He wasn’t an actor or a singer or a politician or an athlete. No one put posters of him on their wall, and it is likely that no one ever even Googled him.
He was just an 80-year-old man, a husband of 50 years, a father of two, a grandfather of five, a deacon in my church and a friend.
Brother Joe. That is what we all called him. And, in addition to the modest resume above, he was also an Air Force veteran of seven years. He was on a refueling plane during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, operating the boom that swings down from the refueling plane and attaches to the gas tank on top of the plane below. In this case, he was refueling an American bomber with a Russian Mig off his wing, ready to blow them all out of the sky.
I got to see a picture of that boom refuel in operation; it is incredibly cool.
When Joe and his family got to our church, he was already well up in years. But he was so godly and had such a servant’s heart about him that it was almost inevitable that we would make him a deacon.
He called members almost daily, just to speak an encouraging word or two. He did the same for me.
By all of the past-tense verbs I am using, you probably know by now that he is “gone.” Just a couple of days before Christmas, the family called to tell me he would probably be dying shortly. I left a hospital visit and went straight there.
Joe had, they said, been unresponsive all day. But when I stepped up beside his bed and said, “Brother Joe, it’s preacher, I came to see you and pray with you,” his eyes snapped open. I spoke to him for a moment, and then said, “I have a couple of people I need you to pray for.” I told him who they were, and what their needs were.
“OK, I’ll pray.”
Those are the last words he ever said to me. Then he closed his eyes and went back to sleep. A little while later, he was looking Jesus face to face and doubtless, relaying those prayer requests. That is just the kind of heart he had.
I am looking forward to seeing Joe again, and I know that one day I will. You see, way back in 1961, his captain in the Air Force led him to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And for 55 years, his life proved that his conversion was real. His family followed in his footsteps.
While he was laying there unresponsive, we all joined together and sang “What a Day that Will Be” to him. Moments after he died, the family was rejoicing even through their sorrow, wondering aloud what he was doing in heaven at that moment.
How is such a thing possible? How can people with broken hearts still manage to rejoice? It is pretty simple, really. People often think that death breaks the family circle, but for Christians every death is actually eternally assembling the family circle piece by piece. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 says, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
Christians never really do say goodbye, in reality it is always “see you soon.”
Bo Wagner is pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, N.C., and the author of several books available at www.wordofhismouth.com. Contact him at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.