atheism: Some say that material physical life is all you have. There is no God; there is no religion based on reality. You have what you feel and think, and that’s all you have. I wonder if anyone can truly live their life on this foundation. If I am the centre of the universe, and everything was made for me, I conclude quite quickly that life really is meaningless. I know that I am too small and unimportant to serve as the lynchpin of reality. Some people say that they can’t accept Christian (or any other) faith unless it jives with their own beliefs and preferences. That approach really does make reality revolve around me. Narcissism is a psychologically unhealthy characteristic and a philosophically unsound approach to life.

Some people say that they can’t accept Christianity because of the tragedies they see around them: What we sometimes call the problem of evil and suffering. C.S. Lewis has observed that the problem of suffering is a difficult problem for the Christian to deal with, but that the problem of good is even harder for the atheist or agnostic. If God is not there, and if God is not involved in our world, where does beauty and good come from? At a Steve Bell concert recently we listened to Steve singing, “Why do we hunger for beauty?” An amazing song, and a vital question.

A friend of mine on the Internet posted a moving video from 1988 of a BBC show that told of Sir Nicholas Winton, a man who personally saved 669 Jewish children from death under the Nazis in Czechoslovakia. Where does such courage and goodness come from, if there is no God? If there is no source of beauty, where does beauty come from? If there is no source of goodness, where does good come from?

Other Religions: I teach World Religions. There is much to admire in Buddhism and Islam and Judaism. I find Hinduism more puzzling. There are also major problems with each—in my own estimation there are more problems with each one than there are with Christianity.

As a simple example, I find Islam profoundly moving in many ways, with a devotion to God that is compelling and beautiful. But the simple fact remains that its founder was a warrior, as compared with its close relative, the Baha’i faith, whose founder was a pacifist. In a world racked with war, a warrior founder is problematic. I could go through each religion in some detail, noting its strengths and weaknesses; but my concern is to lift up Jesus—not to lift up Christianity, but to lift up Christ.

Chasing the Question Today

The fact is, of course, that we can’t deal with these issues adequately in this setting. We need a different setting in which advocates of different worldviews present their own position as favourably as possible, with each of us listening sympathetically and critically. We need to avoid the kind of response to each other that Dawkins specializes in—seeking to ridicule the other rather than engage what they say. All of us are tempted to such ridicule, as if we can end the discussion with a brief and witty bomb that blows the other’s position to bits.

I believe that when one does truly begin to seek truth, one finds Jesus in the path waiting for us. I do not make this as a claim that one can prove beyond all doubt, but as the conclusion that many people have found. Alister McGrath began his academic life as an atheist, who in the pursuit of truth found God. We just saw the 50^th anniversary of the death of CS Lewis, who is another example of one whose pursuit of truth and beauty led to God.

Lewis, JFK, and Aldous Huxley all died on the same day. Peter Kreeft has written an imaginative construction of the three of them in the waiting room of heaven (Waiting for Heaven)—Lewis the Christian, Kennedy the humanist, and Huxley the mystic. As they wait for the door to what lies beyond to open, they discuss the merits of their views of reality. It is a penetrating analysis of these three options.

Our society has made Christian faith profoundly unpopular. I know a Philosophy professor who kept his Christian faith quiet until after he achieved tenure, recognizing the problems that openly expressed faith creates in today’s academy. You may recall the sociological study of parenting outcomes and sexual orientation done by Mark Regnerus last year. Much of the condemnation of his study came for ideological reasons condemning Christian faith and traditional family roles. I am not saying anything about the merits of the study; the discipline of sociology will repeat and refine his research and over time observe its strengths and weakness. I am observing only the hostility to Christian faith found in much of the academy and of our society.

How do we respond to such hostility? The way forward is not to fight—to fight atheists, or fight other Christians, or fight Muslims, or fight anyone, but to search together for God and for truth. Let me give you an example of someone who found Christ, completely against the run of her beliefs and expectations. The following is excerpted from the November issue of Christianity Today.

Kirsten Powers is a Democratic commentator at Fox News: Just seven years ago …. if there was one thing in which I was completely secure, it was that I would never adhere to any religion—especially to evangelical Christianity, which I held in particular contempt. …. After college I worked as an appointee in the Clinton administration from 1992 to 1998. The White House surrounded me with intellectual people who, if they had any deep faith in God, never expressed it. Later, when I moved to New York, where I worked in Democratic politics, my world became aggressively secular. Everyone I knew was politically left-leaning, and my group of friends was overwhelmingly atheist. …. Life … seemed pretty wonderful, filled with opportunity and good conversation and privilege. ….

To the extent that I encountered Christians …. they were saying something about gay people or feminists. …. So when I began dating a man who was into Jesus, I was not looking for God. …. I remember exactly where I was sitting in my West Village apartment when he said, “Do you believe Jesus is your Savior?” …. Oh no, was my first thought. He’s crazy. When I answered no, he asked, “Do you think you could ever believe it?” He explained that he was at a point in life when he wanted to get married and felt that I could be that person, but he couldn’t marry a non-Christian. I said I didn’t want to mislead him—that I would never believe in Jesus. Then he said the magic words for a liberal: “Do you think you could keep an open mind about it?” Well, of course. “I’m very open-minded!” Even though I wasn’t at all. ….

A few weeks later I went to church with him. …. When we arrived at the Upper East Side service of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, I was shocked and repelled by what I saw. …. We were meeting in an auditorium with a band playing what I later learned was “praise music.” I thought, How am I going to tell him I can never come back? But then the pastor preached. I was fascinated. I had never heard a pastor talk about the things he did. Tim Keller’s sermon was intellectually rigorous, weaving in art and history and philosophy. I decided to come back to hear him again. …. Any person who is familiar with Keller’s preaching knows that he usually brings Jesus in at the end of the sermon to tie his points together. For the first few months, I left feeling frustrated: Why did he have to ruin a perfectly good talk with this Jesus nonsense?

Each week, Keller made the case for Christianity. He also made the case against atheism and agnosticism. He expertly exposed the intellectual weaknesses of a purely secular worldview. I came to realize that even if Christianity wasn’t the real thing, neither was atheism. I began to read the Bible. …. After about eight months of going to hear Keller, I concluded that the weight of evidence was on the side of Christianity. But I didn’t feel any connection to God, and frankly, I was fine with that. …. Then one night in 2006, on a trip to Taiwan, I woke up in what felt like a strange cross between a dream and reality. Jesus came to me and said, “Here I am.” It felt so real. I didn’t know what to make of it. I called my boyfriend, but before I had time to tell him about it, he told me he had been praying the night before and felt we were supposed to break up. So we did. Honestly, while I was upset, I was more traumatized by Jesus visiting me. …. When I returned to New York a few days later, I was lost. I suddenly felt God everywhere and it was terrifying. More important, it was unwelcome. It felt like an invasion. I started to fear I was going crazy. I didn’t know what to do, so I spoke with writer Eric Metaxas …. “You need to be in a Bible study,” he said. “And Kathy Keller’s Bible study is the one you need to be in.” I didn’t like the sound of that, but I was desperate. My whole world was imploding. ….

I remember walking into the Bible study. I had a knot in my stomach. In my mind, only weirdoes and zealots went to Bible studies. …. When I left, everything had changed. I’ll never forget standing outside that apartment on the Upper East Side and saying to myself, “It’s true. It’s completely true.” The world looked entirely different, like a veil had been lifted off it. I had not an iota of doubt. I was filled with indescribable joy. The horror of the prospect of being a devout Christian crept back in almost immediately. I spent the next few months doing my best to wrestle away from God. It was pointless. Everywhere I turned, there he was. Slowly there was less fear and more joy. The Hound of Heaven had pursued me and caught me—whether I liked it or not.

