Nancy and I spent Christmas 2006 in Rome. We flew from Tirana, Albania, to the Italian capital on Christmas Eve day and spent two days there before meeting JJ and driving through northern Italy. We heard the bells of Rome peal at midnight, announcing the birth of the Savior, and stood in Vatican Square twice to see and hear the Pope address the world. A memorable Christmas.

We spent Christmas 2007 in Greensboro. We were with family—Emily, Steve and Colette, JJ (en route to Phoenix from Tacoma), and Steve’s mother. Quite a different Christmas and quite a wonderful one.


But Christmas eve day, as in 2007, saw Nancy and I in the air, flying not from Tirana to Rome but from Merida, Mexico to Greensboro. We had been in Merida for only a couple days, and were there for a very special purpose—the wedding of Febe Pat, a long-standing friend and former Trainee at Calvin. Nancy and I had helped Febe through her theological training at San Pablo Seminary, and we had hosted her in our home in Shoreline. We had followed her life’s journey in prayer and I had been honored to be invited to deliver the sermon in the worship service which preceded the actual marriage ceremony. Our good friend Dave Legters was charged with tying the knot between Febe and Samuel.
In Christian circles in Mexico there are two weddings. One is the formal and legal one, which happens before a civil magistrate of some kind. These ceremonies are not considered the actual wedding by believers, but are occasions for celebration and joy. The Christian wedding is incorporated into a worship service some time after the civil ceremony, and to the couple it is this service which constitutes their union.
Febe’s wedding was a true celebration, held in the church she had grown up in, the village of Yobain. Her husband-to-be is active in leadership of a Presbyterian church in his home village, works in the local school, and is highly respected in the community. Febe’s impact on many people was witnessed to by the number who came from the villages in which she has worked. At one point in the ceremony people were invited to stand and state where they came from, and every campo (i.e. field-work location) Febe had worked in was represented in good numbers. It was obvious that many wanted to share in the celebration and witness to the impact for Christ she had made on their lives.
It is customary for the bride and groom to sit for the worship service in special chairs set up directly in front of the pulpit. The parents of both are also seated in special chairs, two on each side of the couple. My message was to address the entire congregation, but the wedding family was front and center. The service following the worship was simple—an exchange of vows, rings, and prayer. Then there was the processional, throwing of rice, photos, and a gala fiesta with food and music lasting until well after 12:30 a.m., when our party left to drive back to Merida. All in all it was a wonderful celebration of two people who are committed to Christ making a commitment to serve him together.

The next morning, Sunday, Nancy and I went to a special musical service at a small local church in Merida. The music was presented by the choir from the main downtown Presbyterian Church, El Divino Salvador, the choir which Jean Legters accompanies. The presentation was a kind of dress rehearsal for the big Christmas eve presentation in the main church, and was a joy to share in.


After that, in the evening, Nancy went to the church Dave Legters pastors, where there was a traditional Christmas presentation, while I drove two hours out of Merida to take Dave Pluckett to a Presbyterian Medical Clinic in Xochempich, the village in which Dave Legters was raised. Dave’s father was a pioneer missionary who shared ministry and vision with Cam Townsend, the founder of Wycliffe. He lived in the village of Xochempich and was the first to translate the Bible into Maya. The homesite he raised Dave in and from which he worked was later converted into a medical clinic, and Dave Pluckett, who is president of Positive Images, Prosthetics and Orthotics, was going there to consult with two people whom he had fitted with artificial limbs. As I sat outside the clinic in the peaceful calm of a warm tropical evening, I could not help thinking about what Dave was doing as a personal ministry in the name of Christ, literally helping the lame to walk.

What a prelude to Christmas. A joyful wedding uniting two in Christ, a service of songs of praise to the One who was born to give us new life, and a ministry of giving hope and health to the poor in the name of that One. Although Dave and I ran out of gas on the lonely highway back to Merida (another story for another time perhaps), that could not dampen my appreciation and thanksgiving to God for all he continues to allow me to see and do. Truly life in Christ is life In His Adventures.

Yesterday Nancy and I drove to Asheville, North Carolina. Situated on the beautiful Blue Ridge the town is the home of Billy Graham's retreat center, The Cove. It is also the site of the largest private home in the United States, The Biltmore Estate. Constructed by George Vnaderbilt between 1890 and 1896, it has four floors, 250 rooms and a floor space of over 175,000 square feet. Its massive size is obviously impressive, but the attention to detail in every room, plus the meticulous upkeep that has maintained or restored every nook and cranny to its original grandeur, made it quite a site to tour.

But the reason for our visit was the highlight of the day and night away, not the great home. Nancy and I were there as a short time away to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. I have known and honored many people who have celebrated 50 or more years of marriage, but 40 isn't too bad.

When people ask about longevity of marriage I first respond with the wisdom shared with me by Dich Scheumann. He said that the key to marital harmony is summarized in two small words, words that every husband needs to learn and repeat over and over, "Yes, dear." And there is more than a grain of truth to that!

