“His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” Matthew 25:21

Okay, this way too  long, so I suggest you read it in a couple of settings.  I didn’t want to break it up because there would be a whole week between sections, so it is up to you to. break it up!  Thanks for your patience.

We recently had a memorial for one of our beloved members, David Williams.  It was a lovely time of remembering his life and his almost 50 years with his lovely wife Virginia and his very large family.  If you have not seen the memorial,  you can click here to view the whole thing.  Dave’s memorial  led me to remember another Celebration of Life I went to years ago.  That memorial was for my good friend James Witt and it was very touching and thought provoking.   James was the  youth leader for our four children at Emmanuel Baptist church years ago (yes, it was in the 80’s!). James was only 52 when he passed and beloved by many. He found out three months earlier what he was facing and so his fight was short, but very difficult. It was, of course, very hard on his nine children and wonderful wife, Lenae. It was also hard on the students in the school that he started and where he taught.  It was especially  difficult for the boys in the Christian Service Brigade that he had started two years earlier.   It was hard on his many friends, as well. In the two-hour service we heard from people in every one of those categories.

The service was held in the Melrose church gym that has been converted into a worship center. It was packed and there was standing room only for some of the latecomers. There was no slide show of James’ life, just testimonies. I don’t think he was too big on technology.

The service started with over a half-hour of his children and a few others combining in different groups and singing all of James’ favorite songs. It was incredibly touching. Amazingly, they all had wonderful voices and could play a variety of instruments. There were also love letters to James from each of his children in the program we were given and the love that was reflected in those letters was also reflected on the stage. Then several of the individual children spoke. They all called him “Papa,” and to hear them speak of their respect and love for their papa was intensely moving.

After about an hour of testimony about James’ life, his son Timothy got up and said that James had written and recorded a message for his own memorial a few weeks earlier. Timothy said that they were not going to play it, because is seemed almost morbid in a way. But after the family buried James on a ranch that he inherited last year from a man who James had befriended, they listened to the recorded message and were blessed by it. They decided as a family to play it at the service, so they did.

It was wonderfully strange to hear James speaking at his own memorial. He spoke with love and conviction. As was his way, he did not hold back. He knew that even the hardest of hearts would probably not walk out on a dead man speaking, so he laid it all on the line. There wasn’t a person sitting in that auditorium that had excuse any longer. If they had managed to avoid hearing the gospel up to that point in their lives, they hadn’t avoided it any longer. I think the message of hope that he gave while on the cusp of death had an incredible effect on all who were there. There was no bitterness in his voice or words, only anticipation. It was truly beautiful. He ended with some wonderful verses and said good bye “for now.”  I have never experienced anything like it.

After James’ message they opened it up to those who would like to come forward and share a bit. Some of the stories were lengthy (and as usual, some people used it for a personal pulpit time that had little to do with James), but most were just short vignettes about James’ kindness and love. After that a young pastor came forward and told how he had been kicked out of houses of friends and relatives up until the age 18 when James took him in. James would get him up at 5:00 every morning and they would run two miles and talk about the Lord. The young man was eventually saved and became a pastor. It was a very touching story. Well, at that point he gave a hellfire and brimstone sermon. I mean it was an old-fashioned, “I don’t need no stinkin’ microphone” lay-it-on-the-line message. Quite unusual for a memorial, but I guess not for James’ memorial.

At the end about 15 boys went forward in their Christian Service Brigade uniforms (similar to Boy Scout garb) and sang their Christian theme song and gave their motto. So after about two and a half hours, the service ended and we went to the family meet and greet line or the food line. James was a very conservative Christian with some different ideas, none of which offset his deep belief in Christ as Savior, so it was a bit like being at an Apostolic Faith, Mennonite, or Amish gathering. Many of the females wore small head coverings and long dresses and I saw more long beards on the men than at a Duck Dynasty convention or ZZ Top concert. The whole event was what I would call serious but festive. That sounds contradictory, but that is the only way to explain it. Many parts were upbeat, but a person could never escape the feeling that everyone involved was saying, “This idea of Jesus and the afterlife is crucial. Don’t mess up.” It wasn’t that everyone was uptight, but that everyone knew that with memorials comes great opportunity.

