LAST WORDS

You can't forget it—the haunting public service television ad for COVID-19 precautions that starts with a grown man giving what's a difficult, heartfelt message to his mother. As he speaks, he soon becomes the image on a computer tablet, then we see the gloved hands holding the tablet amid the sounds of a ventilator and the surroundings of an intensive care unit. He chokes out his final love message to his mother—the one he can't give in person as her death comes.  Every day as I mask up, wash up, and all the rest, I realize anew that COVID-19 is lethal, and it could end my life in just days. But I cling to something else: God's promise to never leave me nor forsake me (Hebrews 13:5). He has told us that a place is prepared in Heaven for those who love and trust in Him. 

We also have the last words of people who gave their all for Jesus, and who left a witness to eternity in their final moments witnessed by friends, family or caregivers. Fifteenth century German reformer Martin Luther reportedly repeated three times: “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit! Thou hast redeemed me, O God of Truth.” 

John Wesley, great English preacher, founder of Methodism, just before dying in 1791: “The best of it is, God is with us.”

Evangelist Dwight Moody, at death in 1899 : “Earth is receding, heaven is opening, This is my coronation day. If this is death, it is sweet! There is no valley here. God is calling me and I must go.” 

More recently: Audrey Wetherall Johnson, founder of Bible Study Fellowship, last words in 1984, as reported by her attending nurse: “The Lord is coming for me today. He's at the foot of my bed right now.” Those with her saw a light on her face. She took her last breath soon after. 

Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright, dying of lung disease in 2003: “I am in the presence of the living God, satisfied at the deepest core of my being.” 

In stark contrast, consider the last words of Sir Julian Huxley, English evolutionist, biologist and staunch atheist: "So it is true after all, so it is true after all."

Someday, unless Christ's second coming precedes our own deaths, each of us will pause at the allegorical death's door. Of that moment, wrote Philip Keller in A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, “For the child of God, death is not an end but merely the door into a higher and more exalted life of intimate contact with God” (Zondervan, 1970, p. 84). 

We know that Christ is coming again—in a twinkling of an eye—to call forth those who believed in Him—both the dead and the alive. What a prospect! What a hope. COVID-19 may kill the body, but it can't take away the promise of Heaven. 

Count on it, like Dwight Moody preached a few months before his body gave up and he died: “Some day you will read in the papers that D.L. Moody of East Northfield, Illinois, is dead. Don't you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now! I shall have gone up higher, that is all—out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal, a body death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body fashioned like unto His glorious body.” (1)

(1) 1. J.C. Pollock, Moody (New York: The Macmillan Col 1961), p. 316).

EYE CHECK

Fear not, my glasses don't have the moustache...

There's nothing like going to the eye doctor for “seeing” life in a new way. Yep, I made my way-overdue pilgrimage to the great hall of sized alphabet lists and seats with all sorts of switcheroo gadgets that make you feel like your eyes are specimens brought home from a space mission to Neptune.

Wait!  This was a Covid-19-era appointment. My original appointment was canceled twice, including the original Covid scare six months ago.  Finally, at the first door of the clinic, I was met by the first masked interrogator. After passing the key questions except for the one on “shortness of breath” (asthma always makes me flunk that one) “Scotty” (my private nickname for him with his sci-fi thermometer) aimed at me with the magic thermometer and permitted me to enter the second set of doors. At the next desk, I gave all my vital information, then was told to return to door #1 as they wanted patients in this waiting room only 10 minutes ahead of time. Back to “Scotty,” a friendly guy probably in his fifties. Chatting with him during my five-minute “banishment,” I learned he came down with Covid two months earlier. He endured two weeks of utter misery, another two weeks of less misery, and was still feeling punk. I thought how surviving that misery especially qualified him for door duty.

“Scotty” had a chair and a book to while away his waiting time. Wise soul. A few minutes later, when I was granted permission to “check in,” I was taken to another “socially distanced” holding area. No magazines, no view except a construction wall, and the chairs spaced w-a-y apart.  With so few in this waiting room, I thought I'd be in and out. Forty-five minutes after my appointment time, I was ushered into the great skinny dim room with its weird exam chair for quizzes with the alphabet chart and drops that make your eyes yowl. Oh, the decor in such rooms.  Forget prints of Renaissance masters that please the eye. I studied a huge full-color chart describing macular degeneration.

