It was Maundy Thursday 1983. That is the service before Easter Sunday that celebrates the last night Jesus spent with his disciples. I was sitting in the choir at St. Mark United Methodist Church in Santa Barbara, California. Jimmy Gibson was preaching.
Jimmy was an Irish-born evangelist then in his 70s. He’d retired to Santa Barbara and served as the minister of evangelism at St. Mark church. He was a unique and beautiful guy. When he talked about Jesus, or heaven, or just about anything connected to Jesus, he would get so excited that he would stand on his tiptoes and lean out towards the congregation.
He did that lots in the sermon he was preaching that night. His title was “The Importance of Last Things.”
He told of saying goodbye to his mom in Ireland as he set sail for America. He told of the last goodbyes to friends dying. He told of Jesus’ last night with his disciples. God used that message to awaken a move of God in my life.
There’s something clear about last moments. There is a special quality to those times in life.
I was saying goodbye in August 2000 to my mom at the care facility before I left to head back home to Oregon. Mom and I both knew this was our last goodbye. Sometimes you just know.
Mom had had ten years of Parkinson’s disease at that point. She was doing ok, just with some dementia, but still we knew. I leaned over her bed, kissed her and said, “Bye mom. I love you.”
She had been incoherent at points during the conversation we had just had, so I wasn’t certain she was even seeing who I was. But as I leaned over her, she reached up, placed her right hand on my left cheek and with a completely lucid expression on her face and in clarity of voice, she said, “Lord, bless my son.”
There we were. Mother and son bonded in a touch.
It was like the moment when Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph in Genesis 45. It was this clear moment of loving affirmation and grace. And then the lucidity vanished. And she was speaking to people I couldn’t see.
I walked out staggered at that moment. She died a week later to the day, while two nurses supported her, one on each side, to walk her to lunch. On one side of her room’s doorway she was alive, on the other side, she’d left. Gone from here.
Last things.
As we have exited a decade and I’m in this last six months of pastoral ministry, I’ve been thinking a lot about last things.
Last summer I led my last Hagg Lake Baptism Service.
I participated in my last Camp Iwannabe here with our partner congregation.
I also went on our missions trip to the DR for the last time.
And, I just walked through my last Advent and Christmas celebration.
It was my last Christmas Eve service to celebrate as a pastor.
Each of these has felt particularly unique it its own way. But Christmas Eve was poignant.
With all my love / hate relationship with that service still, for me, it was the best year.
It was simple, stunning, and moving. And the coolest thing happened. Because we finished early, I was able to make the 30-mile drive from my church building to Karen’s and attend her service!
So in the same night I led my last and participated in my new first Christmas Eve service. And it made the ending less painful.
Not that I won’t grieve the endings, but I discovered that just because something ends doesn’t mean there’s nothing good awaiting us around the corner. For I so enjoyed just attending the service, hanging with friends there, laughing and being.
I totally didn’t expect that.
You too are experiencing and have experienced “Lasts” -- not only with me, but within other areas of your own life. And each of these too must be noticed, grieved, and released, in order to greet what next might come. Together we will walk this journey in order to prepare our hearts to welcome what may come. Thanks for being here and walking in this journey with me, as I get to walk it with you. As Kari Suppes reminded us, 2020 can be applied to 20/20 vision, and this new year can be one full of vision. In the middle of the new things to welcome, we remain rooted in the old, long-term, real, substantial faith we have been given, into which we have been welcomed, in which we find life and hope. In this faith, we can face any future, together, united, filled with hope. Grace and peace.