Then and Now

In the Easter Earthquake study, Harnish quotes Karl Barth regarding death:

Now we see in a mirror  dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith  hope and love abide, there three; and the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 13:12-13)  Barth said, "Because God's grace has come to help us in our misery thorough our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ....We...stand with him at the boarder where the now and the then touch each other.

See the thens and nows? For us, who stand on this side of death - on the "then" side - death is horrible. It means loved ones are gone, it means how we see life comes to an end. I think for God it is not the same. For God, it is a line between the then and the now. 

Living the Faith, Part 5

Secondly, I want to invite you to share your plans with your family. The obvious reason for that is if you do, your family will understand your wishes, and that’s important. The less obvious reason to talk to your family is that through the discussion, you can witness to your faith to them.

I met with a retired pastor and his son. The pastor had lived his life in service to God. When he retired, he told God that he had no idea what he would do next. God assured him that he would continue to serve, and to start visiting people. So he did – he visits hospitals and nursing homes, he serves in churches when asked. And this is my favorite part – funeral homes call him to do funerals for people who don’t have a pastor, so he does several funerals a month, ministering to those families. He lives his faith.

Part of living his faith, for him, means that he has always tithed. He gives 10% of his income to God. We met with him because he wants to continue that through his death. 20% of his life insurance policy is directed to go to a trust that benefits the mission projects of the Annual Conference.  We met with him to review the paperwork for that plan with his son present.

You can tell by the way I talk about him that this pastor has been a witness to me of how to live your faith. I can only imagine the witness he has been to his son, through that conversation and beyond it. Talk to your family about your plans so that they will see God through your actions.
Third, consider using your estate plan as not only a way to plan how your estate will be distributed at your death, but also as a way to testify to your faith. We call it a testament, don’t we? Transform it into something more than a legal document.  You can do that in words and in actions.

You can include what is called a Christian Preamble in your will.  A preamble is a paragraph that comes before everything else that explains WHY you are doing what you are doing with your will.  In it, you can talk about the love you have for your family, for your church, and about how God has worked through your life. A lawyer may not ask if you want to include the reasons for what you are doing, but you can ask to do it. You can go to our website or call our office, and we can provide an example of a Christian Preamble to get you started.  If you don’t want to include it in your will, then I encourage you to write a letter to your family and store it with your will. Pass your faith on to them as many ways as you can, and this is one way. Through what you say.

Follow that with your actions. Include the ministry – such as your church - that is close to your heart in your estate plan. There are many ways to do that; a bequest in your will is probably the most common.  You and I are stewards of what God has given to us – stewards of the material possessions we have, and caretakers of our family.  Your will is the document you use to give final instructions in your role as steward. Most of us use it to provide care for our families. When you include a bequest to ministry, you, through your actions, demonstrate the importance that faith and the church has had in your life. If your church has been like family to you, you may want to demonstrate that through your will.

One final story about a woman I have never met.  Dr. Roberta Rice was born in Minnesota in 1917 in the Methodist parsonage.  As a young adult, she graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School. When I read that about her, I loved her already – imagine how hard it would have been to be a female medical school student in the late thirties and early forties.  As a doctor, she served veterans at various VA Medical Centers. After the Korean War, she was sent to Korea as a United Methodist medical missionary educator, and she serve there from 1956 until 1975 as a surgeon. After that, she joined the faculty of the new medical school at Marshall University. After her retirement, she served as a volunteer with Hospice and as a literacy tutor. She sang in the choir and played the organ at her United Methodist Church her in Huntington and later in North Carolina.  She died in 2014, and her obituary said, “Dr. Rice made the world a healthier and happier place.”

I say that Dr. Rice lived her faith. And you should read her will. It was a witness to her faith. It included several bequests to ministry, including to her church and to the Foundation. There is now a Trust at the Foundation in her name that provides funds each year for ministry with children.
While I am not here to provide a commercial, I am here to serve, so if there is any way I can help you as consider how to live your faith, please let me know.

We are commanded by Jesus – commanded, mind you – to not let our hearts be troubled. Set aside fear, and live your faith. Do as Paul did – live your faith all of your life, pour out your life to God, now, and even in the way you meet the end of life here on earth, knowing that, as Paul wrote in his last testament, the Lord stands by you and gives you strength, so that through you the message might be fully proclaimed and everyone might hear it.

And be careful on the stairs.