 

Conclusion

That is the great gift of the seasons ahead of us—Advent and Christmas, when we celebrate the coming of Jesus as a baby into our world and anticipate his return at the end of all things. As C.S. Lewis puts it in the closing lines of his remarkable novel, Till We Have Faces, “I ended my first book with the words ‘no answer.’ I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?”

Ruthless Love

Colossians 3:1-11
Living as Those Made Alive in Christ
3 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³ For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

⁵ Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶ Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. ⁷ You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. ⁸ But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. ⁹ Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. ¹¹ Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Luke 12:13-21

The Parable of the Rich Fool

¹³ Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” ¹⁴ Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” ¹⁵ Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

¹⁶ And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. ¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ ¹⁸ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ ^b But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

²¹ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Comment

Walk with me through the verses we heard read.
Col 3: 1-4: We have died [that is, the kind of life we lived before we met Christ has come to an end], and now we live with the life of Christ within us. We are on our way to Heaven, becoming like Christ as we go and made perfect in him when he returns and takes us to himself forever.
Col 3: 5-11: Although we have “died to self”, our old ways of living are persistent. They keep coming back, and we have to “put them to death” repeatedly. These old ways include “whatever belongs to your earthly nature”: sexual immorality, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language from your lips, and lying. This is not an exhaustive list, but gives a clear picture of what we are to set aside.

In their place we put on the new self, which is the perfect image of our Creator. This image is most notable for living completely in Christ, so that all human distinctions (all class and social standings) are done away with. We stand united with each other when we are united in Christ.

Luke 12: 13-15: Someone asked Jesus to arbitrate a dispute over inheritance. Jesus replied that they did not need an arbitrator; rather they need to be set free from their reliance on material possessions. The parable that follows indicates that God calls every person to judgment at the end of life; in response we rest on our life in Christ, not in material possessions. The problem, of course, is not that the rich man planned for the future, but that he left God out of his plans.

Synthesis

I bring these two passages together through the lens of standing before God in the judgment. We are on our way to Heaven, God’s realm, where God calls us to judgment. Life in that realm, eternal life, depends on dying to “earthly things”, dying to self, and becoming alive in Christ with the life of Christ. This new life includes the continuing process of “putting to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature” (illustrated by the list that follows).

We can describe the earthly life as “life centred on things and self”. Earthly life asks, “What do I want?” It is selfish and self-centred. Life in Christ asks, “What does God want?” It is Christ-centred and other-centred. Notably, when Paul describes this life in the passage we read, he uses language that emphasizes our essential equality and unity. It is the language of love.

This makes sense. When Jesus summarizes his own teaching (Jn 13), he says, “I give you a new command: That you love each other as I have loved you.” In Galatians Paul talks about the way that we support each other: “Carry each other’s burdens (spiritual and physical), and so fulfill the law of Christ.” This law is the law of love. Paul feel so strongly about the importance of loving each other that he places it at the centre of the Philippian church’s life (Phil 2), and he places it at the centre of the gifts that the Corinthian church seeks (1 Cor 13).

John describes the ministry of Jesus with the words: “God loved the world so much that he sent his only-begotten Son ….” In 1 John the writer places love for God and love for each other at the centre of Christian living, and bases this centrality on the truth that “God is love”. Over and over in the NT we see that the new life of Christ is the life of love—God’s love for us and our answering love for God and for each other.

What does this have to do with the warnings of judgment in the passages we read?

A Ruthless Love

Here’s where I’m going with my thoughts: God’s Judgment (or God’s Wrath) is an expression of God’s Love. First, we take a detour through the study of culture. Paul contrasts two different centres for living: Either we live with self at the centre—an individualistic and self-centred life, or we live with God at the centre—a life focussed on God and on others. The former is the old way, the earthly way; the latter is the new way, growing in the image of our Creator.

As I study various cultures, I find it interesting that cultures in general are not self-centred. Modern Western cultures do centre on the individual. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms makes it clear that the rights and freedoms of the individual stand at the heart of our society. The Declaration of Independence in the USA similarly places the equality of the individual at the heart of American society.

