O Death, Where is Thy Sting?

Nothing prepares you for the dying moments of a loved one.  Coming off a Zoom call (are there any others these days?) on Wednesday 1st April 2020, I noticed a missed call from my Mum just as my phone rang at 12:35 with a concerned doctor on the line from Leverndale Hospital in Glasgow.  My father had been in isolation since 17th March when he tested positive for COVID-19 but his condition was deteriorating rapidly.  Despite assurances only a few days earlier that he was stable if not improving, he had taken a turn for the worse with laboured breathing.  My Mum and I were asked to get to the hospital as rapidly as possible.  I threw a few clothes in a case, virtually kissed the kids and jumped in the car.  The slightly surreal and, up until that point, very quiet world of COVID-19 in our family, had now become a crushing reality.

Once eventually by my fathers bedside, resplendent in PPE, my Dad looked so fragile and frail.  Death was not far away.  Bizarrely given months of illness I suddenly felt completely unprepared to read, pray or sing to him in his last moments on earth.  Scrabbling for profundity in tragedy, I eventually read some tear filled verses from Romans 8 and attempted a very emotion filled Psalm 23 to St Columba's, prayer was beyond my limitations.  I hope he heard. However much you prepare, however many deaths you experience in the family, those final moments are distressing beyond words.  Death, the final enemy had ravaged the mind and body of my father and at the moment when touch would have been so appropriate we were blocked by a thin layer of latex and a cumbersome face mask.  I trust that the last words he heard were the deep affection of a grateful son.

Dad had enjoyed a remarkably healthy life until he was about 83.  He was never a man for exercise (1 Timothy 4 v 8 would have been quoted), his diet would be best described as 'hearty' but overall he remained healthy for most of his life. He seemed to churn out articles, booklets, blog posts, book reviews, lectures and he was preaching almost weekly until around May 2018.  He contracted CLL in December 2016 but it didn't seem to dampen his enthusiasm for writing and preaching.  His schedule continued through most of 2017 and he relished lecturing on Martin Luther (to commemorate 500 years since the nailing of his 95 Thesis in Wittenberg) in Glasgow and Ballyclare.  There was little indication of what was to come over the next two years.  His pace and energy until a couple of years ago was at times breathtaking. 

Spending the last few days in my Dad's study here in Glasgow has been very emotional.  Born in 1934, Dad grew up in a paper culture and he kept everything, and I mean everything.  He has pocket diaries from 1949 right up until 2018 chronicling every major event and preaching engagement.  My father seemed to make a decision to keep things from quite an early age and had meticulously sorted and categorised it over the years.  His 1949 diary is a treasure trove of life in Sutherland just after the war.  He had also started to write memoirs which have all key dates and a few reflections which I will use as I start to write about his life and legacy.  It is remarkable for somebody like me who loves history to read diaries from the 1950's with entries about the Kings health and the latest general elections.  Things that I studied in Modern Studies and History at school were being experienced by a young John J.  My father meticulously kept correspondence and it is amazing to handle letters between my father and men like Prof John Murray of Westminster Seminary.

But for now we are left with scraps of paper and broken hearts.  As somebody has recently written 'one blow does not always prepare you for another'.  This is very true for us.  We felt we were just coming to terms with the loss of Anna when we have been hit with another wave of tragedy.  I have been at the death beds of three of my immediate family in the last 40 years and it doesn't become any less distressing.  Also my fathers deep despair over the last two years was very difficult to understand and respond to.  Nobody will ever understand some of the depths to which we plunged as we longed and prayed to see the old Dad again.  It was a reminder to me, if one was needed, that our hope must never be in our length of service or even our faithfulness but only in the finished work of Christ.  This was true for Dad even when he could not see it or feel it.

My fathers legacy will no doubt be much written about over the next few months and years, I hope to do much of the writing myself.  I hope that these tributes will capture the breadth, richness and warmth of the man.  He was utterly firm in his convictions yet generous in his estimations of other Christians.  Dad was not tribal or sectarian, in many ways he reserved much of his analysis for the failure of the reformed movement to realise its potential. Reading his journals from when he was a teenager, his convictions were made at an early age and hardly wavered in 60-70 years.  Like his great hero Prof John Murray, he had very little sense of self and was utterly self effacing.  Somehow he managed to combine humble service and bold leadership in many complex and awkward situations.  Gentleness, wisdom and patience were often shown when others rushed in.  As somebody has written of my Dad 'he had the mind and attitude of a servant, but he could influence and be a force, without appearing dominant.' 

Theologically Dad was able to present a transcendent God with warmth.  The gospel was the best news to be preached with careful preparation in a prayerful spirit. Dad was ill at ease with the casualness and informality of the modern church.  The 'Young, Restless and Reformed' movement was, for him, far to man centred and lacking the deep spirituality of the Highland piety he was brought up on.  But, the spiteful, harsh, point scoring Calvinism of others was also lost on my Dad.  Calvinism for him was comprehensive, life changing and deeply God glorifying.  He loved B.B. Warfield and often used to use this Warfield quote: 'The central fact of Calvinism is the vision of God. Its determining principle is zeal for the divine honour. What it sets itself to do is to render to God his rights in every sphere of life-activity. In this it begins and centres and ends...The Calvinist is the man who sees God. He has caught sight of the ineffable vision, and he will not let it fade for a moment from his eyes - God in nature, God in history, God in grace.'  Dad grew up with a Christianity that infused every area of life whether it was family life, crofting or preaching - life was to be lived for God. 

My father was humble, bright, energetic, cheerful, Christ-like and yet at the very end, it all seemed very dark for him.  The loss of two daughters was more than he could bear and he seemed crushed by grief.  But these memories will fade and better memories will return.  It seemed very fitting that at the end of his life there were three books on his hospital bedside table: a Bible, CH Spurgeon's 'Cheque Book of Faith' and a book of sermons by Prof John Murray entitled 'O Death, Where is Thy Sting?' published by Westminster Seminary Press in 2018.  And isn't that so true for the Christian?  Death is not the end but the glorious beginning.  On Thursday we will bury my father in a grave where we stood with so many tears 40 years ago.  Then as now, we were stunned, bewildered and overwhelmed.  But we are so thankful for gospel hope.  We are so thankful that this is not the end.  We are so glad that Dad is free from his pain and sorrow and now knows the reality of 1 Corinthians 15 v 55 - 58:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

Just after my fathers death I recorded a few thoughts which can be watched here: