Saturday, May 26, 2007

The Perfect Death

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I hate it when Washingtons die of colds, and Houdinis die of punches, when the infamous lives of legends are reduced to common and even accidental fates. But as much as I hate when heroes don't go out as well as they could have, it makes me love all the more when they do. I love it when Thomas Jeffersons die on 4th of Julys, John the Revelators die soundly on their death beds, and Jerry Falwells die unexpectedly in their offices at work, in their prime after completing the work God ordained for them to do upon their creation.

Everything about it was flawless. The day, the month, the year, the way it happened, where it happened, what happened before it, and what happened after it, as if it were all planned- and it was. It was nothing short of God-ordained. And why would we expect anything less of something God-ordained.
He was America's favorite son, though he definitely wasn't the favorite son of Americans, but America itself loved him, for the very spirit of America lived in him. The spirit of truth, justice, freedom, and the passion to keep them all intact.
He loved America like he loved his Creator and his family, and he fought for his country- and more than that for the potential of his country- as he would have fought, and did fight, for each of them. You see, true love isn't passive and non-confrontational. True love for someone is the desire for their well-being and the willingness to insure their well-being, even at the expense of confrontation and an imperfect reputation in the eyes of some. If someone has a destructive habit or lifestyle and it is killing them, true love will confront and offer a solution for a better state of being that they might live the best life they can live.

So Jerry Falwell loved America, the American dream, and the American people who pursued the American dream. In his zealous love for his brothers and sisters he saw their lives begin to gradually go astray and so their attainment of the American dream began to go astray. For them to attain the American dream at all they had to bring it down to their level, and in so doing stripped it of its potential, perfection, and beauty. It was made less than pure and less than perfect- which of course is imperfect and impure. America was and is the wealthiest nation on earth and by far the most blessed, yet the American dream became and remains as it became: the ability to get away with living a mediocre life.
Instead of using freedom to better the lives of others they use it to merely secure their own safety and comfort for their short lifetime. But then again their whole mindset wasn't the same as the founders who gave them their freedom.
Where the founders together acknowledged Divine Providence- a greater power than themselves from which all blessings have come- and sought to give it back,
today’s society believes in themselves as god and credits themselves for all they have- as deserving that which they have been given.
So he stepped up and stepped out to confront that which he loved in hopes of it returning to the way it was when he loved it. That God-ordained move made him both an eye sore and a sight for the sore eyes of the nation...

“The time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” - 2 Timothy 4:6.

It was the way he would have wanted to go, just like he always said (as if he knew it would have been that way): “The man or woman of God is indestructible until he or she has completed the work God had called him or her to do.”
I believe that Jerry should have passed on to the other side years before he did, as he was diagnosed with several heart and blood problems in previous years, but God confounded the physical to reinforce the supernatural. He allowed him just enough time to not only complete the work he was created to complete but also to see it find a settling place for the next generation, where he could “rest in peace” knowing that he fulfilled his purpose in life and his legacy was established.
Rightfully so, as his ministry was started with Thomas Road Baptist Church, the love of his ministry life and the very reason for his being, so his death revolved around the completion and fulfillment of that mission so that when his main objective was completed he was taken home, just like Elijah or Enoch, or John the Revelator.

God let him witness the church he gave birth to reach maturity and see it’s 50th anniversary still under his pastoral leadership, a blessing given to few pastors. Few pastors will ever have the opportunity and motivation to lead a church for 50 years, much less the pastors that started their churches, and the ones that do, if there are any, will usually see some kind of rounding off place in the church’s ministry and growth. The contrary was so for Thomas Road who had a consistently vigorous population and ministry growth that never died down and never rounded off. New people in Lynchburg are still being reached, new people all throughout the country are being reached, new people throughout the civilized world are being reached, even the uncivilized peoples of the earth that have never even heard of the Gospel are being reached, and all the time Thomas Road is not just reaching these people but finding new ministries and new ways to reach them. The ministry of Jerry Falwell outlived the life of Jerry Falwell, and that is the way it should be since God is immortal. A church planter should never try to plan a church based on how much time they think they or others will be able to put into it, but rather how much time God will be able to put into it, and He can put an eternity into it.
He was allowed the privilege of living to see it reach its amazing 50th anniversary and then partake in the Year of Jubilee celebration following its anniversary with a string of awesome speakers and concerts from Tait, Wintley Phipps, Bobby Bowden, Michael W. Smith, and ending it with the biggest spectacle of them all: the death of Jerry Falwell. He had a patriotic love for America until the end, and less than a month before he passed away he was provided the opportunity to see America and his home state of Virginia celebrate its 400th anniversary- a celebration at Thomas Road Baptist Church with an incredible sermon from the one and only David Barton of Wall Builders. A week or two after the last big event in the Year of Jubilee, the Michael W. Smith concert, was when he deceased.
It had always been his dream to bring his three ministries together on Liberty Mountain and that finally happened a little less than a year before he died, for TRBC’s Golden Anniversary when Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty Christian Academy were moved into new buildings on the edge of Liberty University’s property on North Campus.
Everything was centralized and reestablished for whatever the next generation would bring, and the numbers were rounded off. TRBC was 50 and LU was 35, with an established, lasting legacy for each one. Some could say that Jerry was worked to death constantly maintaining both his major church and major university- each that he founded. But God does not want the best years of the Falwell ministry to be in the past, so He solved this by splitting Jerry into two different people so that he could put more time and energy into each one. “Conveniently” he had two sons. And “conveniently” one happened to be trained as a lawyer and the other was trained to be a pastor. So it could not have worked out better, and everybody looks forward to the best years of each institution now that there is a single force behind each one.

