Half the church was there. It’s not a large church. About three hundred souls in total. But they were there. Truly there. Fully there. There for her. She lay in bed, above them, directly in the path of hymns and spiritual songs wafting to heaven, to God’s ears. To hers through a small opening in the window. She lay dying, according to earthly wisdom. Quite frail to their eyes. Smaller than she was. Becoming more seed-like.
They came to minister to her, to her husband, to her six children, to each other. They came to be with each other, to be with her, to be who they are. For it is that verb which is the most powerful one in a community of believers. They “are” a royal priesthood, a sacred community bound by oaths and vows, fathers, daughters, sons, mothers, friends, shepherds, sheep, an army. They are because He was. Because He came.
“What e’er my God ordains is right: Here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine, Yes I am not forsaken.
My Father’s care is round me there; He holds me that I shall not fall; And so to Him I leave it all.”
They sang. Some wept. The mothers most of all I think. Those who knew about being mothers, about being wives. They thought of those who had gone before, so many, so suddenly, so recently. But they didn’t ask why. They sang.
“Jesus! what a guide and keeper! While the tempest still is high,
Storms about me, night o’er takes me, He my pilot, hears my cry,
Hallelujah! what a Savior! Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving, He is with me to the end.”
Sue was there, with her frail body ravaged by a disease not yet determined, unable to walk and talk like she once did. Her husband, so dedicated to her care, stood behind her wheelchair. He was there too.
So too was Rich. He of the near-fatal car wreck a few weeks ago. He too in a wheelchair. He was there.
And there was Dan and his family, whose father was not there because he was recovering from heart surgery just a few miles away. Christie stood with two of her children, two more were with Dad, suffering nearby with an ailment.
Susannah was there though she has just buried three of her friends in three short years. She too was there. Laurence was there though his Angela wasn’t, once again too ill to travel far. He was there. He is always there.
What a sight they were. The halt and the lame, the older ones in chairs they brought to support their fragile limbs, the younger ones in strollers, the weak in wheelchairs.
This is an army? Happy when they could be cursing God? Singing for another when they could be lamenting their own sad state?
They sang with hope in their weak voices, with joy in their saddened hearts. Like they had an answer. Like they had the answer. Because He came. Because He died. Because the grave could not hold Him, it cannot hold them either.
And that frail, tiny seed will be planted in a garden and will one day bloom triumphantly and eternally. And one day, soon enough, they will all gather together once again. And none will lie in bed, and none will sit, and none will weep. And they will sing.
“And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on,
And when from death I’m free I’ll sing on;
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be,
And through eternity I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on,
And through eternity, I’ll sing on!
WRITTEN BY: ERIC OWENS
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