Stephen
Terry, Director
Times
of Loss
Commentary
for the June 1, 2019 Sabbath School Lesson
“The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” 1 Corinthians
15:26, NIV
!979 was a year of momentous change for me and my
family. My son was born in April of that year, and almost two months later, I
graduated from Walla Wall College with a freshly minted degree in Theology and
Biblical Languages. I was called to pastor a three church district in the
Kansas Conference, and my wife and I were excited to begin a career of ministry
and service. But by the end of the year, we received devastating news that set
our lives on an entirely different course. My wife and I used to run together in
the evenings, but she began having trouble keeping up even though the pace was
leisurely. Then she said she could feel a piece of wood in the bed one night,
and when she lifted the covers, she discovered it was one of her legs that had
lost feeling and was touching the other one. Concerned about what might be
going on, we discussed it with our family doctor who referred her to
specialists, and shortly before our fifth anniversary, she was diagnosed with
Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Not entirely sure what this meant, we attempted to
soldier on, but it soon became apparent that the disease was progressing. She
could not continue to fulfill the expectations placed upon a pastor’s wife.
Furthermore, the doctors said that the high humidity climate of Kansas would
cause her to rapidly lose what motor function she had left. There seemed little
choice left but to resign from the pastoral ministry and return to a less humid
part of the United States if she was to maintain as much life quality as
possible.
Since pastoral ministry was out of the question when we
arrived in the Upper Columbia Conference, life became a severe financial
struggle. My father-in-law attempted to help me to learn his trade of body and
fender work, but I have never been particularly gifted with hand work, which
soon became apparent. Eventually, I ended up working For Washington State
Social and Health Services. This fit well with my progressive perspective and
it provided the medical insurance that was now so necessary for my wife’s
ongoing needs. I do not know how long her life expectancy would have been had
we remained in Kansas, but the move to Washington allowed her to live twenty-five
more years. She was able to attend our son’s graduation from Upper Columbia
Academy, and although she was too ill to attend, she lived past his graduation
from Tulane University with a Master of Architecture.
Seeing her struggle for all those years caused me to
question my faith at times. Jesus said that faith like a grain of mustard seed
could move mountains.[i] It seemed to me then that
my faith did not even measure up to that small amount. This was hard to
understand since I had throughout my life experienced dramatic answers to
prayer, answers that left no doubt in my mind about the existence of God or his
willingness to intervene. But in spite of prayer, anointing, and all the
promises of scripture about healing, she continued her slow and steady
progression toward her death in 2005. I do not blame God for her death. After
all, we are all destined to die. The older I get and the more health issues I
develop, the more that becomes apparent to me. She did not suffer a fate
different from any one else. We all die. She just died sooner.
This year is my 50th high school reunion, and
about a third of those who were in my graduating class have not made it to this
point. Some might feel that those of us who remain have been blessed with the
advantage of better genes, better lifestyle, or simply better luck. But when I
rise each day after tossing and turning with arthritic pain, and as I struggle with
sleep apnea that requires me to use a CPAP machine, and new ailments seem to
bedevil me with each passing year, the advantage seems debatable. When I was
younger, death seemed unreal. I was in the full vigor of life. That vitality
allowed me to be strong for my first wife in her long struggle with MS, but
with advancing age, the vitality sometimes escapes me in dealing with my own health
challenges let alone trying to be strong for my current wife, who is also
dealing with health issues that become more pervasive as the years go by.
Fortunately, she and I share a common faith in God and a progressive
understanding of our place in the world. When two are equally yoked, they can
tap into resources of faith and compassion not readily available otherwise.
I might ask, “Why be a Christian if there is no advantage
to it? If I suffer the ravages of time and death as others also suffer these
things, what is gained?” If that were the end of the story, being a Christian might
be pointless indeed. Christians struggle with abusive relationships, addictive
personalities, and both giving and receiving betrayal. The statistics on many
of these things do not differ significantly from those who profess no religious
faith. The Old Testament is a litany of sordid affairs, murders and betrayals
among those who consider themselves God’s people. Why then does faith persist?
How does a boy like Joseph, betrayed and sold into slavery by his brothers,
remain faithful to God? Many years went buy at times when he did not appear to
have any communication from God, yet his faith did not waiver. What about
Daniel, who was betrayed by other government leaders and tossed into a den of
hungry lions? His faith remained strong in spite of the experience. Perhaps
there is a reason for such faith that we sometimes overlook.
The Bible tells us that God intervened in their lives at
various times in profound ways. It was profound because the intervention was
sufficient to sustain them through subsequent adversities. Oftentimes we only
consider God to be present and relevant if that intervention is of an
overwhelming, incontrovertible nature. Like the Jews, who expected the Messiah
to be a conquering king who would drive Rome from the precincts of holy
Jerusalem and the Temple, we look for thundering intervention that will not
only set everything aright, but will also tell the world that our theological
perspective is the one true path because it is the one that brought forth the
thundering deity in the first place. The only problem is that a similar attitude
in first century Judaism brought about the destruction of Jerusalem, the
Temple, and even eventually ended the right of Jews to dwell in Jerusalem after
they rejected the idea of Jesus as Messiah. Sometimes the greatest danger to
our faith is when we think we have faith and God all figured out. Even
righteous Job discovered that he did not have it all together when it came to
understanding God.
Does God’s inscrutability then negate the possibility of
reasoned faith? Some might find a basis for an unapproachable and indifferent deism
when faced by a wall of inscrutability, but the Bible tantalizes us adequately
with the stories of God’s intervention to lay that concern to rest. God has a
habit of intervening in our lives just to the extent necessary to sustain
faith. But generally, he appears to do so in a manner akin to the “still, small
voice” as opposed to the dramatic thunderer of John’s “Revelation.” But life is
busy, and we often do not hear still, small voices. We are more familiar with
the blaring, repetitious messages of marketing and propaganda that inundate us
each day. God’s voice may speak loudest and most vibrantly in moments of
silence and peace, something the world offers very little of. If we can listen
to the point of hearing we may discover what that voice is saying, and among
the messages it brings to us is a message for those of us who suffer loss
either of loved ones, or of our own spiritual, mental, or physical health. It
tells us, “Death is not the end.” There is something better. We may see those
we have lost once again in a better place than this. Furthermore, we will see
them without whatever ailments are besetting us now. This world seems, at
times, to be filled with death. Warfare, famine, and disease sweep thousands into
early graves. But the next world will be one of life and healing. The times
that the still, small voice has spoken into my life have reassured me of that.
Like Daniel and Joseph, we can find assurance that can endure for decades
without further intervention. This is evidence of the power in the stillness of
God. No matter how crazy our circumstances may become, the reality of that
better place challenges the reality of the present and is the foundation of
faith.