Then came the eye doctor who got down to business with the “what's better, one or two?” lens contraption. The good news:  just a minor tweak so it's looking good for “looking good”' (the vision, that is, not the steady acquisition of gray hairs and wrinkles). Then came the bad news: they weren't doing the “un-dilate” eye drops any more. Did I have sunglasses? Good. In six hours my doe eyes should return to normal.

I had one errand at a drug store on the way home—an over-the-counter medicine. I wore sunglasses as I entered this store whose checkout clerk (a cheerful soul behind her plastic face shield) should have gone into stand-up comedy. When I went to pay, I told her that I was a movie star and was wearing sunglasses so that nobody would ask for my autograph. We had a good laugh. That was the medicine I needed that day, not the generic one in the little bottle I took home.

Yes, Covid has changed things. We're more suspicious and more impatient because things just aren't the way they used to be. I have to go back to “cool your jets” verses like these:

Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. (2 Corinthians 4:17)

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. (James 1:2-3)

Yes, I had a few inconveniences in the once-simpler process of an eye exam. But I still have access to eye care. I am still here to tell about it. And a sense of humor always helps!

JUST COME

Part of a monthly series on the stories behind beloved hymns.

It's a sad cliche, but when some people get old and sick, they get cranky.  Such was the situation that eventually birthed one of the most beloved invitation hymns, "Just as I Am." No doubt you have watched Billy Graham crusades on television and heard this hymn featured as inquirers came forward. But there's a story behind the hymn. Its author, Charlotte Elliott, born in 1789, was enjoying a great life as a portrait artist and writer of humorous verse, living in Brighton, England. She was popular in social circles where religion was not mentioned. But in her early thirties she became very ill and depressed.

One of her visitors at this time of trial was a noted evangelist from Switzerland. Dr. Caesar Malan.  As he ate dinner with her and her family, Charlotte lost her temper, railing against God and family.  Embarrassed, her family quickly left, leaving Dr. Malan alone with Charlotte.  He didn't mince his words.  He remarked that she was holding onto hate and anger because she had nothing else in the world to cling to. That's why she was sour, bitter, and resentful.  She asked, "What's your cure?" He replied, "The faith you are trying to despise."

A few days later, she realized she needed to apologize to Dr. Malan. In doing so, she remarked that she needed to clean up some things in her life before becoming a Christian. The evangelist looked at her and said, “You must come just as you are, a sinner, to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” That day, May 9, 1822, she prayed to become a Christian. Her sister said for the rest of Charlotte’s life, she cherished that date as “the birthday of her soul to true spiritual life and peace.”

One day about a dozen years later, in 1836, she was alone in her brother’s home while the rest of the family was out preparing for a fund-raising bazaar. As an invalid, there wasn’t much she could do there. But she started thinking about the day she prayed to become a Christian, coming “just as I am” to the Lord. The lyrics came to her almost effortlessly. That year they’d be published in was called “The Invalid’s Hymn Book,” which included 115 of her original works. The book was sold to raise money for a project of her brother, a pastor.  He wanted to build a school for the children of poor pastors in Brighton, England.

Miss Elliott lived to be 82, writing about 160 hymns and marking her as one of England’s finest women hymn-writers. All that time, she endured sickness. One time she wrote (as you wade through it, remember it’s in the wordy prose of her era):

“He knows, and He alone, what it is, day after day, hour after hour, to fight against bodily feelings of almost overpowering weakness, languor and exhaustion, to resolve not to yield to slothfulness, depression and instability, such as the body causes me to long to indulge, but to rise every morning determined to take for my motto, ‘If a man will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’” 

Another time she wrote, “God sees, God guides, God guards me.  His grace surrounds me, and His voice continually bids me to be happy and holy in His service just as I am.” It’s said that after her death, friends and family found in her personal papers more than a thousand letters from people around the world expressing how much “Just as I am” had meant to them. By the way, the tune that was eventually matched to Miss Elliot’s hymn-poem was composed by an American, William Bradbury, also known for composing the music for the lyrics of hymns like “He Leadeth Me,” “Jesus Loves Me,” “Sweet Hour of Prayer,” and “The Solid Rock.”

Who knows how many millions have responded to invitations to “come just as you are”?  Even if you’re depressed, cranky, out of sorts, doubting…. God has seen it all. He says, simply, come: “Whoever comes to Me, I will never drive away” (John 6:37).

