I presided over a funeral yesterday for a man that I had never met before.  He was an older gentlemen from a very small rural town; the kind of town that doesn't get any media attention unless something of a catastrophic nature takes place.  Had I not been called out to be with the family after his passing, I probably wouldn't have known anything about it either, even though I live in the same small town.  Knowing what I now know, that would have been a great personal tragedy for me.....

The Apostle John writes a great deal about love in 1 John.  Based upon my time with family, friends and those in this very small community, this passage came to mind...

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the worlds that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." (1 John 4:7-12)

This man wasn't wealthy, he wasn't in the greatest health (he had been born with Polio) and he wasn't highly educated.  He was a self-employed carpenter for much of his life and lived by very simple means.  He didn't have any of the personal characteristics that the world today views as important or significant and yet, most of the residents of this small community, including several who had since left for the convenience of larger towns and cities within and outside of the State were present to pay their final respects and commemorate the life of this simple man.  Every person who shared a story about him during the funeral, ever person who stopped me and told be stories about this man after the service told me the same thing - he did everything in love.  It seems that this simple man, this self-employed carpenter, known for his bib-overalls and his old beaten up green pickup truck, blessed everyone he came in contact with through the completion of God's love in and through him.

I am sure that everyone knows one person like this in their community and can tell stories similar to this one.  My question to you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, is simple.  Why is this role generally limited to only one or a few within any given community?  Why is this the exception rather than the norm? 

Something to think about....

Your brother in Christ,

Jim