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Finishing Well!

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Today Rosa and I stood at the graveside of our dear missionary friend Ruth Pierson, with Chuck, her husband of more than 40 years, and her family. It was a  bone-chilling, dreary Michigan day with about a foot of snow on the ground. How good it was to hear Christ’s words pronounced by the minister: “I am the resurrection and the life,” and to know that the chill of death has been removed forever for those who await his coming. By his passion he has melted the cold hopelessness of life without God.

Ruth and Rosa had much in common. Fort starters, both served for three years in Sierra Leone as single missionary nurses, then came home, got married, and took their husbands back with them–Ruth brought Church and Rosa brought me. Rosa always looked forward to the times when we could visit with Chuck and Ruth.

It was a joy to fellowship with our many missionary friends who came to celebrate Ruth’s home going and to  share  our memories of her. Her faithfulness reminds us that the only life worth living is a life of trust in and obedience to Christ. Ruth has finished her course, kept the faith, and heard Christ’s “well done.” Her life beacons us to run the race with perseverance until we finish well! 

Ephesus

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Let’s leave mangoes alone for awhile. I’d like to comment about the wonderful trip Rosa and I had to Ephesus last summer. We went with friends who were very familiar with the city. After flying from Istanbul to Izmir, we took the train to Selçuk, the modern town closest to ancient Ephesus. As we walked from the train station, we passed the ruins of a late Roman aqueduct, pictured above. As you can see, storks have taken advantage of some of this aqueduct’s remaining columns to build their nests. For more about our trip, click on the “Ephesus” page given above.

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So much for mangoes, what about Melchizedek. Melchizedek is that guy who appears to Abraham in Genesis 14. In Psalm 110:4 God declares to the Messiah, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” The writer of the Book of Hebrews takes up the challenge of explaining who this Melchizedek is. After three years in Africa, Rosa and I moved to Richmond, Virginia, where I did a Th.M. and a Ph.D. in Biblical studies at Union Theological Seminary. I was looking for a thesis topic–or, actually, I was looking for an advisor. I decided that Professor Mathias Rissi would be the best advisor for me. So I asked him to suggest a topic for my Th.M. thesis. He suggested that I compare Melchizedek in Hebrews 7 with 11QMelchizedek, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And so was born an interest in Melchizedek and a love for the book of Hebrews that came to fruition in my doctoral dissertation–“The Melchizedek Christology of Hebrews 7:1-25.”

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Mangoes. It seemed fitting to begin this blog with “mangoes.” I don’t remember ever seeing a mango until I arrived in Sierra Leone, West Africa, September 2, 1969. Rosa and I had just been married on August 15. I’d been ordained to the ministry on August 17. Here we were in Sierra Leone. When we woke up the first morning in Freetown, we heard a child’s voice outside saying in Sierra Leonean Krio, “they done come from the United States of America.” By September 4 we were in the town of Kamakwie, about 175 miles from Freetown, in our house–which was in the middle of a mango grove. I would develop a love for those mangoes, and a love for the country where I first tasted them, the country of Sierra Leone.