Living the Faith, Part 4

In case you aren’t familiar with what the Foundation does, I want to share with you that our main focus is planned giving – helping to match the need people have to give with the best tool to use to achieve their goals in their circumstances. We help people to find that sacred space where they can live their faith, through their lives and into their deaths.  I can tell you that it is a great joy for me to sit with a family at their kitchen table and talk to them about their dreams of giving, and help them to find a way to accomplish them.

I can tell you that I never have to convince people to be generous – they are already living a life of generous faith. All they need from me are the concrete means to do what they want to do. I am convinced that is because of God’s grace, at work in their lives. They are witnessing by their actions, to the generous God who has created them (and us) through the way they live their faith, even through their death.

Because of the work I do at the Foundation, Lynn asked me to come today to share the word of God with you and to share the spiritual nature of estate planning and planned giving. I’m not here to provide a commercial for the Foundation, but because of what I have experienced in the work I do, I can share with you some concrete ways to live your faith even to the end of it.

First of all, I want to encourage you to not be afraid to think about it. I think it is natural to want to avoid thinking about our own deaths and therefore, to avoid thinking about having a will.  Our plan, rightly so, is to live, just like my plan for the Monday of this week was to go to work and start checking the items off on my list. What we all know is that life on this earth is not forever; what we know as Christians is that God walks with us through this life, and through our deaths, and into life eternal. I hope you know that God has changed your life; and I know you know that God has changed your death. Because of that, we can rest in our trust of God, and we can live without worry of death.

So, think about your death, without fear.

Jeff, who is the President of the Foundation, worked with a couple in the southern part of the state to complete a charitable bequest in their wills. He met with both the husband and the wife, and once everything was complete, the wife told him that she had been having nightmares about dying without completing their plan. Even if we don’t admit it to ourselves, we worry about our wills and our plans until we complete them. I know she found relief in getting it done; I imagine we all do.  So, I invite you to trust in God, set aside any fear you have of facing the issue, and move toward the relief of having it done.  And please remember, it doesn’t matter if your estate is large, or small – everyone is a steward of what God has given to them, and everyone needs a will.

Living the Faith, Part 3

This is the third in a series of posts that are together a sermon I delivered to Milton UMC.

The scripture today is from the lectionary. It’s the very end of the second letter to Timothy. Tradition holds that it was written by Paul to Timothy, but scholars think that tradition might be incorrect. For our purposes, and for our understanding, however, I’m going to place the pen that wrote the letter in Paul’s hand and we’ll assume the recipient is his successor, Timothy. It will give us a concrete framework to hear the words; just know that the setting may be incorrect.

Hear these words from 2 Timothy, chapter 4, verses 6-8 and 16-18:

As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.   I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.  At my first defense no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

This is the word of God for the people of God.  Thanks be to God.

This letter was written from prison. Paul wrote it knowing the end of his life was coming. In fact, the letter has the tone of a last testament.  In some ways, we are reading words from Paul’s Last Will and Testament.

He writes, “I am already being poured out as a libation, and time of my departure has come.” Remember that Paul was a Roman citizen. At the end of every Roman meal, a sacrifice of a kind of made – a cup of wine was poured out for the gods. Paul is saying that the end of his life is coming; he has given his whole life to God, all through his life, and he sees this as one more opportunity to pour out all he has to God. His death is a continuation of his life.

And then come the sports metaphors. I have a friend who, when he teaches Sunday school, loves to use sports metaphors, and in this case, Paul is just like him. Paul says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  The word he uses for fight means a contest in an arena; and Paul can be satisfied that he has done all he could in this life. He says, “I have finished the race.” For Paul, I imagine this race as a marathon, and we can imagine (I can ONLY imagine, having never run a marathon) what it must feel like to reach the finish line of a marathon. That’s where Paul is. And, he says, he has kept the faith. Paul, as a Jew, would have been familiar with the idea of covenant. I think he means that he has been faithful to the covenant between himself and God. William Barclay says, “If Paul used it this way, he meant that through thick and thin, in freedom and in imprisonment, in all his perils by land and sea, and now in the very face of death, he had never lost his trust in Jesus Christ.”

Paul not only kept the faith; he lived the faith. His life was a witness to his faith in God. And the way he approaches death is no different than the way he lived his life – in it, he is living his faith.

Living the Faith, Part I

This week I'm going to share a sermon with you that I delivered at Milton United Methodist Church.  

I’m going to start this morning by telling you a story that will make you cringe – it makes me cringe – but it has been running through my mind as I prepared for this sermon. It’s a story about how my Monday started this week.

 Do you have mental lists? Do you look at your day and plan in your mind what you need to do that day? Or maybe the coming week? I have mental lists – until I create paper lists – I like lists. I like plans – at least where work is concerned.

On Monday I had a plan for the day in my mind. I had been out of the office for the last four days of the previous week, so I had some work I wanted to catch up on. Jeff and I were going to visit a church that evening, so I wanted to prepare for that, and we had another presentation during the week that I needed to complete plans for. I had thoughts about this sermon that I wanted to solidify – and my list goes on. I was about to walk out the front door of our house and jump into the car when I realized I had forgotten something upstairs, so I went to retrieve it. Halfway down the stairs, something happened. Even though I remember every second of what happened next, I’m not sure exactly what started it. I either caught the heel of my shoe in the cuff of my slacks, or I misplaced my foot, but whatever it was, I found I wasn’t standing on anything. You know those moments when you are starting to fall, and you catch yourself? I tried that, but it didn’t work. Instead, I fell down the stairs. I didn’t roll; I flew. I remember flying through the air, and landing at the bottom – on my face. The only reason I’m standing here smiling at you today is that two very kind and compassionate dentists worked me into their schedules on Monday morning to fix my two broken teeth.

Living the Faith, Part 2

This is the second in a series of five posts that are together a sermon I delivered at Milton UMC.

One of the reasons I’m telling you this story is because there was a moment, sitting at the bottom of the stairs, literally holding a piece of my tooth in my hand, when I thought to myself, “OK, I’ll get cleaned up and go on to work, and get started on my list.” I think we are resistant to change. I had my plans, and I couldn’t imagine – for just that moment – that something was going to get in my way that would prevent me from carrying them out.

The other reason I’m telling you this story, is that after the visits to the dentists, I was on my way to work, and I called to talk to my mom, to give her an update. We were talking about the fall, and she said, “You were lucky. You could have broken your neck.” I think that was very unlikely, but the truth of life is that we never know what comes next. I’ve thought about that as I prepared for this sermon (when you hear the scripture, you’ll see why). We have our plans, and we plan our lives, but the end of life is reality for all of us.

We rarely talk about death in church; in my church, we rarely even talk about change, and how to successfully navigate it. It’s a shame, really, because Christianity is a faith that is centered on transformation – how we change in life, and how we change through death. And mainly how God is at the center of all of that.

Earthly

The word for today is earthly.

A few days ago I posted an image of crocuses blooming to expand on the word live.  This morning it was snowing, and the crocus flowers were dead.  This is the way of mortality -- it is earthly. 

We are dust, and yet we have the hope of immortal life, resurrected life, because of God. 

The Sigh of Sorrow

A few weeks ago -- probably by now, it's been a couple of months ago, a friend died.  She had had cancer for years, and had fought it the whole time.  She called it her "journey."  Her faith became evident during her journey -- whether it grew as she traveled the road or the light of the journey highlighted it, I don't know. 

There came a time when all of us at church realized that her journey would not end with physical healing, but would be what we call "terminal."  I think that realization came to me when Hospice was called in, but she lived in Hospice care for many months (at her home).

We probably wouldn't have been friends, except we were in the same reunion group, and you get to know people when you share your faith. 

Her journey took her through death, and many people said that it was a blessing.

Today in worship, Jack talked about sorrow.  He talked about the sigh of sadness, and how it can be a gift from God.  Without the sorrow, without the realization of loss, resurrection has no meaning. 

I think we might have to pass through the sorrow before we can reach the joy of resurrection.  Even when death is a "blessing" - when it is the end of a long journey through cancer -- or Alzheimer's -- or suffering -- those of us here have to go through the sadness before we reach the realization of the blessing -- the resurrection. 

I can know the death ends the suffering, but that doesn't mean I can skip the sadness.  It's there, too.

Questions about Hell

From the Convocation I attended on Monday -- quesitons raised by Heather Murray Elkins for thoughful consideration regarding the nature of Hell:

1. What is the divine role in hell? Did God create it?
2. Is death the deadline?  Or can God reach beyond death?
3. Is hell a permanent state?
4. Do those in hell stay there forever, or do they eventually crumble and fall apart? (my words, I can't remember hers, exactly)
5. Is the suffering only psycospiritual or also physical?

