Jesus – “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

John 14:1-4

This photograph of my parents surfaced this week as a “birthday memory” from 2020. It fits beautifully with the second part of today’s blog.

I’m sharing these stories today in response to something that was published before my parents died. But they still ring so true and on point that I’m reworking the thoughts to present them in this new post.

Coffee Rings on the Word:

Rebekah had just left for work when I noticed my open Bible and coffee mug together on the kitchen counter. At breakfast, after completing our devotion and prayer, we had been talking about our schedules. The conversation turned to something spiritual and that led to looking up a passage – and hence the open Bible.

Seeing the coffee mug on the open page reminds me of how natural it is for Rebekah and I to talk about faith, to dig into God’s word, and to encourage one another as followers of Jesus. Some of you may be horrified at the thought of potential coffee rings on the pages of a Bible; but I’m thinking quite the opposite – when I look at them together I see a level of intimacy and familiarity we all badly need if we’re going to be the kind of disciples who make any kind of a difference in this broken world.

Putting out the lamp, because the dawn has come:

Then – and I wish I had remembered and shared this at the time they died – a story about my parents. My dad had just heard that his cousin Roger – best friend and best man – had died. So I took him a cup coffee and we talked.

We talked about life and death, and faith, and lack of faith, and we talked about the fact that even people who reject God often find unexpected meaning in face of mortality. It’s as if the deeper things about our essential nature as created beings become inescapably apparent, and God whispers hints of eternity, and then spiritual truth turns out to be closer to the surface than ever before.

That’s when my mum pulled an old scrap of paper out from her Bible. Dad had apparently transcribed the words years and years ago, after he ran across them in a message or a book. I did some research, and the quote is attributed to Indian educator and poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941).

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp, because the dawn has come.”

It is a new day, friends; the dawn comes every morning. Let’s live in the light, and let’s get coffee rings on the word. Then, one day when we do pass into eternity, we can simply continue this great adventure of faith.

– DEREK

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp, because the dawn has come.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)