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Belief unto Death
By David G. Duggan
Special to virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
June 11, 2014
"Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life --- John 5:24 (NIV)
One of my oldest and dearest clients died a short while ago. Oldest not only in her chronological age, but in the years she had relied on my counsel. Dearest not only as a faithful woman of who had seen more than her share of the sadness of life, and persevered, but also as one who valued me for the Christian cast to the legal advice I offered.
Much of what this woman told me came from another world, however, or so it seemed. A daughter of the Mississippi Delta, she endured six miscarriages before she was 25 at the hands of an abusive husband. The judge who later divorced them declared from the bench, “I am the law.” She married her firstborn’s father, a serviceman who shortly died from a wartime illness, neither diagnosed nor compensated.
After cleaning the houses and tending the children of the gentry, she moved to these parts where she tried to raise a family as a single mother. Eventually jailed for her role in a fraud, taking responsibility perhaps more deserving to others, she rejoiced that she was able to share the Gospel with those in prison. It did not stop there. The Government hounded her for restitution until she died.
Like her story, the Bible tells of peoples and times that in our air-conditioned comfort we can scarcely fathom. Tribes of desert believers in an unseen God, divided by ancestry, sold into slavery, taken to banks of ancient rivers, later restored to the land that God had given them. Sibling squabbles that erupt into warfare, a father who would sacrifice his son, a king sending his trusted soldier into battle that he might be killed, and the king grab the soldier’s wife. Floggings, stonings and jailers who would commit suicide if their prisoners escaped. And outside the walls dividing Jerusalem from barbarity the brutal execution of the Son of God, who was not even given the privilege of a human executioner. How could this be?
Fewer than 50 years separated my client from the events she recounted. Perhaps 50 generations separate us from the events of the Bible. But if we can believe her story of pain leading ultimately to salvation, how can we refuse to believe the Biblical stories of our ancestors’ longing for the love of the living God?
The story of my client’s deliverance into the Lord’s care is remarkable for its strength and courage. But even more remarkable is that even today there are others who believe the story of the Risen Lord, and who follow Him unto death.
David G. Duggan is a retired lawyer now a community activist. For a number of years he wrote devotional essays for The Living Church and Anglican Advance. He lives in Chicago, enjoys sports and gardening. Mr. Duggan is the author of Glimpses of Grace, reflections of a Life in Christ. You can ob tain a copy from Amazon here: http://tinyurl.com/ocwwk9h