Never his love

Father Mychal Judge was killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center.  He was chaplain for the fire department (I think).  At his funeral, these words were spoken:

And so, this morning we come to bury Myke Judge's body, but not his spirit.
We come to bury his voice, but not his message.
We come to bury his hands, but not his good works.
We come to bury his heart, but not his love. Never his love.

The work we do for and through and with and beside God is eternal.  The message, the good works, the spirit and the love are forever - they have a lasting impact on people's lives.  God changes the world through what we do and say. 

I pray that the same words spoken at Mychal Judge's funeral can be spoken at our of our funerals. 

Needed in Heaven?

I attended a funeral last weekend. Part of the service was the inclusion of comments from the floor. That can be a grace-filled experience (or not).

For David's funeral, most of the comments were heart-felt and added to the grace of the funeral. One woman, however, concluded her remarks with the comment that "God must needed David in heaven."

I'm not sure I can count how many ways that statement bothers me. First of all, if David died because God needed him in heaven, what about the rest of us? Is David the only one who is needed in heaven?

How do we deal with the idea that if we are created to value life, and are taught to keep it precious by God, how can we find the idea that God ends it for his own convenience palatable?

I have a difference metaphor for God and his role in David's death. David's heart stopped working, so God said, "Come to me, my child, and join me here."

A Wedding and a Funeral

From my Sunday School lesson for this weekend, using Max Lucado's Fearless book as curriculum. The chapter concerns our fear of death...

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going. John 14:1-4

It may seem strange, but Jesus is using wedding imagery to describe life after death. When a couple was betrothed, the groom would go to his father's house and prepare a home for the new couple, then he would return and claim in wife.

Why would Jesus use wedding imagery to describe death? What do a funeral and a wedding have in common?

Think about the idea of many mansions – many dwelling places. And think of the man - Jesus - who is telling us about it. William Barclay, in his writings about this passage, talks about houses on earth that are too crowded for everyone. I imagine that Jesus has heard the story from his mother about the night he was born – when there was no room at the inn. In the light of that thought, what does this passage say to us? Can it be that heaven is a place where there is room for all? Barclay says, “Heaven is as wide as the heart of God and there is room for all. Jesus is saying to his friends, ‘Don’t be afraid. In this world, people may shut their doors upon you. But in heaven you will never be shut out.’”

Image: Alaska, 2nd day of cruise.

Judy

My mother-in-law, Judy, died early this morning from Alzheimer's disease.

So far I have learned, or have been reminded that:

• God is at work, even when we don't know it. In God's good time, Steve, his brother and I all ended up in Judy's room for a visit, even though it hadn't been planned. At the time, it felt like a goodbye. I suppose it was. My sister-in-law, Jenny, saw her yesterday: another visit inspired by God.
• The process of death from Alzheimer's lasts a very long time. It feels like she has been gone for a very long time. At the same time, she just left.
• When grace is offered, take it because you want to. Don't avoid it because you don't need it. It's OK to accept it just becuase you want to.
• Funeral home clothes are awful.

God must hold the memories of Alzheimer's patients in trust and returns them as part of perfect healing.

Judy, we'll miss you.

Answering Grief

The RevGalBlogPals offer a question each week for pastors to answer. They are often about unrest in the church, or how to handle the "politics" of church life, but this weeks was very sad.

A woman in my parish unexpectedly lost her adult daughter a few months ago. She has been experiencing severe, paralyzing, debilitating grief compounded by alcoholism. ... I feel helpless to help her. .... I really don't know what to do.

To read the entire quote, go here.

It's a very tough question. I doubt any of us face grief and its response that is that tough to answer, but I imagine many of us have faced the question of what to say or what to do to help someone who is dealing with a terrible loss.

It's hard. I never know what to say or what to do. I always feel inadequate to provide an answer -- whether it is in words or deeds. I never really know if what I have done or said is of any help at all.

I see some people who seem to know what to do or say, and I wonder how it is that they are so certain in their responses. Do they ever feel uncertain like me? Do they hide it? Or are they truly able to respond in confidence? Is it from experience?

No answers tonight. Just questions.

In Trust

Today, I went the funeral of a gentleman that I've never met.

