What Is Alive Between Us
“I have community with others and will continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more everything else between us will recede, and the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is alive between us.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: Prayerbook of the Bible
As I write this, our Hayes Barton community is still reeling from the unexpected death of our larger than life friend, JoAnna McMillan. JoAnna was a “force to be reckoned with” as people say in Eastern North Carolina. She was alive with ideas and compassion and laughter and was motivated to do everything within her power to connect people to God and to one another. She worked tirelessly to open possibilities for people of different races and nationalities and economic status to have chances to get to know and love each other. She believed that all of us are capable of much more when it comes to offering Christ to our brothers and sisters in the church and to the world. And she was a constant voice urging us to move forward, dream bigger, achieve more for the family of God.
Because she was only fifty-seven and because there was no time to prepare for her death, many among us are left with feelings of devastation and are filled with questions. Why was such a devoted wife and mother of five taken from her family so early? Why do people who have so much to offer the world die before their work on earth is completed? If God is sovereign, why did God not stop this from happening? I have been asked these and many other similar questions since last Thursday.
I wish that I had the answers. I really do. I don’t, but I will share what I believe is true.
- God did not cause JoAnna’s death.
- JoAnna was never separated from God. After her last breath here, her very next breath was with God.
- JoAnna now lives in the presence of God. She lives the life that all of us as disciples of Jesus Christ prepare to live in our time on earth…eternal life, resurrected life, life with God where death will be no more and mourning and crying and pain will be no more. (Rev. 21)
- JoAnna now joins the communion of the saints and is present with us in holy, mysterious ways.
As you read this, I hope that these words will help you deal with the deaths of all those you love. We cannot explain death. We will not have all the answers surrounding it. But we will be bathed in the Presence of God that will give us the strength and peace to move forward to live full lives even when we have to embrace grief.
I included the Bonhoeffer quote above because it reminded me of what we share with JoAnna today. It is her clear and pure work for Jesus Christ that is the “thing that is alive between us.” May we continue to keep our eyes on the Lord so that all our days may be filled with offering the Love of God that never dies.
Blessings and love, LuAnn