But there are other keys as well, with the first being a common commitment to the person of Jesus Christ. When Jesus is the center of any relationship the ego factor is taken out of the middle. No longer is it my will or my idea or my plan versus the other, but it is his will and his idea and his plan. When self-center, for one person or for a couple, changes to him-center, everything changes!

The second thing that I believe creates longevity in marriage is a common commitment to ministry. One of the questions I ask engaged couples is what they can do for God as a couple that neither of them could do alone. Defining that ministry and seeking together to pursue it is a second key.

A third key to long lasting relationships is simple integrity. That means that a promise made will not be broken. If one says to another "I do" and "I will" then integrity calls for that promise, as a word given, to be kept. And those words are exchanged in a wedding ceremony, and need to be kept. Simple!

Marriage is given us by God. It is one of his first and greatest gifts to humanity, and it is one of the gifts most attacked by Satan, because it is so integral to who we are. It is not given to everyone, not even the great Apostle Paul was married, and it is has difficult seasons. But it is often wonderful. It takes humor, grace, attention, and hard work. It requires a willingness to admit one is wrong and an ability to forgive. It means putting another above self, something our culture derides as foolish. It means sacrifice. It means many things and requires much effort--probably more effort than building a 175,000 square foot house. But when it is God's plan for a person, it is worth all the work and effort it takes to make it work...And it is a beautiful thing...

Genesis 2:18 The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him...then the Lord God made a woman..."

Last week I had the privilege of sharing in a celebration. It was a celebration of the life of a good friend and of the promise of resurrection. That friend was Andy Montana, and he died early Thanksgiving morning after a lengthy battle with disease. Andy was a chemist par-excellence, a university professor and co-developer of a computer-based chemistry curriculum. With a smile on his face he had told me that his motivation for developing this material was, “It is a lot better to blow something up in a computer program than in the chem. Lab.” How true…

It is ironic that at memorial services we learn so much about people we thought we knew well. But usually our data about a person comes from only one slice of their lives, one time or one place. We know them as a teacher or a student or a fishing buddy or a pastor or parishioner or whatever, but there are always other people who know the same person from a different perspective, in a different place and role. And when a memorial service invites people to share memories a whole lot comes out that makes the person much more multi-faceted than we alone could ever know. Such was the case last week as long-time friends and new acquaintances alike shared with all the moments that stood out in their memories of Andy.



Over the years I have been a pastor people have often asked about my feelings regarding performing funerals/memorial services. My semi-stock answer has always been, “I’d rather do a good funeral than a bad marriage any day…” And that is absolutely true—because one is final while the other could be just a beginning of a long and tragic period. But this raises the question, what makes a good funeral? And to me the answer is pretty simple, and it is reduced to three basics.

First, a good funeral is one which remembers someone who has made a positive difference in the lives of those he or she came in contact with. Of course this includes the immediate family cluster, but I look beyond that circle to see how the life we are remembering impacted other people outside the family. And particularly I listen for words from people whose relationship with the deceased reflects an intentional reaching out on the part of the one being remembered. To me this indicates a life that consciously gave to others.

The second thing that I believe makes a good funeral is one in which the things a person is remembered for move beyond the inconsequential. By this I mean that the things noted at a service indicate that the person offered something of substance to the world and other people in it. Gardens are good and golf is fine, but there is more to life than those, and people whose lives intersect with other people at these more substantial points leave behind the most lasting and positive memories. They leave behind impressions and imprints on people that make the living better people than they would have been had the deceased not been part of their lives. And when those things are noted in a service it can be a good one.

The third thing that I believe makes a good funeral is a clear and honest declaration of the motive behind the life that is being honored, and that motive is Jesus Christ. Grief is an important part of a funeral service, and its absence speaks volumes. But the gospel is that death, while a bitter enemy, is a defeated enemy—and defeated by Jesus on the cross and in the empty tomb. Most memorial services reflect some hope in a positive after-life for the deceased, but too often that hope is some vague and undefined feeling. When Christ is honored, on the other hand, hope is grounded in the great reality of resurrection—it is not just wishful thinking but promise-claiming. And when a person has lived a life for Christ and in Christ then through Christ there is resurrection. And a clear affirmation of the deceased person’s faith in Christ and trust in his promises lifts a memorial service beyond one in which the deceased is remembered to one in which the greatest hope of humanity is celebrated.



Because of these feelings, I have a specific form of service that I have usually used, and that I commend as the most helpful and appropriate in a time of loss. The first thing is to have any graveside/internment component prior to the service in the church. The second is to have a short message end the service in the church. It has always seemed to me to be contradictory to move from a church or chapel where Christ’s message and its resurrection hope have been presented to a graveyard. The Scripture of hope and a message of promise should be the last words that ring in the ears of those who attend a service. The eulogies and personal comments are important, as is the emotional symbolism of a grave, but the last word should be resurrection—a celebration of that promise and a challenge to those present to consider their lives in its light.

The words of Jesus, spoken long ago, are the most important words that could be spoken in any memorial service, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” And the question that he appended to it, “Do you believe this?”, should be echoing in the ears of every attendee as they leave… When that happens, a funeral can be truly labeled a good service.