The reason I am reliving this beautifully unique memorial is not only because our kids knew James as a youth leader (and afterwards as well), but because like every memorial or funeral it forces us to face our own mortality. There wasn’t a person sitting there that day who wasn’t asking himself at one time or another, “What will my celebration of life be? How will I be remembered? What can people say about me?” There is a wonderful poem called “The Dash” that explains that when a date appears on a headstone it records the year of birth, then a dash, then the year of death. The dates are not the important part, what was important is what took place during the dash. What I heard about James’ “dash” was life of kindness, humility, and conviction. What I mostly heard, however, was about a life committed to Christ, family, and friends.

When an unbeliever dies, people talk about his or her goodness of character (even though it may have been missing). Mourners are more or less satisfied knowing that the person was just a “good guy” during his lifetime. But as Christians we should not be satisfied with just being “good.” Our time here should be marked by our love for Christ and the actions of our life should stem from that love. Our memorials should not consist of the occasional assumption by some that we must have been a Christian because we went to church once in awhile. No one should be able to turn to another in the service and say, “Oh, so he/she was a Christian? I didn’t know that.” Our lives are to reflect Christ, so our deaths should not reveal anything less. When I spoke at my Dad’s memorial, I tried to tell stories of his life, but also tried to express, undeniably, that they were all connected to his love for Jesus. He was a simple man with simple faith, but everyone who met him knew that God was important in his life. He attended church up until it was impossible and was not afraid to defend Jesus, Ronald Reagan, and gun control (in that order), to anyone who had the guts to take on a guy you could not get mad at.

I guess what I took away from Jame’s  memorial is that Christian memorials should be different from secular ones. John said that “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Our lives should reveal Christ more and more each day, so that when we reach the end there should be no doubt who we want to glorify. If our lives reflect just a passing glimpse of who Jesus is and a whole bunch of other “stuff,” even though the “stuff” is good, we will be disappointed in ourselves when see Him face to face. When most people say they want to live with no regrets, they mean they want to pile in every endeavor possible so they don’t miss out on anything. As Christians “no regrets” should mean exemplifying Christ and living for Him as much as we possibly can. We might think that sounds boring, but I don’t think we will feel that way when the family who loved us friends who knew us, and the Savior who redeemed all say at the end of our lives , “Well done, good and faithful one.” If our lives were books, how many pages would mention Christ’s name? Would there be long stretches, maybe even full chapters, in which He never appears. Is He like the soap opera character that pops in and out of episodes every few months for convenience or is He the leading character on which the story rests?

There was no doubt at the end of the day where James’ loyalties lay. His memorial service was more about life than dying. It was more about heaven to come than earth left behind. It was, from everything I could see, an example of a worthwhile “dash” between two numbers. James died on my birthday, so it is fitting that we remember that there is a “time for life and a time for death,” and in that in life we should live for Christ and in that in our death we should meet with Him, and that no one left should have any questions about either. Mark Twain once said that we should live such lives that when we die, that everyone should be sorry, even the undertaker! When famous pastor Donald Barnhouse was going to his wife’s funeral with his young children a huge truck passed them and its shadow covered half the road. He asked his children if they would rather be run over by that truck or by the shadow cast by that truck. Of course they said the shadow because it could not hurt them. He said, “That is the way it is with death. The truck represents the death, but because of Christ’s sacrifice, the only thing that touches us now is its shadow. Death can’t hurt us anymore.”

James lamp was not extinguished, he just doesn’t need it anymore so he can set it aside. He is in the true light now. As I write the book of my life, I hope it can be entitled, “Jesus and his friend Rick.” I want Him to be the main character. I think we all hope that we will live more for Him than ourselves and that our lives will be undeniably connected in word and deed to “Him Who lives within us.”