Gone . . but not "Gone"

I want to tell you today about a great man of the Christian faith. A man who is certainly among the honored and great saints of God, but a man that you will not read about in any history book. His name was Harold Cash.
As a young child I didn’t know him very well. But as I grew into a young man I learned more and more about him, and my esteem for this man of God has only grown in the years that I’ve known him. Harold was a man that was known by all to be a man of sound convictions. He was firmly grounded in the belief that Jesus Christ was the way, the truth, and the life. Although he wasn’t a pastor, he was nevertheless instrumental in starting no less than three churches in his lifetime.
When a new Bible college was being formed in York, Nebraska, Harold decided that he needed to support that effort in any way he could, and so he joined the staff of that brand-new school. Not as a professor—he didn’t have any formal Bible training or other professional skills that would readily lend themselves to such a job—but as the janitor. But even though he held what many would consider as just a lowly position, his faith and wisdom was so readily evident to all that students would regularly seek him out for advice and instruction. Such was the character of Harold Cash.
Once in my home town, a young man was seeking a church to attend one Sunday morning. So he drove up to the biggest church in town and walked up to the people who were filing in for worship. Rather than joining them as they went inside, he asked just one question. “Excuse me . . . but I’m looking for Harold Cash’s church. Can you tell me where it is?” And those people, as they walked into their own church, gave that young man exact directions to get to the place where Harold Cash was known to worship God every Sunday. Such was the reputation of Harold Cash.
Harold had a slide projector that he would take to different places and use it to present the Gospel story. He was known, even in his sixties, to go and visit the “elderly” and take them communion so that they might be reminded of the goodness of God. He was a dedicated follower of Christ, and some of my fondest memories are of watching him at his regular custom of sitting quietly at his roll-top desk, studying a portion of the Scriptures which were so precious to him, and then gently closing his Bible and singing a hymn to himself. Such was the faith of Harold Cash.
Harold was a man who had a profound impact on a number of people’s lives. But it wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I realized the great gift that I had been given by having this man as part of my family. You see . . . Harold Cash was my grandfather. And when he died in 2001, just a few months after I had entered seminary, I felt a huge void in my life. Even to this day I wish that he were still here. I long to talk to him again to hear his wisdom. I want to know the strength of having his prayers supporting me. I was only just beginning to truly know this wonderful man, and then he was taken from me . . . and I miss him so much.

Now, if I were to go from pew to pew, I am confident that there wouldn’t be a single person in here today—except for maybe baby Malaina—that wouldn’t have a similar story. We all have people that have gone before us into eternity. We miss them . . . we long to talk things over just one more time with them. They are gone, but not forgotten.
But . . . are they truly gone? When someone is “gone” we no longer have any contact with them. There is no bond that ties us together anymore. Is that true of those who have died in Christ?
I don’t think it is. I don’t believe that those who have died in Christ are truly gone from us. I believe we continue to share a bond with them that is even perhaps even greater than the ties that bound us together while they were yet sill living on this earth. We are bound together as the Church of the living God.
When the Bible speaks of the church, it typically speaks of one of two kinds of church. The first kind of church is the one we most readily understand—the local church. The local church is made up of a group of people—members if you will—that call that place their church home. When someone moves on or passes on, their name is removed from the membership roles of that particular place. That’s just the nature of the local church.
But the second type of church that God speaks of in His Word is something a bit more difficult to grasp. A bit more deeper. A bit more profound. The second type of church the Bible speaks of is the Body of Christ.
The Body of Christ is made up of all believers. Now it’s certainly very profound to consider that we as believers are united to all of the other believers alive today. We’re united to our Methodist brothers and sisters here in town, just as well as we are united in Christ to our Lutheran brothers and sisters in other states. But we’re also united to the African believer who sings and dances in joyful worship. We’re united to the Asian believer who quietly meditates upon God’s Word.
But more than that, we’re also united in Christ to all believers throughout all time. Not just the ones in this church, not just the ones in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, not even just the ones who are alive, but all believers. Think about that for a moment: Through the life and death of Jesus Christ we are united in the Body of Christ to the Apostle Paul. We are united to John the Baptist. To Peter. Even to the Old Testament saints like Abraham, David, and Moses. We share a part and a role in the Body of Christ with Martin Luther and Mother Theresa. Romans 12:5 says, “5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
Maybe you’re beginning to see what this means for today, All Saints’ Day. But if you’re not, let me just spell it out. When we by faith in Christ are made part of His Body, we are truly “in Christ”. Can anything separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? No? No power? No authority? No event? Not even death? No . . . no of course not. Therefore, when a believer dies, he or she remains in Christ. They remain, along with us, a part of the Body of Christ, as a fellow member of the Church of the Living God. We remain united with them. They are gone, but not gone.
It always bothers me a bit when you go to a funeral or some such thing and some well-intentioned person suggests that we tell stories about the departed so that they can “live on in our hearts.” The notion seems to be that if we can just keep the memory of our loved ones alive, then somehow we remain bonded together to them.
It always bothers me a bit when I go to a funeral or some such and some well-intentioned person suggest that we tell stories about our loved ones so that we can keep them alive in our hearts. The notion seems to be that we can remain connected to those we love by keeping their memory fresh in our minds. And that would be alright, if that were the best we could hope for.
But we as believers are bound together to the departed saints by something far deeper, far more profound, than just whether or not we can continue to picture their face. We do not mourn as the world mourns, for they mourn as those with no hope. But we have a living hope, because we are bound together by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This is true both in our day-to-days lives, but also in a very special way through our church lives, as well.
Consider this: Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:16, “16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?” We could consider this another way: When we receive communion, we have fellowship with one another. In communion, we have fellowship with all believers through the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In other words, here on earth we receive the earthly element of bread and wine, but we also receive something much more. We also receive the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ Himself. We receive what the departed saints have right before them: Jesus Christ in the flesh. When we receive communion, Jesus Christ stands at the center of it, He is the focus of our attention, and He gives Himself to us. This is very much what happens in Heaven—the saints are gathered around Christ and focus upon Him in their worship even as His gifts have enabled them to be there. So in the moment we receive communion, we join together with the saints in Heaven in the worship of Jesus Christ. You are never closer to your loved one than when you receive communion, for the departed saints are worshipping Him on one side of eternity, and we are worshipping Him on this side, but it is one worship given to Him by one church, the congregation in the round of saints both living and departed.
One day, each of us hopes to join in the voices of the Heavenly choirs as we gather around our Savior and worship Him for all that He has done. That will truly be a cause for rejoicing! To be with the Lord, to touch Him with our own hands . . . what a great gift! What a great treasure!
But for now we still live in this world. And as for me, I am comforted by the fact that I will one day be reunited with my grandfather Harold Cash one day in eternity. But I am also comforted in knowing that I am also united with him right now, today, in Christ.