Mission accomplished

When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. Matthew 2:10

Frankly, it’s been a rough couple of days for me. Not for the usual suspects, what one would assume to be the issues surrounding a beloved father’s death after a prolonged illness. 

Rather it has been the dozens of well-meaning friends who have gripped my arm and leaned in with lots of eye contact and lugubrious tones, and murmured, “I am so, so sorry for your loss.” For some reason that has left me sputtering, struggling how to explain the great joy bubbling up in my soul.

In many ways my father’s life was one big fat rocket-scientist experiment.  Are God’s promises trustworthy and true?  All those verses about giving and it shall be given unto you, Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much. Are these just nice platitudes to comfort the disillusioned masses, overprescribed opiates? Or are they a solid rock upon which one can build a home sturdy enough to withstand all of life’s storms?

And much as the astrologers who had left their houses and families and fields to follow a star rejoiced exceedingly when it proved trustworthy and true, our family and friends could not help but rejoice at the evidence and logical conclusions derived henceforth from my father’s big life science project. As the stories unfolded, an intentionality was revealed, although perhaps disguised in a flurry of beloved but silly riddles. Alan’s slideshow ended exactly right: Say what you mean, and mean what you say, and don’t use big words, Dad’s variation on a theme first articulated by St. Francis and how the gospel should be preached.

And last night, one last time of gathering around a beauteous spread of deliciousness and small clusters of real conversations, the topic turned to that of hymn lyrics, specifically the hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” which framed mom and dad’s life.  And what is an Ebenezer anyways?  

Mr. Google reveals that the prophet Samuel lifted up a rock and named it Ebenezer, which means the stone of the help, saying, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.” The setting up of stones in such instances was not unusual. This seems to be equivalent to building altars, memorials, or setting up marker stones to identify family land.

Thus the past few days, weeks, months have been a time of lifting up the Ebenezer, a time of remembering, reflecting and commemorating the faithfulness of God, identifying the family land, celebrating the Rock upon which our home was built.  And what can we do but join the wise men in rejoicing exceedingly and falling down before our God our Maker in worship. and offering Him our treasures, our gifts, our very lives, because my Father’s hypothesis, once a faded bumper sticker on the family station wagon, has been proven true thus far: He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. -Jim Eliot