Jim, Monica, and Jack
A few years ago, I met Jim. When Jim was in grade school and high school in Ohio, he was escorted to the Methodist church the minute the doors swung open. He had memorized the hymns by heart and was so steeped in the culture of his denomination that he said he could have preached the sermons. He achieved this high level of discipleship because his parents were religious jackhammers. Whenever he was interrogated about any of it, he regurgitated it all like he was the Apostle Paul. There was only one problem. He didn’t believe a word of it.
Then he went to college.
One day unbelief turned a shade darker when cynicism in the form of a professor stated that religion was made up to make people feel comfortable, a sense that he already had but which was confirmed by more authority. In fact, that day he switched lanes with a wide swing onto the broad road that leads to destruction by excluding any and all semblance of God, orthodox Christianity, and and the Bible from everything in his life.
He eventually confirmed that decision and went to a deeper level of unbelief by marrying a woman who was a Unitarian. She ushered him further into its black catacombs. Whenever he travelled and stayed in motels, he would look for a Bible in the nightstands. If he found one, he would pick it up, walk to the window, and throw it out as far as it would fly. For twenty years Unitarianism cradled and rocked him in the comforting limbs of unbelief and the promise of no judgment . It cooed softly but assuringly in the ears of his children who were completely nurtured by it. When divorce came, it offered neither solace nor succor.
No problem. He married again. But divorce liked him. So it came back for a revisit.
However, Jim was a smart man. A physicist. He did well. He lived in a lot of places and met a lot of people. While living in New England, he finally met Monika and married for the third time.
Monika was born in Germany and lived under the Nazi flag for a while. Her family got out and brought her to New England as a little girl. Unlike Jim, the family had no religion in Germany. But Monica’s dad started going to a liberal church in New England, and Monica went with him. That is, until he started his own business. He had to work on Sundays. So Monika never saw much of a church after that. Eventually, she married. There were two girls. But divorce liked her too. So she added that event to her resume.
Monika was working in New England. So was Jim. They met. They moved in together. All was well. In fact, it was pretty much the way they liked it. No church. No religion. No God.
Then they moved to Delaware. Jim’s dad who had retired to Florida called him one day and said he was coming to visit Jim and Monica. Dad told Jim that one of the things he wanted to do while he was there was to go to the church in Philadelphia where Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse used to preach, Tenth Presbyterian in Center City. Neither Jim nor Monika had been to church in many, many years. Neither wanted anything to do with any of it. But dad was coming. They didn’t want him to think they were total pagans. So they looked up the church in the phone book. They thought it would be nice to know where it was when dad came. They could go right to it, like they knew all about it and occasionally attended. So the Sunday before dad was to appear, they decided to go to that church themselves to make sure they could find it next week. It would be easier to come the next time when dad came and give the sense of familiarity.
They went to Tenth Presbyterian the Sunday before Jim’s Dad would be there. Dr. James Boice was preaching. A confirmed Unitarian and a virtually un-churched woman sat side by side in the congregation. They don’t remember hearing anything. But in that service, something happened. They didn’t ask for it. They didn’t come seeking or searching for anything. It came to them and found them. Monika remembered thinking, “I really want to believe,” and she felt life invade her spirit. Jim, sitting in silence next to Monika, saw all the pieces coming together as he never had before and said in his heart, “I believe it all.”
When the service was over, neither said a word to one another. They walked out in silence to their car. They drove back to Delaware in profound solitude, each staring straight ahead with contrite hearts and shame at the naked truth of their life-long offense of their Creator. Neither looked at one another. Each communed alone with his or her encounter with God in the previous hour. They were inwardly overwhelmed with a holy and loving God and His Son Jesus who they had grieved and transgressed. Jim finally glanced over at Monika. Tears were flowing down her cheeks like a river. She covered her face as it fell. She said she did not know what was happening to her. But faith and repentance filled the car and her heart. Clarity swept over the the former Unitarian-an-hour ago. It all made sense to him now. The black dungeon of Unitarianism and years of unbelief were flooded with blinding light, so much so that he was able to explain to Monika that she had been given the new birth. And so had he.
The next week when Jim’s father showed up, the father fell apart when he learned the son he had lost when the boy was young had come home. They went to Tenth together that Sunday. Indeed, it WAS a lot easier that next Sunday.
Jim and Monika who lived together asked Dr. James Boice to marry them in Christ. After counseling them, Boice did. They became members at Tenth before moving out of the area later. Monika’s two daughters in the previous marriage are now believers. But Jim’s children are victims of Unitarianism. Two live an alternative life style; one is estranged from his father. Another was killed in a car accident.
Jim and Monika are members of a fine church today and support many ministries.
Today when Jim goes to a motel, he searches through the nightstand drawers just like he used to do when he was an atheist and Unitarian. He said that if he sees a Bible, he reads it. But if he sees any other book, he throws it out the window.
