As I walked this morning, I listened to PZ's podcast entitled "The Infinite Frost," in which he recounts the untimely death of his college roommate. His roommate drowned while sailing on the river behind his house over Christmas break. Paul says that he didn't take in the grief at the time. A short time later, while in Grand Central Station, he saw Archie and ran trying to catch up to him. At that point, the grief hit him.
For me, I never truly grieved over the death of my father until I read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy--some twelve years after my father died. When my father died, I was busy with a job, two young children, and a five-day old baby. McCarthy's idea in "The Road" that the father had died "carrying the light" and that he was going on to make a way for his son made me stop what I was doing and sit down and weep. McCarthy writes about this again at the end of "No Country for Old Men." It is a powerful image.
The idea that my father went on to prepare a way is a wonderful sentiment, but it has no efficacy. My father's death in no way prepares a way for me. My father's death has no real meaning in the grand scheme of the world. He won't be remembered after I die, and I won't be remembered after my children die. But there was one man whose death did prepare a way--whose death has continuing efficacy for me, for all of us, today.
About ten years ago, a friend came to me and asked me how I had changed my ways. He told me that I had been one of the most lustful men that he knew, and that somehow I had changed in a remarkable fashion--almost overnite. I knew that I had changed, but I didn't realize that others had noticed--mainly because I didn't think my lustful tendencies were that pronounced. Obviously, they were!
I told my friend that I had learned about Christianity really for the first time from a Bible study taught by PZ. I had been brought up in the church, even considered being a preacher, taught Sunday School, and was a Deacon, but I had never, ever heard the true message of Christianity until I went to PZ's Bible study. I firmly believe that I wasn't a Christian until I went to PZ's Bible study. What's more, I didn't understand what PZ was saying until God brought me to my knees.
In 2001, God attacked my job, my marriage, and my health. Debbie told me that she was waiting for the kids to graduate from high school so that she could leave me. She told me that she was "plotting her escape." I had significant issues with one of my best clients, and I learned that I had a liver disease. For the first time in my life, I realized that I wasn't in control. I realized that I couldn't get by with my efforts and a little help from Jesus (what I had always heard in church--"God helps those who help themselves.") I realized that I brought nothing to the table and that it was only by the grace of God that I lived and had anything. Through God's gracious attacks upon me and through hearing the Gospel from PZ, I was remarkably transformed. My wife decided to hang in there with me. Now, twelve years later, we have a wonderful marriage.
So, what about my friend? I gave him some cassette tapes with PZ's sermons. About a month later, he came back to me and said: "Is this really true?" Shortly, there after he changed jobs. He began handling death penalty appeals, because, if Jesus was a lawyer, that's what Jesus would do. He became the outreach leader at a church. Then he was killed. He was driving home after visiting a hospital patient, and a car came across the median and killed him. But Jesus had gone on before my friend. Jesus had made a way for my friend. My friend was welcomed home by his true father. The fragility of life is overcome by the death and resurrection of Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment