Precious Departure
Vanessa Elaine Schuler (1986-1992)
What We Know!
(This post takes about 3 minutes to read . . . and longer to ponder)
Liz Shepherd’s 2018 art and sculpture exhibition entitled The Wait depicts her vigil at her dying father’s bedside. The exhibition attempts to convey the yearning, emptiness, and fragile sense of helplessness that Shepherd felt as she watched her father slip beyond reach. A Boston Globe correspondent described the exhibition as “evok[ing] the precious, exposed, and transcendent in life.” A sample of her artwork introduced you to this page.
Today as a nation, we’re facing Shepherd’s sense of loss and a loosening of the grip on what we think we control. Perhaps that’s God’s lesson for us? Across the country, to include the Assisted Living facility where my parents are housed, we are watching families respond (or react!) to the threat of COVID-19 . . . and to the stark reality that we may be refused bedside vigils that could result in the solitary death of loved ones.
Precious departure! It seems like a cruel phrase. But Psalm 116:15 binds us to that truth. “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful servants.” I confess that many years ago, this puzzling snippet of Scripture conflicted me. It seemed callous and I had no context for it.
Not long afterwards, I’m also reminded of a well-intentioned pastor who sat with me and another shocked and grief-stricken father. My friend had just returned from the morgue where his young daughter lay. The pastor attempted to comfort him with memorized wisdom, “Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55).
There was not another word uttered that day in the awkward silence that followed. No one who has not suffered sudden and tragic death of a loved one should ever counsel someone who has. They don’t speak the language of profound loss.
Nevertheless, both verses from God’s Word present sacred truth. Nothing has changed in today’s COVID-19 ravaged world where death stalks us in Home Depot—and family members are barred bedside presence with deathly ill loved ones.
What should we make of this? Consider this. If our faith is one-inch deep, we can expect no more comfort from it than our one-inch investment. Conversely, a deep and well informed faith ushers in a whole new dimension of peace and perseverance.
“Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful servants.” Why? Because faithful servants know their final destination is assured . We come to that confidence by God’s grace, through belief and faith in Christ’s death and miraculous resurrection. We know the journey of life is not aimless—True North has, and always will, lead us home to eternal peace. We know that life here is troublesome and that we must live above our circumstances. Famine, pandemics, tornadoes, and violence are products of a conflicted, fallen world. But they’re not the legacy of Christ’s eternal abode where tears, mourning, and pain are forever silenced (see Revelation 21:4-5). Faithful servants know and understand that this world is not our future home . . . and that we must live our lives for the next. Jim Elliott, the martyred missionary in the jungles of Rio Curaray, Ecuador, said it succinctly, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep . . . to gain what he cannot lose.”
No, the pain and process of dying is not to be welcomed, but death can be reconciled as an entrance into the eternal care of Jesus, our Savior. Sure, I’d like to go quickly and forego the messy process of dying, but I don’t control that. But through death (when it comes), I’ll be looking for Jesus to greet me at heaven’s gate. I’ll drop to my knees and say to him, “Lord, I have fought the good fight . . . I have finished the race . . . I have kept the faith.”
I believe his response will be, “Well done good and faithful servant” (Matt 25:21, 23).
And right behind Jesus will be my daughter, Vanessa, with wide, outstretched arms. “Welcome home, Daddy, we’ve been waiting for you.” *
Keep the faith, my friends, and stay the course of perseverance, service to others, compassion, and generosity. There’s joy in the final destination.
Tom
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord will award me” (2 Timothy 4:7-8).
* Note: The fantastically beautiful portrait of my six-year-old daughter, Vanessa, was painted by award winning artist, Bill Smith, from pictures we sent him. Bill is an old and gnarly wrestler like me; we were teammates at the US Naval Academy in the early ‘70’s. More of Bill’s magic with a brush can be found at his web site www.williamgsmithart.com.
The bold and beautiful Vanessa Atalanta butterfly.