The Last Conversation with Grandad

 

The Last Conversation with Granddad;

A Eulogy for Marshall Helms

            There is so much that needs to be done, and so precious little time. There are some here who need comfort, and some who need assurance, and some who need encouragement, and some who need to be admonished. Yes, there is much to do, and precious little time. So, let us pray. Father, the task before me is overwhelming, and I have no strength for it. Abide with me please that in my weakness Your strength might be perfectly evidence, and Your word might go forth today to accomplish all Your good and perfect will. I ask it for the sake of Your glory, In the name of Jesus. Amen.

            It has been rightly said that it is not wrong to mourn. Indeed, in Matthew 5 our Lord says those who mourn are blessed for they will be comforted. We mourn death because it is unnatural. It discomforts us because it was never meant to be this way. We broke God’s rules, and we broke the creation. Now, we wake-up to find that someone who was always there before is not there anymore. Our relationships have been interrupted. We find there are conversation we will cannot have.

            There is one conversation I wish I had with my granddad. You see we used to work together on my family’s farm. We would build a fence, or clear some brush, or whatever needed doing that day; and if nothing needed to be done granddad would find something. He loved to work, and I did not. I was sixteen and strong, and he must have been in his sixties and he could easily work me into the ground. He was always so content at the end of those days, and I wish we had of talked about it. I think he would have looked to me and said,

            “Jared, look at what we accomplished today, doesn’t it make you feel good?” And I would have looked at him and said, “No, what good is this? We did all this work, and in a little while it will be undone, and whatever remains will someday go to a man who didn’t do a thing for it. Vanity, vanity, it is all vanity.” You see, I had been reading Ecclesiastes. In that book Solomon set out to learn what was best in life, and he had the means to try it all. Solomon worked, and built things my granddad wouldn’t even have dreamed of. granddad was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a rich man, or a man of great ambition. For all the hard work he did he never got rich, and there isn’t much of that work left behind. However, grandad knew something that Solomon also knew. It is something the apostle Paul wrote about in Colossians 3. I like to imagine granddad might have answered me with these words.

Bondservants, (that means employees) obey in everything those who are your earthly masters (the people who hire you to work), not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Colossians 3:22-25 ESV

We never had this conversation because my granddad was not a scholar, or an academic He did not preach with words like I do, but he spoke through his actions: and it has taken me twenty years to understand. Earlier today gentleman told me that when you asked Marshall Helms to do a job, he was going to do it right, and not only that but he would do it in the right way. That doesn’t mean he was going to go by the book, step-by-step, and check all the boxes. No, this man meant that Marshall would do it with love for the people he was doing it for.

Matthew 7 says we can know a tree by its fruits, and John 15:5 says the life of Christ in us produces good fruit in plenty. The fruit of the spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control were evident in Marshall’s work. It wasn’t just work either. Granddad was faithfully married for over sixty years, and loved his wife when it was easy, and loved her when it was hard. He raised two successful children, and poured into the lives of four grandchildren. He treated everyone the same, he was generous to his family, and to his faith family, and to his neighbors. He gave what he had by the sweat of his brow freely and fairly. He lived in such a way that the people here today have affirmed there is nothing bad to say about the man.

            I suppose the question we have to ask is how. How did this man find satisfaction in work most would look down on? How was content with what little he had when everyone around him was wanting more? How could love so well? How could give so much? How did granddad live this wonderful life of joy, and peace that surpassed understanding?

            Granddad knew something I had to study over a decade to learn. There is only one hero to know. It’s funny, I used to watch westerns with him, and he usually did not know, or care if it was Gene Autrey or Roy Rogers, or John Wayne or some other fella, sometimes he kind of knew what the plot was sometimes; but he always knew the horses. There was one rider though that I am convinced he knew quite well, and that one rode in to town on a donkey. That Hero didn’t come in guns blazing, take out the bad guys and save the girl. No, He was betrayed by one of His own while praying in a garden. His posse abandoned Him. He was unfairly tried, unjustly accused; beaten, mocked, and scorned and never cried out. He was made to carry His own cross up a hill, and then He was nailed to that tree between two criminals. His side was pierced, and He suffered several hours there while people watched. He took the fullness of the wraith of the thrice holy Triune God against our sins, and He died.

            O, but not all the weight of our sin, nor all the forces of darkness, nor death itself could hold this true Hero and He rose victorious on the third day. And now if we confess with our tongues that Jesus is Lord, and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we can have eternal life in Christ by grace through faith. That life is not something that starts later, it begins the moment we surrender ourselves to Jesus. From that moment it goes on, and on; I believe that is the life Marshall Helms lived, and death was no interruption for him, but only a transition to glory.

            Granddad work as hard as he did for Christ. He found fulfillment in His work through Christ. He loved because Christ loves, and gave because Christ gives. And all that our Lord promised was proved true in the life of Marshall Helms. Granddad never was rich, but he always had enough, and enough to be generous. He had joy, and peace that surpassed understanding.

            Even today his life still preaches this good news to us. Even today his legacy is joined in the great crowd of witnesses who affirm that Christ is who He claims to be, and has done all that He set out to do. If today you will heed this testimony than even from the observance of death new life might spring forth. Even now Christ offer of life stands open to you all.

            To those of us who are in Christ we have seen a good example run the race set before us. Let us honor him by pressing on as he did. To those of us who have his blood in our veins, and who bear his name let that heritage continue to stand as did with our patriarch. When we pass let them say of us, what we have said of granddad today.

            As granddad saw this day approaching, he made preparations. There was a song he wanted played, Go Rest High on that Mountain.” At the time we joked about it, we said he just liked mountain songs and we would sing them all for him… But Granddad wasn’t joking, he chose that song for a reason, and as we listen to it, I pray the reason will become clear. We have all spoken of this man as a true saint, a man above reproach; but granddad wanted you to know, that wasn’t the case. He struggled, he fell short, he was a great sinner who knew a great Savior. I believe, and am fully convicted that if my granddad could speak to us today, he would use every word to urge us all to know Christ. Because, Christ is the life.

            Father, I thank you for the life of my grandfather. I thank you for his work ethic of doing the job right, and doing it in the right way. I thank you for example he set as a husband, and as a father, and as a grandfather. I thank you for the way he welcome son and daughter in-laws into the family. I thank you for legacy of service here at New Harmony Baptist, and at the other churches he belonged to. I thank you for the generosity that touched so many. I thank you that he finished well what he started by Your grace. I thank you for the legacy that lives on. Please be with those of us who remain and comfort us in our grief. Please help us to learn well the lesson granddad taught us by action, and strength us to teach them through our actions and our words wherever You take us. God grant it in Jesus’ name. Amen.