I tell you this story because a couple of weeks ago, my high school classmate and friend Jack died. He was much like Jim in many ways. An early church life in Methodism. A rejection of Christianity. A life of sin. Incarceration. He practiced terrible, despicable things that would disgust many people. A hateful demeanor in many respects. Two sons who emulated parts of Jack’s life and followed him with similar results. Submission to a religion that denies Christ.
But something happened. Something completely unlike Jack during his whole life. Something that I noticed that was kin to Jim and Monica. As I talked to his daughter about the last few days of Jack’s time on earth, she said that he did something that he had never done before. He had fallen after coming home from our high school class reunion, a brain bleed was discovered in the hospital, and he was warned that if he fell again, he would probably not survive it. Against their advice, Jack insisted that he be dismissed from the hospital to return home.
While home during the remaining 4 days of his life, he called in his daughter and asked her forgiveness for all the things he had done to her. She made a special point with me of that significant event. This 28 year old woman said that she could never remember her father having done anything that could be even remotely described as contrition.
After I had sent a notice to my classmates of Jack’s death and made a passing remark about the paragraph above, a friend of mine called me and impressed upon me that there was a clue of HOPE in my short death notice. He said that God cannot help Himself, that He rushes in to the confessor and penitent when there is a contrite heart. There are examples in the Bible of those who repented at the last and were washed with God’s grace. The thief on the cross comes to mind. Jim had a religious background that suddenly came back to him with conviction as he sat in a church with an unbelieving heart. A man who was lost was suddenly found without any movement forward on his own part. The Spirit of God blew sovereignly, freely, and unexpectedly like the wind in John 3 upon Monica, a woman with no known propensity for or knowledge of spiritual things and in the same state of rejection of God as Jim, while she sat in a church one Sunday morning.
That’s how it happens. God’s grace finds people and makes it gel in an instant with the new birth that is a super-worldly occasion completely outside of ourselves. He links that gospel message that a person heard and had pressed upon him somewhere in his life with faith that saves his soul from eternal perdition, and the results are remorse, penitence, shame, regret, godly sorrow, and a contrite heart. I know Jack knew the gospel. He commented on it occasionally with full knowledge of its meaning. Somewhere along the line he became aware of the issues it addressed. I often urged him with it though he gave no indication that it meant anything to him or affected him in any way. But it seems to be evident that in his last hours, he surveyed parts of his earthly existence, found it wanting, and to some degree unknown to us confronted unresolved matters.
We weren’t there. We don’t know. But I have a glimmer of hope that Jack may be Christ’s.
Then he went to college.
One day unbelief turned a shade darker when cynicism in the form of a professor stated that religion was made up to make people feel comfortable, a sense that he already had but which was confirmed by more authority. In fact, that day he switched lanes with a wide swing onto the broad road that leads to destruction by excluding any and all semblance of God, orthodox Christianity, and and the Bible from everything in his life.
He eventually confirmed that decision and went to a deeper level of unbelief by marrying a woman who was a Unitarian. She ushered him further into its black catacombs. Whenever he travelled and stayed in motels, he would look for a Bible in the nightstands. If he found one, he would pick it up, walk to the window, and throw it out as far as it would fly. For twenty years Unitarianism cradled and rocked him in the comforting limbs of unbelief and the promise of no judgment . It cooed softly but assuringly in the ears of his children who were completely nurtured by it. When divorce came, it offered neither solace nor succor.
No problem. He married again. But divorce liked him. So it came back for a revisit.
However, Jim was a smart man. A physicist. He did well. He lived in a lot of places and met a lot of people. While living in New England, he finally met Monika and married for the third time.
Monika was born in Germany and lived under the Nazi flag for a while. Her family got out and brought her to New England as a little girl. Unlike Jim, the family had no religion in Germany. But Monica’s dad started going to a liberal church in New England, and Monica went with him. That is, until he started his own business. He had to work on Sundays. So Monika never saw much of a church after that. Eventually, she married. There were two girls. But divorce liked her too. So she added that event to her resume.
Monika was working in New England. So was Jim. They met. They moved in together. All was well. In fact, it was pretty much the way they liked it. No church. No religion. No God.
Then they moved to Delaware. Jim’s dad who had retired to Florida called him one day and said he was coming to visit Jim and Monica. Dad told Jim that one of the things he wanted to do while he was there was to go to the church in Philadelphia where Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse used to preach, Tenth Presbyterian in Center City. Neither Jim nor Monika had been to church in many, many years. Neither wanted anything to do with any of it. But dad was coming. They didn’t want him to think they were total pagans. So they looked up the church in the phone book. They thought it would be nice to know where it was when dad came. They could go right to it, like they knew all about it and occasionally attended. So the Sunday before dad was to appear, they decided to go to that church themselves to make sure they could find it next week. It would be easier to come the next time when dad came and give the sense of familiarity.