For centuries one society after another has placed the larger community at the centre. The Southern African proverb says, “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu—A person becomes fully human only in and with community.” In place of the Western, “I think, therefore I am”, other cultures say something like, “I come from this village and family, therefore I am” (Palestinians), or “I belong to this clan and family, therefore I am” (Zulu). The essential point is that the community matters more than the individual.

Sherwood Lingenfelter has a book titled Transforming Culture, in which he describes four different types of culture: Collectivist, Corporate, Individualistic, and Bureaucratic. Curiously, our own culture is more bureaucratic than individualistic. Lingenfelter illustrates each type with a society from some part of the world—individualistic is the hardest to illustrate, because it is the rarest. He cites an Amerindian group from the Amazon jungle who are remarkably individualistic in their lifestyle. One can illustrate with the way that they handle conflict. When a husband and wife have a conflict, the wife may go across the road from their house in the village, where her friends come and stand beside her. There she begins to shout her case against her husband for all to hear. His friends join him on his porch, and he shouts his case back at her. As their friends cheer them on, they argue loudly, and in extreme cases start wrestling in the middle, with their friends making sure they don’t actually hurt each other.

Lingenfelter describes how he and a missionary friend, Dan Koop (Canadian of course), spent the day clearing a landing strip for the planes that brought them and their supplies into the village. At the end of the day they were hot and sweaty and went down to the river to bathe. There they found women and children occupying their usual bathing spot, so they went to another part of the river. It was also in use, so Dan went back to his house. Lingenfelter, however, decided to try to use what he had observed of their ways for resolving conflict. He went to a spot near both bathing areas and started shouting at the top of his voice how he and Dan had worked all day, but when they wanted to bathe, the women and children were using all the space. Although they could not understand his English, they knew what he was doing, and he soon had the river to himself! That night the villagers told Dan how they enjoyed this stranger who understood their ways.

The point is not that we should try their methods of conflict resolution—that would be a good way to get arrested in Winnipeg! The point is rather that this is a most unusual culture, because most societies around the world have placed the value of the community above the value of the individual. We in the West are plotting a different course, in which we use laws and bureaucracy to enshrine the value of the individual, so successfully that we have made selfishness a positive value. Not even these people in the Amazon basin saw selfishness as good.

The truth is, of course, that God wants us to be centred on Christ and on others: “Love God with all your being; and love your neighbour as yourself”: this is the whole of the Law. Whether we are Amazon villagers, or Chinese peasants, or Zulu city-dwellers, or First Nations in Manitoba, or Anglo Canadians—whatever our background, whatever our social location, whatever our culture, God wants us to become like Christ. God wants us to put on Christ.

How?

This brings us back to God’s ruthless love. God loves us so much that he took our death into himself on the cross, in order to give us life. That feels good! God loves us so much that he will not allow us to continue in anything that draws us away from himself. That can hurt! As C.S. Lewis puts it, it is the action of a surgeon who stops at nothing to cut out the cancer within us.

I just re-read Sheldon Vanauken’s A Severe Mercy. I enter into this thought coming from his book with real hesitation, aware that I can easily become trite. But I think that the relationship between judgment and love within God’s great purpose takes us here. Vanauken describes his relationship with Davy, his wife, leading up to her death, and then the time afterwards.

Sheldon and Davy fell in love and got married. They were remarkably in tune with each other, appearing almost to read each other’s minds. One friend having supper with them noted Davy glance at the unlit candles on the mantel, without any further look at Sheldon. A moment later he got up and lit the candles. Their friend said the unspoken communication was almost creepy.

They were not Christians, believing that Christian faith was for people who really did not have a vital intellectual life. Then they went from their home in Virginia to Oxford University for further studies. There they found one friend after another who was intellectually alive, who shared their interests and values, and who were thoroughly Christian. Under their influence they began to examine Christian faith, reading especially the works of people like C.S. Lewis. Vanauken describes their conversions—first Davy’s then his own (Vanauken: 95ff).

