A Precious Death:

Precious in the sight of the Lord

is the death of his faithful ones.

(Psalm 116:15)

Gary died: “At 10:36 my dad took his last breath with mom, his girls, 6 of his grandkids, and Ken and Cheryl around him.” That’s how Amy let us know. That’s the whole text. One sentence. Though Amy, along with all those gathered, believe Gary is now in the arms of Jesus; she left that part out for now. She simply writes “took his last breath”. It’s okay. We don’t always have to tell the whole of it. That’s how the Bible tells it (Gn 25:8):

Abraham breathed his last                                                          

      and died in a good old age;

An old man and full of years,

      and was gathered to his people.

It’s good to linger for a spell on that last breath. That’s why we gathered—to be by his side as he “breathed his last.” It turned out to be a lengthy vigil. The hospital, gracious and caring, found a room on the third floor down the end of the hall clearing space for us to gather. That’s another thing I like about how the Bible puts it: “gathered to his people.” Gary went from our third floor gathering to his eternal gathering. Glory wouldn’t be glorious if we were not gathered to our community of worshipers singing our songs of praise: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty…” (Rv 4:8). Gary liked to sing. We sang hymns at his bedside. Maybe he just slides from our third floor singing into the heavenly chorus singing “Worthy is the Lamb…” (Rv 5:12).

There’s something precious about the death of such a faithful one as Gary. He’s been my faithful, dearest friend since Hebert Slater Junior High. We played football together—he played, I mostly sat on the bench. We married our high school sweet hearts. Our children enjoyed growing up together with many summer vacations at their cabin at Lake Tahoe. All such precious memories. So it’s okay to weep just like Jesus did when we lost his dear friend Lazarus.

 “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones” (Ps 116:15). There was something remarkably precious about our third floor gathering. There’s sorrow and tears. We’ve lost a dear friend, a husband, a dad, a grandpa, a brother. But we sorrow in hope that, because of Easter Morning, the worst thing—even this thing, is not the last thing.