Willie

May 19, 2019

Just a few short weeks ago, we celebrated Easter, the resurrection of our Lord. My preaching text for that day came from 1 Corinthians 15 where the apostle Paul declares the centrality of this event to our faith, to the extent that he says, “If Christ be not risen, our faith is empty and we are of all men most miserable.” That phrase caught my attention back then, and continues to haunt me as tomorrow I will lay to rest one of my dearest friends who died suddenly and unexpectedly while I was in Cuba. Willie and I have had breakfast together Tuesday mornings for nearly ten years. Two weeks ago as we left the restaurant, we shook hands and said we’d see each other when I got home. 

St. James said, “Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”” James 4:13-15 NIV

We never know, which is one reason it is so important to keep short accounts. We never know when we’ll say our last “I love you,” or our last, “I’m proud of you.” We never know if those words spoken in anger will be the last that spring forth from our lips, or when it will be too late to offer forgiveness. 

Willie invested his life in people. He was a probation officer who often saw people at their worst, but worked to bring the best out of them. We talked more than once of what often seemed the futility of our work amidst the collapse of the American family and absence of civility in our world. He spoke often of treating even the most despicable of people with dignity, and we together thanked God for our parents who taught us right from wrong, who were not afraid to correct and challenge us. We also talked of our faith, and the importance of our hope in the Gospel that God will in Christ redeem this sad world and restore to it the glory originally given in Creation. It is that hope that will sustain me tomorrow as I offer whatever comfort I can to his wife, daughters, and sisters. Without Christ, we are as Paul said, “miserable.” But we have Christ, and having him, even in the midst of this world’s misery, we have hope and joy.