Most of you know now that my dad died last week. We had the funeral service this past Thursday, July 8. Dad died of Alzheimer’s disease, having lost an almost decade long battle to this horrible affliction.
Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and letters and emails and support during this difficult time. It has been a tough week. My family loved our dad. We miss his fierce love of life, humour, hospitality and love for us.
Thank you for praying; we have felt lifted up and carried this week. The funeral service was very meaningful; I was privileged to give a little message reflecting on my father and the gospel. I enclose it here as a way of honouring my Dad, and the Lord who made him and, I hope, has now remade him.
I loved my father. He was a force of nature, fierce in all his ways, fierce in his loves, fierce in his hates; fierce in his opinions and fierce in his faith.
One of my father’s favorite things to do was read. An extremely literate man, his favorite poet was Dylan Thomas. One of Dylan’s most famous poems, of course, is called Do Not Go Gentle. I thought of it this week while I watched my father breathe his final few days of breaths. It describes Dylan’s emotions as he watched his father slowly slip off to death on his bed.
The first, and the last lines of the poem are these:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
My father raged against the dying of the light. He hated death. He hated his disease with the fierceness of his being. And in his fierceness, he was surely right. Death is an enemy; in Christian terms, death is one of the last great enemies, a great shadow and affliction, a curse brought upon humanity by our own pride and self-dependent thirst for control: control of our own lives, our own desires. Death, then, is the result of our rebellion against God; against trusting God with our lives, our loves, our being, our destiny, our happiness.
My father understood rebellion. He loved rebels. From early on, I realized that my father resonated with the sinners, not the saints, in all the TV shows and movies we watched. And that is, I think, because he understood at a gut level that he was a rebel in his heart. We are all rebels; all rebels struggling to throw off any authority that might keep us from running our own lives. Even God. My father had a deep sense of God, of God’s holiness, of God’s justice. My father was a bit more of an Old Testament Christian, if you know what I mean. He saw God in all of His power and terrifying purity. And my father knew himself to be a rebel.
Indeed, the New Testament says that we are all rebels; all seeking our own way; all running from God in our natural state. The apostle Paul was like Dad; proud, strong, intellectual, well-trained.
The interesting thing is that the apostle Paul was a very religious man. He was a rabbi. But he realized a signal truth; that you can run from God by being religious or moral just as easily as you can run from God by being irreligious or immoral.
Indeed, Paul came to realize that he too was the chief of sinners- the chief of rebels against God. He wrote: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
And so here we are; rebels all, sinners all, guilty before God – all. Yet hating the consequences of our self-dependent rebellion – hating the decay and death that we have brought upon humanity.
And so we are trapped. There seems no way through death, no way to re-make and repair the damage done when we rebelled.
But my father, I think, knew there was a way. My father raised us as his children to believe that a way had been made to conquer death. Indeed, the apostle Paul, who once feared and hated death, was able to say ‘o death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’
Paul, too, had found a way through death- a way my father clung to, I think, to his dying day. He found a way through the mercy of a God who loves rebels, like you and me. That way is through Jesus Christ, who came to undo all of the consequences of sin – not by simply ignoring our rebellion, but by paying the price of divine justice for our sin.
Jesus came to rescue rebels. He gave His life for rebels. He loved rebels even to the end. And he died to rescue us, rebels against God’s rule and way, from the consequences of our sin and rebellion.
Jesus Christ, God’s divine son, became a human being to conquer death. He lived a pure, sinless, perfect human life. He lived the kind of life we cannot live. We would be both attracted by him- and intimidated by him. His goodness would melt us – and yet his goodness would scare us, because it would reveal the selfishness of our own hearts – the selfishness that alienates us from a perfect God of love, and that will separate us from that God forever, for eternity, if we do not get it dealt with.
Jesus lived a life that pleased his heavenly father. And then he gave his life as a substitute for us. On the cross, He paid the penalty of divine justice that you and I deserve to pay.
Galatians Paul said: he became a curse for us.
Corinthian church: He made Jesus who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Roman church:
3 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith
My Father helped me in my journey of faith. My dad and I had a difficult relationship; we were too alike. Dad’s method of showing love and my ability to receive love were vastly different. I felt alienated at times from the man whose love and acceptance and approval I desired most. I mourned not sensing, not feeling that for much of my life. Yet now I rejoice over it. My dad taught me what it feels like to be alienated from your father; he taught me the emptiness and pain of longing. And in that longing he prepared me to see that I was alienated from my heavenly Father; that I was separated by my own stubborn heart. It was my earthly father who helped spur my realization that I needed to be reconciled to God.
On the last day I remember having a real conversation with my father, we were heading to a restaurant for lunch. He was frustrated with his disease, knowing where it was going. I talked ot him openly about my faith, and quoted a famous quote from Jesus. Jesus was talking about life andsaying:
death and the afterlife. People were wondering if we all go to a better place, or how it works. And jesus clarified with a simple truth: He said:
I am the resurrection and the life; He who believes in me, though he dies, he will live forever.
That means that there is a better place – but it is bound up in Jesus. Of all the religious leaders who have ever walked the earth, Jesus is the only one to have conquered death- his resurrection is a matter of historical record. All the other teachers and leaders are dead; Jesus alone conquered death.
And in his resurrection, Jesus promised that anyone who believed in him would experience the same resurrection, the same conquering of death. There is a better place – but only for those who have faith in Jesus. era
So I quoted this verse to my father – and said: ‘Dad, what do you think of that saying by Jesus? That if we have faith in him, we can have eternal life?
He turned to me – Dad was pretty private about his faith – but in this last day, he turned to me and said: son, I am counting on it.’
That is what faith is. Counting on it. That is the fierce faith of my father. That is the one sure way to eternal life; counting on Jesus Christ to save us from the horror of death and the terror of eternal justice.
If Dad could be here today, back from the grave, having met Jesus, this is what he would say to us; count on it.
On the last day of his life, my father slep…all day. He never awoke. His breathing started laboured, but became more peaceful as the day wore on. When he died he seemed at rest, at peace. He died gently; in contrast to his favorite poet’s words, my dad went gently into that good night. I believe he did, because by counting on what Jesus had done, he ad in faith come to a place where death is no longer the dying of the light, but the beginning of the light of eternal life in Christ. Death loses it’s sting, death is dethroned, defanged, defeated. death is transformed from a destination we fear – to a doorway; a doorway into the arms of God.
Jesus said: I am the door; if anyone enters by me, they will be saved.
Jesus also said: I am the Good shepherd, I lay down my life for my sheep. We heard the 23rd Psalm read, which says the Lord is my shepherd. Well, Jesus is the Good Shepherd who allows us to pass through the valley of the shadow of death with joy, not fear.
Thank you for being here to honour my father in life and in death. May you honour the One who brings life from death. Let us pray.
