Jim Died A Most Prosperous Man

I am very proud to tell you I live in a house that Jim built. Jim was a builder from Michigan who arrived here in Texas in the early 1970s. The house building business in Michigan was at a standstill. People were leaving the state in droves, looking elsewhere for work. But in the Houston area things were booming. So Jim ended up here. Sylvia and I contracted with Jim to build us a new house.

Jim was a very devout Christian lay member of our congregation. During the days he worked on our house a very strange disease he had already in Michigan worsened. Blood circulation to his extremities was cut off for reasons the doctors could only guess at. Little by little the tips of his fingers and toes died and had to be removed. As the disease progressed he finally lost his hands and feet, then his forearms and calves. By the time he died—a little over a year after the disease began—he had but stumps where his arms and feet had once been.

BUT! Jim never lost faith in the mercy, forgiveness and love of God! Astounding. How was that possible? I learned so much from this humble man, so very much about real faith. Jim was my Job. It was as if Job were there in the hospital bed as I visited and prayed with Jim.

"Let me have silence, and I will speak, and let come on me what may. Why should I take my flesh in my teeth and put my life in my hand? Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face." - Job 13:13-15 ESV

That was Jim. He believed that he was unworthy of God's love. He was a sinner and deserved, as we confess week by week in our liturgies, "Your present and eternal punishment." That prayer of confession continues:

"For the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in Your will and walk in Your ways to the glory of Your holy name. Amen."  

When Jim left this life, we joyfully committed what was left of his suffering body to the hands of his Lord in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection. The congregation I served at the time later named a pre-school building in Jim's honor.

Here's where I return to my critique of the prosperity preachers.

Jim came to Texas to prosper. He believed in God and in His love. For a time he found work and gained money to care for his family. And then his illness. Why? I never heard Jim ask that question. He simply submitted and did his work until he had to be confined to a hospital bed.

It was as if God was hiding Himself—or at least so it seemed. In Martin Luther's terms, God was speaking from behind a mask. And what was he saying to Jim—as well as to all of us? Certainly that He has poured out abundance upon us, giving us all that we need in this life. We have homes, food, good weather, basically good government, protection from our enemies, friends and family. And what are we doing with all this? Honoring Him? Thanking Him? Serving Him? So often, so very often the answer is no, no, no. We forget about loving Him and serving Him with all of our being, with our hearts and minds as well as our bodies. We forget to reach out to share this abundance with the weak, needy and helpless.

So He spoke a word of warning to us through Jim's illness. He told us that this is what we each deserve—to die and to be separated from Him for eternity. BUT! Yes, but . . . He bent down low to speak to us another Word. And this is the good news, the most unexpected, wondrous news that ever there can be, the message that Jim believed and to which he clung until he drew his final breath. That Word is that the very WORD of God became flesh, incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He did what the ancient prophet Isaiah (to whom I referred in my previous post) said He would.

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. - Isa 53:3-5 ESV

From behind this wondrous mask, our hidden God has spoken His Word of forgiveness. It was all for us sinners. Because Christ died, we died. With His stripes our broken relationship with God is now restored.

Jim never became a prosperous man. He died from his sickness. His family struggled to recover from the loss. Yet we are all confident that Jim lives in the endless abundance of the Lord and God in whom he put his trust. He died in faith, faith given to him by the generosity of God, faith given to him by God's Holy Spirit at work in that Word spoken in Christ. Jim was unable to accept the bread of the Sacrament with his hand when we celebrated it in his hospital room. He no longer had hands. But he ate the bread and drank the wine and believed that in that precious gift of God he received forgiveness for all his sins. He believed that he received the very body and blood that Jesus offered up for him. And he rejoiced to know that by God's priceless grace he was God's child and would receive a renewed and eternal body on the great Day of Christ's return. He has been invited to the feast (Isaiah 25:6-8).

We thank you Jim. You are a saint, made holy by the blood of Jesus. And your works follow you.

I'll have a bit more to say about all this in my next post.