Choir with scenic background and words for sing-along:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=%22Just+as+I+am%22+you+tube&docid=608040418539604928&mid=3D87CCC9DAC50E009D1F3D87CCC9DAC50E009D1F&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

George Beverly Shea (of Billy Graham crusades) sings:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=%22Just+as+I+am%22+you+tube&&view=detail&mid=855503426445B7905871855503426445B7905871&rvsmid=3D87CCC9DAC50E009D1F3D87CCC9DAC50E009D1F&FORM=VDQVAP

LEGACY

It’s ironic that even though my grandfather wasn’t born with the proverbial “silver spoon” in his mouth—meaning born into wealth—it’s a silver spoon that helps me remember him.  It was among family treasures that came to me after my parents died, and I’m grateful there was a note telling me of its significance.

Martinus (Martin) Berge was born in Norway in 1882. His family had a farm on the steep hillside above one of Norway’s famed fjords. However, because farmable land was so scarce, it would be inherited by the oldest son—and that wasn’t him. A kind person paid his way to carpentry school where he learned a valuable trade. He also served in Norway’s army, which had been ramped up for a possible conflict with Sweden. That didn’t happen, but his marksmanship skills earned him a special prize of that day: a silver spoon. I can’t verify it in my copies of family history, but I heard it was presented him by the king of Norway.

There was also a woman he loved...but her father didn’t think Martinus was wealthy enough to support her. Marriage hopes dashed, in 1906 he immigrated to America, hoping for a fresh start. His carpentry skills served him well as he eventually homesteaded in the drylands of Eastern Montana, where he met and married Ethel Corinne Norstad, a local woman with a bright smile and one leg shorter than the other from polio.  They would have ten children (including the last one, stillborn).  My mother was the firstborn in 1919, meaning she was a young teen when the Depression came upon their large, impoverished family and she pulled her share of the daily survival tasks.

I have no information about my grandfather’s spiritual walk, just that the local Lutheran church was the community’s social and spiritual center and his family was a part of that. He would die at 65 just two months after my birth two states away. He never saw me.

I have pictures and a silver spoon to remind me of that heritage. But I’ve been thinking lately of other parts of my heritage that came to me as a young adult. Caring pastors and their wives, and godly older people, all helped shape who I am in Christ today through their counsel and prayers.  I think of them whenever I come to 1 Peter 2:9: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

Today, when I think of my grandfather, I consider his heartbreak as a young man and the courageous decision to start all over in a foreign land. That’s what God wants to do: give us  fresh starts in our disappointments so that we can declare His praises in the light of His love.

CROWNED

A recent birthday tradition at our house is having the birthday person wear a crown. Ultra fancy—paper—free from a local burger drive-in. At one recent birthday, our youngest grandson decided he wanted to wear Papa’s honorary crown. Down it went to his shoulders. Yes, I could have adjusted it for him with the pre-cut notches, but we’d had our fun and he decided he’d rather eat cake than don crown.

Even though this country isn’t a monarchy, we seem to have a lingering fascination with royal things. Witness the number of young women who vie for the title of “Miss-Something” or some other honor with a tiara (like homecoming queen). Or the little girls for whom "pretend princess" is part of their imaginative play. 

Probably one of the most famous crowns of our times is the magnificent British Imperial State Crown, refashioned for Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. It’s heavy: more than two pounds of gold and studded with more than 3,000 diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, rubies, and pearls.

But the King of Kings had only a crude, piercing crown during His time on this planet. One of painful thorns, slammed down on His head hours before His crucifixion.

Here is the mystery: that God’s Son should endure thorns, while His followers can look forward to heaven’s “forever” crown. Scripture names four:

*The crown of righteousness—for believers looking forward to Christ’s return.  Like Paul, who said as he suspected a martyr’s death wasn’t too far ahead, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7-8).

*The crown of life—cast in the crucible of trials, for those who allow the love of God to reign in their hearts and sustain them, even to death (James 1:12, Revelation 2:10).

*The crown of rejoicing—for people won to the Lord (2 Thessalonians 2:19, Philippians 4:1).

*The crown of glory—for those faithful in the Lord’s work. Peter (a pastor himself) wrote: “And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away” (1 Peter 5:4).

Crowns are not for the greedy. In John’s vision of Heaven in Revelation, we’re given a glimpse into heaven’s throne room. There, Almighty God is surrounded by twenty-four elders who remove their crowns and lay them before Him, declaring, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being” (Rev. 4:11).

“Crown Him with many crowns!” wrote hymnist Matthew Bridges. “Crown Him Lord of All,” declares the hymn by Edward Perronet and John Rippon. And these words from Isaac Newton: “Endless praises crown His head.”

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