They went to Tenth Presbyterian the Sunday before Jim’s Dad would be there. Dr. James Boice was preaching. A confirmed Unitarian and a virtually un-churched woman sat side by side in the congregation. They don’t remember hearing anything. But in that service, something happened. They didn’t ask for it. They didn’t come seeking or searching for anything. It came to them and found them. Monika remembered thinking, “I really want to believe,” and she felt life invade her spirit. Jim, sitting in silence next to Monika, saw all the pieces coming together as he never had before and said in his heart, “I believe it all.”
When the service was over, neither said a word to one another. They walked out in silence to their car. They drove back to Delaware in profound solitude, each staring straight ahead with contrite hearts and shame at the naked truth of their life-long offense of their Creator. Neither looked at one another. Each communed alone with his or her encounter with God in the previous hour. They were inwardly overwhelmed with a holy and loving God and His Son Jesus who they had grieved and transgressed. Jim finally glanced over at Monika. Tears were flowing down her cheeks like a river. She covered her face as it fell. She said she did not know what was happening to her. But faith and repentance filled the car and her heart. Clarity swept over the the former Unitarian-an-hour ago. It all made sense to him now. The black dungeon of Unitarianism and years of unbelief were flooded with blinding light, so much so that he was able to explain to Monika that she had been given the new birth. And so had he.
The next week when Jim’s father showed up, the father fell apart when he learned the son he had lost when the boy was young had come home. They went to Tenth together that Sunday. Indeed, it WAS a lot easier that next Sunday.
Jim and Monika who lived together asked Dr. James Boice to marry them in Christ. After counseling them, Boice did. They became members at Tenth before moving out of the area later. Monika’s two daughters in the previous marriage are now believers. But Jim’s children are victims of Unitarianism. Two live an alternative life style; one is estranged from his father. Another was killed in a car accident.
Jim and Monika are members of a fine church today and support many ministries.
Today when Jim goes to a motel, he searches through the nightstand drawers just like he used to do when he was an atheist and Unitarian. He said that if he sees a Bible, he reads it. But if he sees any other book, he throws it out the window.
I tell you this story because a couple of weeks ago, my high school classmate and friend Jack died. He was much like Jim in many ways. An early church life in Methodism. A rejection of Christianity. A life of sin. Incarceration. He practiced terrible, despicable things that would disgust many people. A hateful demeanor in many respects. Two sons who emulated parts of Jack’s life and followed him with similar results. Submission to a religion that denies Christ.
But something happened. Something completely unlike Jack during his whole life. Something that I noticed that was kin to Jim and Monica. As I talked to his daughter about the last few days of Jack’s time on earth, she said that he did something that he had never done before. He had fallen after coming home from our high school class reunion, a brain bleed was discovered in the hospital, and he was warned that if he fell again, he would probably not survive it. Against their advice, Jack insisted that he be dismissed from the hospital to return home.
While home during the remaining 4 days of his life, he called in his daughter and asked her forgiveness for all the things he had done to her. She made a special point with me of that significant event. This 28 year old woman said that she could never remember her father having done anything that could be even remotely described as contrition.
After I had sent a notice to my classmates of Jack’s death and made a passing remark about the paragraph above, a friend of mine called me and impressed upon me that there was a clue of HOPE in my short death notice. He said that God cannot help Himself, that He rushes in to the confessor and penitent when there is a contrite heart. There are examples in the Bible of those who repented at the last and were washed with God’s grace. The thief on the cross comes to mind. Jim had a religious background that suddenly came back to him with conviction as he sat in a church with an unbelieving heart. A man who was lost was suddenly found without any movement forward on his own part. The Spirit of God blew sovereignly, freely, and unexpectedly like the wind in John 3 upon Monica, a woman with no known propensity for or knowledge of spiritual things and in the same state of rejection of God as Jim, while she sat in a church one Sunday morning.
That’s how it happens. God’s grace finds people and makes it gel in an instant with the new birth that is a super-worldly occasion completely outside of ourselves. He links that gospel message that a person heard and had pressed upon him somewhere in his life with faith that saves his soul from eternal perdition, and the results are remorse, penitence, shame, regret, godly sorrow, and a contrite heart. I know Jack knew the gospel. He commented on it occasionally with full knowledge of its meaning. Somewhere along the line he became aware of the issues it addressed. I often urged him with it though he gave no indication that it meant anything to him or affected him in any way. But it seems to be evident that in his last hours, he surveyed parts of his earthly existence, found it wanting, and to some degree unknown to us confronted unresolved matters.
We weren’t there. We don’t know. But I have a glimmer of hope that Jack may be Christ’s.