They became friends with Lewis and others within the Oxford setting. Then their studies came to an end, and they returned to Virginia, where Sheldon found a job teaching college English. Although they found the return to the USA difficult, life was good. They were in their 30s, doing work they enjoyed, part of a vital Christian community, and in love with each other and with life. Then Davy developed an unspecified virus that took her life in a matter of about six months.

As Vanauken processed her death, he went through the various stages we all experience when tragedy strikes. One thing stood out, as he reflected on their lives together. Davy had developed an intense close relationship with Jesus. At one point she had made the commitment that if it took her own life in order for Sheldon to know Christ as closely as she did, she was willing to give her life (Vanauken: 145f). Vanauken himself realized that he had actually become jealous of Davy’s relationship with Jesus. Although we cannot say God took Davy so that Sheldon could know God better, he himself does conclude that losing Davy was a basic step in his own pilgrimage to a closer life with Christ.

That is the meaning of the title: “A Severe Mercy”—that God used the death of the one Sheldon Vanauken loved best to bring him closer to God. That is also what I mean by the phrase “ruthless love”. God uses everything that happens to us to draw us to himself. He pursues us to the ends of the earth. He will not rest until we are fully “in Christ”. Nothing can turn God aside from the pursuit of our very souls.

This idea is expressed clearly in the hymn: “How Firm a Foundation”. Hear verse 3: “When through fiery trials they pathway shall lie,/ My grace all sufficient shall be they supply./ The flames shall not hurt thee, I only design/ Thy dross to consume and the gold to refine.”

Conclusion

Please understand, I am not drawing a line from any tragedy we have experienced to anything else. My mother did not die because my Dad was not fully committed to God. My sister did not die as an infant because my parents needed to cling more closely to God. We dare not explain God’s ways so lightly.

But I can say that God uses everything in our lives to make us more like Christ. I told you some time ago of a personal crisis I experienced almost five years ago. Resolution to that crisis came in a series of three dreams. In the third dream, I was floating in the sea (a difficult image for me, since I do not swim and fear the water), and I realized that the sea was the sea of God’s love. No matter how stormy it became, I knew I was safe, because it was the sea of God’s love. Ruthless? So it sometimes seems. Love? Absolutely and forever.

Remembering Our Mother: Funeral Meditation

27 April 2013
Psalm 121 (NIV)

It was just over twenty-two years ago that we held the funeral service for Dad Heise. He was taken from us too early it seemed. Today we remember Mother Heise. She lived a full life, a good life, but still it seems too soon to say goodbye. As we went to the airport for Lois to join the family, she said: “I just want to see her one last time!” One of my friends said to me: “Death is never timely.” Sometimes it is welcome because of the difficulty the body experiences, but when we love the one leaving us, we feel the separation keenly. And indeed we love our mother—Mom, Grandma, Great-Grandma, Lois Maxine Engle Heise.

Psalm 121 was one of several favourite scriptures she mentioned to her children as they gathered together over Easter, especially verse 2: “My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” This theme—that she trusted in God and found her strength in God’s continual care—bound together all of the Scripture passages she mentioned. It was one of the hallmarks of her life, and it is basic to the legacy she has left for her family. Psalm 121 spells out this trust. God the Creator watches over us and cares for us always. By day and by night God is there. We may sleep, but God does not. As we move throughout the stages of life, through childhood and youth and adulthood, through singleness and marriage and family, through old age to the end of life, God cares for us and gives us all we need. This is the trust in which Mother lived her life.

