An Easter Meditation Inspired by a Memorial Service
I went to a memorial service yesterday for a 53-year-old-man who died
suddenly of a stoke. I met him when he was a junior or senior in high school
because we went to the same church on 48th St and 8th Ave in the Crenshaw area
of Los Angeles -- Crenshaw Christian Reformed Church. I was about 24 at
the time. When this young man graduated from high school you probably would not
have noticed him much. He was Japanese in a Chinese church with a mostly black
Sunday School and a few white faces like mine. Very few. He was quiet, did not
do anything to draw attention to himself. But he served those in the church who
were even younger than he was. He and some some of the rest of us started a
group for the junior high students. Actually, the college group, of which my
husband and I were the sponsors, started the group. But Paul was the one who was
the main leadership behind it. He was always concerned about the kids who were
on the outskirts, the kids who were at risk, and he gave them his time freely,
even as he pursued a full-time college schedule. When we moved from the area in
1976, Paul and his wife became official youth pastors. Before he just did the
work without any position. Most of us thought that Paul might be headed for
seminary someday because of his love for God and his concern for youth. We then
lost track of Paul for 30 years, though I heard through the grapevine he'd gone
into probation work.
When I got the email Thursday that Paul was dead at 53, it hit me like a ton
of bricks because he was the youngest of the college group (Most of us in our
late 50s or early 60s now.) When I read the link to his obituary, I was floored.
Paul Higa had become the Chief Probation Officer for Los Angeles County,
responsible for 80,000 people on probation and several youth camps in the
department. I learned at the memorial service that Los Angeles County has the
largest probation department in the world (which might suggest something about
the crime rate in the county). Paul started as a probation officer at the
bottom, but as was apparent from the speeches of the county officials who spoke
at the service in Santa Barbara, he rose because he had a vision for the
department and he worked very hard to bring it about. He didn't want kids to get
out of juvenile halls and camps and go right back to the life that led them down
the wrong path in the first place. He wanted to reach into homes and work with
the families of the youth, and into schools and help them mainstream these kids
into getting the education they needed. He wanted to see that those who were
mentally ill or disadvantaged in some other way got the help and treatment they
needed to help them survive away from crime. As Paul advanced, step by step, up
the ladder, he managed to pass this vision down the line to those who started
where he did, at the bottom. And at the service I saw not only the county
officials, but also the workers under Paul, get up and testify to his
dedication, his integrity, and his vision and how they felt Paul treated them
like family, cared about their work and did what he could in the way of support
and training to make them successful. Although I saw how much Paul had matured
in both his faith and his responsibilities, I did not learn anything new about
Paul's character. He was the same honest, hard-working, concerned, humble person
I'd known, who could turn into a bulldog when he had to fight to get what "his
kids" needed. He worked with chaplains of all faiths and with other
organizations who worked in the communities "his" kids would go back to. I saw a
steward of God's gifts who had been faithful in a few things, as the parable
says, and so he was given more tasks in which to be faithful
Paul was a servant of God in the midst of a bureaucracy -- a very big
bureaucracy. As someone said during the open mike part of the service, he didn't
move to the top position by just doing what he was told. He followed the vision
that God gave him led in that direction. And in the year he had the top position
before he died, he brought about a lot of reforms in the department that were
motivated by his faith. But I doubt that Paul would have told you what he did, only
what he still hoped to accomplish. He just wanted to serve his God by serving
those, as someone said, that society was content to throw away and forget about.
He wanted those kids to be redeemed and flourish and be successful, and he
worked as hard as he could to make it happen.
Many people think Christianity is just about the carrot
and the stick. Last night David, a young man whom Paul had influenced, shared an
experience with us. Paul had walked past him when he was standing outside
outside the sanctuary one Sunday morning, during what David called "a long,
boring sermon." As David put it, "Sometimes those are the best times to
think and to search the Scriptures." Paul, who
must have also been outside the sanctuary, invited him to share his thoughts, and David came out with some theological
stuff he had been mulling over. At that time David was not yet a Christian. But he'd been reading Romans and had seen for the first time one of the
truths of the Christian faith -- that it was the death of Christ that made it
possible for the first time to actually choose to do good.
In our Easter service this morning, our pastor used an
analogy he borrowed from C.S. Lewis that put it like this, my paraphrase: . A horse is a
horse. He has the nature of a horse. He can learn to run and run very fast and
even jump obstacles. But no matter how hard he tries, he can't fly. It's not his
nature. It's beyond his natural abilities. But if he were given wings and could
fly, he would see everything from a different perspective and go where he was
never able to before. Becoming a Christian is like that. The basic nature
changes. We become something different than what we are naturally. We become new
creatures -- new creatures who have a choice about doing good or evil. Before
that we could not truly choose good because our nature itself was to do evil.
The theology of the death of Christ can be found in many books, but I think the
Bible makes most of them unnecessary. Some of us are convicted that we can truly
do no good unless we have this new nature. In other words, we know we are
sinners and have only a future without God unless we have a redeemer. We want to
know God as our father, and the death of Christ made it possible. We serve God
out of gratitude, not fear. We aren't trying to earn anything because we know we
can't. We want a relationship with our Creator, a relationship such as David,
whom the Bible describes as a man after God's own heart, had, not because he was
perfect, but because he got his significance as a person from his relationship
with God. David didn't get his significance from being King of Israel. He got it
from God. Neither did our friend Paul get his significance from rising to the
top of his chosen profession. He got it from God, whom he was serving.
The ultimate question a man can ask himself is where his significance (or
self-worth) comes from. Some people know and some have never really thought
about it. When a person knows, he can then figure out whether that thing is
solid and lasting or whether it can be destroyed by something or taken away.
Mine comes from being a redeemed child of God. You can get yours any way you
choose. I'm not asking anyone to choose the way I have. That's God's business. I
only want people I interact with to know their options -- especially if they are
searching for significance. When your significance comes from the fact the
someone loved you at your worst enough to die to redeem you, and that person
remains your advocate, interceding on your behalf with the only one who has the
ultimate power over your life -- that source of significance cannot be taken
away even if you lose position, family, health, a high net worth, or whatever
else you can think of. Jesus died to redeem me, he rose from the dead, and has
gone to prepare a place for me. He has power over death, and has made it
possible for me to know my Heavenly Father, meet Him face to face someday, and
spend forever in his presence.
That's what Easter means to me.
Click here to
respond
|
