Surrounded by a Cloud

Hebrews 12:1, 2 Timothy 4:7-8

January 4, 1998

by Dave Wilkinson

I received a questionnaire in the mail that included the question: "How many people in your church are getting older?" The answer was easy. "Every one of them."

Every person here is getting older. I am hitting the age of the "4 Bs" -- bunions, bifocals, backache and balding. But I must say that I still prefer aging to the only alternative.

What does God have in mind for us as we get older? What does He intend for us?

Many congregations are filled with a sea of gray heads. I read somewhere that the average Presbyterian is a 62 year old woman. But as a congregation we simply do not have many models of what Christians can look like as they grow older.

We have even less now. Within the space of just a few weeks we experienced the loss of two older women of faith -- Jean McLaughlin and Della Smith. They each went to be with their Lord at age 92.

Jean had a normal memorial service attended by her family and friends. Della made it very clear to her family, to me, to Jane May Ahearn, to Val Burkhamer and to anyone else who would listen that she didn’t want any service. She felt it was simply unimportant. Her goal was to slip out quietly.

In deference to Della’s firm wishes we did not have a memorial service. But she can’t really control what we do here in worship -- even though she has tried on a few occasions.

Let me be clear that this is not a memorial. We simply need to reflect on those who go before us in faith. If Della and Jean have joined what the Letter to the Hebrews calls that "great cloud of witnesses," we need to look at the witness they have made to us.

I am aware of many scriptures which would be appropriate in celebrating the promotion of our friend and Christian sister Della Smith from the service of God in this world to the service of God in His own house.

But the verse which has constantly come to my mind is from the words of the Apostle Paul to his son in the faith, Timothy. Paul is at the close of his life on earth and is facing martyrdom for the faith at the hands of the emperor Nero. At such a time many people would be filled with regrets for opportunities that were missed. Perhaps they would be pleading with God for more time to set things right --- as did Hezekiah when the Prophet Isaiah warned him of his approaching death.

It is not so with Paul. Instead he writes with confidence in 2 Timothy 4:7-8: "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will award me on that day; and not only to me but also to all those who have loved His appearing."

These are words for Paul. But they are also words for Della as they were also appropriate for Jean McLaughlin.

Paul gives three reasons for his confidence in receiving the approval of God for his life.

First, Paul says, "I have fought the good fight."

Now the word "good" is open to a variety of interpretations. As C.S. Lewis points out, "If a man shoots his grandmother at 500 yards, we might call him a good shot but we would not call him a good man."

Paul is not complimenting himself here on being a good fighter. Before Jesus Christ met him on the road to Damascus Paul was a skilled fighter against the church but that skill brought him nothing but regret. Paul is declaring that he is aware that, since his conversion, he had consciously and consistently aligned his life on the side of what is good. The fight he has fought has been a fight for the good. There is a right and there is a wrong and he has chosen the right.

Second, Paul says, "I have finished the race." At another place in his writings Paul declared that though many run in a race only contestant receives the crown of a victor. But here, Paul does not claim to have won the race. All he says is that he has "finished the course." Perhaps, as Paul grew in his knowledge of the accepting love of God, he came to realize that God does not require success in all things but that He does call us to be faithful to the ministry to which we are called. Even though Paul is not certain of being the winner, he is certain of receiving the crown of a victor for he has done all those things which God called him to do. He can face death with confidence that he has finished the race -- that there is nothing left undone.

Third, Paul says, "I have kept the faith." Paul is confident that in all he has preached and in all he has taught he has been faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now I need to be honest. Della and I didn’t always agree on all the details of the gospel. While Della was very active in our congregation from the earliest days at Chaparral and very supportive, she never became a member. Della was a Baptist. The amount of water used in baptism, was very important to her. We never used nearly enough to suit her.

One afternoon after a sermon I preached on baptism, Della appeared at my front door holding a gift for me. She handed me a thimble with the words, "I thought you could use a Presbyterian baptismal." When my son Kevin was baptized Della gave him a picture of Jesus being baptized in the Jordan River. That picture still hangs on his wall.

Now to me the picture looked like Jesus has had water poured on his head. I told her so.

For me that was the end of it, but not Della. Shortly before Della’s death her daughter told me that her greatest frustration -- her unfulfilled need as she faced death -- was that she had never been able to find a picture of a soaking wet Jesus to hand me.

Della frankly considered us to be "hydrologically challenged". But Della’s daughter told me that she continued to worship with us anyway because she considered this church to be made up of intelligent people and she liked being with intelligent people

Della was a regular in Bible study.

Now I have heard the suggestion that some older people read the Bible because they know that don’t have much time and they’re cramming for their finals. But Della’s reading and study was a part of the pattern of her whole life. Della simply hungered to learn. It started young and continued her whole life.

Her early exposure to books led her to seek for higher education in a day when few women went beyond the Th grade Despite her father's opposition to higher education for women, she set her determined jaw and went out to be the first member of her family in many generations to earn a high school diploma. Not content to stop there, she went on to college.

Perhaps because she was such a stickler for grammar, she became a school teacher in a one room country schoolhouse before deciding that this was not what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. She enrolled in nursing school and became a registered nurse. In fact, she made the 2nd highest grade in the state on her state board examinations for nurses.

She married soon after this and had four children. When her youngest child was still in diapers, it became necessary for her to return to her nursing career as she was now the sole provider for her family. She never remarried. She became an industrial nurse soon after the start of World War II and remained in that role until she retired.

Della had a major crisis in when she was 79 years old. She was returning from a Wednesday night prayer meeting in West Virginia when a speeding car without headlights crashed into her, breaking most of the bones in her legs, crushing her pelvis, and right shoulder. Her physician did not expect a person of her age to survive such extensive injuries, but he did not take into account her massive streak of determination to not only survive, but even to walk again. The necessity of receiving long term physical therapy brought her to California 13 years ago. Despite the pain, she persevered until she could walk unassisted and regained a measure of her treasured independence.

After she moved to Moorpark, she purchased an electric scooter which enabled her to tour the neighborhood on a daily basis. Her driving skills, or her lack of them, were some cause for concern as she drove over curbs and crossed streets without prior warning. The little children in the neighborhood stood alongside the curb to cheer her on as she made her daily rounds.

Life dealt Della many major challenges and heartaches. But she coped with whatever came along. She wasted no time on self-pity. Despite her massive injuries, she maintained her ramrod straight posture and tried to be of service to others. Della was a great prayer warrior. If Della said she would pray for you she did it. And you knew you’d been prayed for.

Like the Apostle Paul, she fought the good fight, she finished her course, she kept the faith. She has left us a legacy of industry, strength, perseverance, devotion to duty, the value of an education, integrity, and an abiding faith in our Lord and Savior.

In her early teen years, she developed an abiding testimony of Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. She faithfully and consistently took her children to church, studied her Bible on a daily basis and applied its teachings.

I know people who are my age who are already tired of life. But that’s not what God has in mind for us. God want’s to us to knew that there’s a better way to live and a better way to die -- that we do indeed have a comfort in life and also in death.

I read somewhere that one purpose of the Christian life it to "die young as late as possible." I believe that both Jean and Della modeled what that looked like. They were not tired of the world. That were not worn out or drained dry. They were both curious to know what lay around the next corner. But they were able to approach the end of their time in this world with a deep confidence in the love of God. For the Lord had proven Himself to be their shepherd. So they knew that whatever lay around the corner -- even the valley of the shadow of death -- was good because it was in God.

Thank you, Lord, for such faithful witnesses.