Although Mother was a woman of deep faith, she had her share of quirks and delightfulness. She was particular about how things were around the house. That’s why I no longer take sugar in my coffee. When Lois and I were dating, Lois brought me home to meet her family. I remember a good meal, with a delicious dessert and with coffee. I took the coffee and added cream, but there was no sugar on the table! None of the family used sugar, so the sugar bowl lived a lonely life in the kitchen cupboard. I finally asked for sugar for my coffee. Mother appeared a bit embarrassed and jumped up and hurried out to the kitchen. Through the doorway I could see her get the sugar bowl down and stir the sugar around to break up the crust that had formed on the top. Rather than embarrass my future mother-in-law again, I stopped asking for sugar! We all have stories we can tell—of acts of thoughtfulness, of games of Scrabble, of gardening and cooking and on and on. I want rather to return to this theme by which she lived: “My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.”

Mother and Dad both sought for God’s presence in their lives. God gave them just what they needed, if not always exactly what they asked for. This “practice of the presence of God” is something the children were reminded of as they went through Mother’s room and found the prayer list that she used daily. There was a paper with the reminder to begin with praise and then to pray for each of her children in the devotional time with which she began each day. After praying for her family, she prayed for different people each day. This desire for God’s presence was basic to Mother’s life, as it had also been to Dad’s.

One of the greatest sources of comfort to our family is Mother’s awareness of Gods’ presence and strength, and her delighted anticipation of Heaven. That awareness and anticipation is something that her generation of Brethren in Christ took in with the hymns that they sang regularly. Singing the hymns expresses Psalm 121: “Where does my help come from? My hope is in the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Singing the hymns points the way to Heaven.

I opened the Brethren in Christ hymnal and quickly found several that I’m sure mother knew well:

• 419: “Away from the mire, away from the clay, God leads his dear children along; away up in glory, eternity’s day, God leads his dear children along …”;
• 427: “When he shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then in him be found, dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne …”;
• 428: “I know not when the Lord may come, at night or noonday fair, nor if I’ll walk the vale with him, or meet him in the air, but …”;
• 439: “All the way my Saviour leads me; O the fullness of his love! Perfect rest to me is promised in my father’s house above. When my spirit, clothed immortal, wings its flight to realms of day, this my song through endless ages: Jesus led me all the way.”

This was truly the hope in which Mother lived. This hope brought peace to her last days and helped her step out of this life into the next with grace and courage. This hope sustains us as well. We also lift up our eyes from the places in which we live. We see mountains in the distance, but our gaze goes far beyond them as we ask, “Where does my help come from?”

Life is often difficult, and sometimes the mountains are not pleasant and scenic, but threatening and overwhelming. Mother knew that too, but she knew God’s presence and found comfort and strength in him. We do the same as we walk in the valley of death’s shadow, death looming over us like a mountain more forbidding than any Everest. And in the valley of death’s shadow we find peace in God’s presence. As another favourite hymn, which Mother loved and lived, says it: “I’ll praise my maker with my breath, and when my soul is lost in death, praise shall my nobler powers employ. My days of praise shall ne’er be past while life and thought and being last, or immortality endures.”

During the service our family sings the hymn “My Hope is in the Lord”, which Mother asked to have at her funeral. This was perhaps Dad’s favourite of all. As I looked again at this hymn, I noticed how it reminds us that life in God’s love and care is not a right; it is God’s gift, which only God can give. Life outside of God’s care is dangerous. We ask him for grace and mercy, and in grace and mercy he makes us able to trust in him. Then we can sing: “My hope is in the Lord who gave himself for me.”

The Psalmist says the same thing. Danger can come by sun and moon alike. We face danger in all of life, and the only safety is found in God’s love and care. This is what comes through in Mother’s commitment to Jesus, in her regular devotions and prayers, in the love that she showed to her family and friends, and in the life that she shared with her church family. In fact, the hymn draws us back to God’s love and care, to our absolute and fundamental trust in God.

We remember Mother in little stories of food and clothes and pictures and games and many other things from her life on this earth; but Mother herself has found something that rises far above all these. We say, “Rest in peace”, but her rest now is the most joyful of all; the tears and grief of separation are left for us. Mother, whose hope was in the Lord, is home with God.