I debated whether I should go or not. It seemed a strange thing to do. He was known by the other people in our office, but not by me, and I wasn't sure how others would see my attendance at the funeral.

I thought of reasons why my going might be a benefit to the Foundation, but that didn't seem to hold much water. As I was thinking about it, I realized that I would go -- because I wanted to go. It seemed a simple reason, but I worried that it was too self-centered.

I read a lot of Trust Agreements, and I go through a lot of files. One of my favorite parts of those tasks is reading about the donors -- getting to know their stories. People are wonderful, and their reasons for giving to their churches are a joy to read. I have developed this feeling that the Foundation is more than a Trustee for funds. We are also a Trustee of legacy. We hold the memories of those who have given gifts or who have been honored or remembered through a gift. It is a blessing to learn the stories.

So, I decided to go to the funeral so that I could learn this gentleman's story. It was a funeral which gave glory to God, and I am so glad that I went. I learned about this gentleman, and I experienced a wonderful time of worship.

Near the end of the sermon, the pastor said, "When Bill's memory began to fail, God held those memories in Trust for him."

Amen.

Image: Sky on the way to work this morning.

Rising from Death

As I was working on our Advent devotional, assigned dates and scriptures, I ran across Mark 9:9-13. The person who had that particular scripture associated with the date didn't use it, but as I read it, I was struck by a particular sentence:

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean. (Verses 9 and 10)

There is, of course, an obvious answer -- what does rising from the dead mean? They probably couldn't have even imagined what he meant by the phrase or what it foreshadowed. Even with the advantage of hindsight, I think it's a something that we can't even begin to understand.

Putting the obvious aside, though, what does it mean for us, right now? Is there life after death? Do we live a life in which we are dead only to be brought to real life after we come to know God? Does our life after death begin when we say "yes?" Does it begin every day as we continue to say "yes" to God?

If we live in the kingdom of God now, then isn't it true that we have already risen from the dead?

Image: Moon rise in Hungington on Thursday

Mourning

I bought a box of sympathy cards today.

That doesn't sound unusual. I'm always buying cards, and this box joins probably five other boxes of cards in my cabinet. Get well cards. Cards for encouragement. Thank you cards. Thinking of you cards. I like to have cards on hand because I often feel moved to send one, and in order to get that done, I have to be able to grab and send -- not go look for one at a store. So I keep cards around. But never sympathy cards before.

Every time I would pick one up at the card store, I would put it back. I didn't want to need them, so I didn't want to buy them.

Last week the mother of a church member died. I sat down at my desk to send a card, and I didn't have any. I need to keep sympathy cards on hand, too, so I gave in and bought some today.

Death isn't something we want to think about. Someone last week asked when the baby-boomers were going to day. The answer was, "Never. They expect to live forever."

And here's the amazing thing. We will. We will live forever. We will live forever in the presence of God.

We should mourn at death. We mourn the loss the loved one leaves, but we also, and I think rightly so, mourn that the person we love didn't have more time in this physical life. We were created to know that life here, in this world, is precious. We were created to yearn for life, and then to celebrate when we arrive in the presence of God beyond this place. There is glory here. It is cracked and distorted by sin, but God is here, and so is life lived in his presence.

That's why songs centered around the idea that "there is nothing here for me" bother me. There most certainly is something here. That's why the idea that "God plucked another angel for his garden" bothers me. I think God mourns our passing from this life as well. He welcomes us home, but we have been sent here for a mission, and part of that mission is to find the joy and glory of this life.

So, I don't like to buy sympathy cards. I don't want to have to share in mourning. But I will -- buy the cards and share in the mourning. I think it's the way we are made.

What would be on your banner?

St. Mark's UMC in Charleston has a wonderful tradition for All Saint's Day. Each year, two volunteers make banners -- one for each member of the church who has died during the year. On All Saint's Day, these new banners are hung at the front of the church, and the ones from previous years are hung all throughout the sanctuary. It's a moving and beautiful sight to behold.

One day at work I wandered down our hallway and into the room where these two woman work on Mondays, creating the banners. I just went in to peak at what they were doing, but Mary took the time to tell me about each banner -- the person in whose memory it was being constructed, why they were using the symbols on the banners that they were, how many they were making, and how that number compared to other years.

Each banner is lovingly assembled by these two women. They include the name of the person who died as well as pictures which represent various aspects of that person's life. She showed me a banner made in memory of a minister -- on the banner was a cross and flame as well as a robe with a stole. A person who loves flowers might have a rose on the banner. A knitter? yarn and needles.

As I stood in the Sanctuary today, and looked at all the banners, I wondered what would be on a banner assembled with my name on it. If you were a member of St. Mark's, what would you want to have placed on a banner made in your memory?

In the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey suggests that we should "begin with the end in mind." If you could assemble your banner today, with symbols of what you wanted your life to be like, what would you put on it? If you could name those things for which you want to be remembered, what would they be?

And if you could do that, shouldn't you (and I) live your life so make that a reality?

Ninety One Years

Ninety one years
Seems like a long time
But it’s too short
Too short for those who loved him
Too short for those he loved.
Life seems to speed toward death.
That is its sting.

And yet, there is a resurrection
Promised by the Father
Purchased by the Son
Illuminated by the Spirit.
Life without end.

If joy is not happiness.
If joy is the presence of God
Then a funeral can be joyful
A funeral can be hopeful
A funeral can be a witness
To the possibilities
Of a life lived with God
Even through death.
Even in spite of death.

Ninety one years
Seems like too short a time
But when those years
Are lived in the presence
Of the eternal
Then we can stand and sing
Sing of the promise;
Praising God for the fact
That it is well with our souls.

A brother and a sister
Standing in the front
Of the support of the church,
Share their father.
The way he lived his 91 years.
His life a witness to the kingdom
His children evidence
Of his rules of life.

A man
Standing in front of strangers
Bishops and pastors
Those he’s never met.
Given courage by a man
His friend,
Who always came by his pew
And listened to him.
Making him know
That he is a child of God.
Seen. Never invisible.
Now never alone
Death will not keep them apart
As Rev. Conner will always be with him
In that pew.

A minister standing
Pastor to a pastor
Calling ministers to stand
In honor of one of their
Brothers.
A family of those
Who have heard this particular call
From their God.
Standing for a fellow circuit rider.
Standing in respect
Standing in the presence of their God
Standing on the promise
Of a life never ending.

Ninety one years
Of offering them Christ
Inviting us into the light
Of being last, always
Of living in the will of God.
Of dancing with Jesus.
A witness with his invitations.
A witness with his life.
A witness.
Proclaiming a message
Even today
As he lives with God
Dancing, flying,
As he always has.

Image: Cross and butterfly from the sanctuary of First United Methodist Church, Barboursville, which was the location of the funeral for Rev. J. Irvin Conner on Monday evening.

In Our End is Our Beginning

I know that the first day of spring is in March. I mark it on my calendar; I watch for the transition every year. I say to myself, "It's spring; why is it snowing?"

Really, though, for me, spring comes a little later than March 21. Now is when I start noticing that spring has arrived. The weather is warmer, the daffodils are blooming, and our crabapple is starting to bud. The trees in front of our church have large mounds of white flowers on them. When it rains, tiny petals from the trees litter the ground. Now is spring; before, we just had the promise of it.

A friend pointed out a song to me last summer called Every Season, by Nicole Nordman. It's a great song about how she finds God in every season. I hear it on the radio every once and a while. I specifically remember hearing it on January 24, on the way to work. Read this last verse (and a little of the previous one):

Even now in death,
you open doors for life to enter.
You are winter.

And everything that’s new, has bravely surfaced,
teaching us to breathe.
And what was frozen through,
is newly purposed,
turning all things green.
So it is with you
and how you make me new,
with every season’s change.
And so it will be, as you are recreating me.
Summer, autumn, winter, spring.

I remember thinking at the time that I had never noticed that the last verse was spring. We so often think of spring as being the beginning, with winter as the end. I was glad that she had written it the way she did, ending with the beginning.

Then, a few hours later, as I was working in the lab, Steve called to tell me that Jim Ray had died.

Even at the time, that day, I connected those two events in my mind. I was glad, that day, that perhaps God had pointed out to me that the end is not the end; that the end is the beginning.

I think we are called as Christians to know that reality. It's not what society teaches us to expect, but in so many ways, it is true. In times of change, the end is so often the beginning of something else. We have an endless God, who, because he loves us, even turned our death into a new season. There is not an end; there is only spring.

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
in our doubt there is belieiving; in our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
(From Hymn of Promise; Natalie Sleeth)

Images: Our crabapple tree; one of our few daffodils.