The first 3 years at LU he would say every year in convo that he was asking God to give him another 15 years of life just like King Hezekiah prayed in the Bible. It wasn’t like he was asking for 15 years in 2004, then 14 in 2005 and 13 in 2006, but another 15 every year, which is pretty ridiculous and makes me wonder, how long had he been asking God to give him 15 more years of life? Perhaps…15 years ago?!?! In reality I learned after his death that his first heart problems began 15 years before his death and it was after that wake up call that he began thinking about his legacy and preparing his institutions for when he was gone. Was it perhaps in this close call with death that he initially asked God to give him 15 more years of life? Perhaps to secure a lasting legacy before he left earth? It’s possible because that was also when he started incorporating Jerry Jr. and Jonathan in the LU and TRBC processes more. As Elmer Towns affirmed in the Regents’ DVD: Why did God take Jerry when he did? Because Jerry Jr. and Jonathan were now ready to lead. Jonathan had already been assistant pastor of the church, doing the early services for years, and the very next Sunday following Jerry’s death and funeral he stepped up to lead the main service with an appropriate sermon about Moses passing on the torch to Joshua. And Jerry Jr., by that time well experienced and extremely involved in LU’s affairs as vice-president, recently had some serious health problems himself a few years before Jerry’s passing. It was this close encounter with death that brought him to the place of dependency on God he needed to be to start leading the University, and then God gave him just enough time to heal and retake the University’s reigns in time for him to become chancellor.

May 15th 2007. The day he went was flawless. God is very good at planning and I guess I would be too if I was not confined to time and space and had an eternity to think things up. He started the day just like every other day. He ate breakfast with his associates, who said everything was fine and ordinary; there was nothing special in the air and no signs that a life was about to end. And then within a few hours he was found unconscious in his office. He passed peacefully while working in his Liberty office. No one suspected it. Jerry died on the Tuesday of the last week of school, two days before the last exams, so that people finished their classes for the year and went into the summer reflecting on life and death. He finished off the semester as chancellor leaving exactly a summer for the staff to make arrangements for University life without its chancellor, and likewise for his church- which would begin another slow summer and be able to get things together while people are on vacation. Jerry went out on top in every aspect. He was just a month from the completion of the Year of Jubilee, the 51st anniversary. Politically, he was still talking on the news shows often yet with a more reserved role in politics. He had founded the largest Christian University in the world, and it’s only 35 years old. [3511- Also apparently he bought a lot of life insurance in the last decade of his life, and by God's providence he was able to accumulate a life insurance of 34 million dollars (especially amazing considering he was in his 70's and already had a history of heart problems when he got this insurance) which, upon his death, distributed 29 million to Liberty University and 5 million to TRBC, well endowing both institutions for a promising future of growth beyond its founder. This was more than enough to break LU out of its long history of debt, for the first time since its founding, and had plenty left over to begin an endowment fund!]

He lived to see 10,000 residential students, 15, 000 through distance learning programs via internet (one of the largest DLPs in the country), East campus built, North Campus established, Lahaye Student Center and Ice Rink built, LU Transit bus system established, Campus church switched to TRBC- all of which occurred in the time I was a student here for his three final years. A few months before his passing, someone donated that monogram to LU, perhaps LU’s most notable feature- which can be seen as far away as Peaks of Otter about 40 miles away. LU sports reached their peak by finally getting a good football coach and team established with Rocco, LU girls basketball reached the sweet 16 for the first time and was televised on ESPN, Josh McDougal lead the nation in long distance running with his unprecedented 3:57 mile. And perhaps the most notable thing Jerry lived to see was the pride of Liberty Mountain, the LU Debate Team, win all 3 Championship Tournaments for the first time in history for any school, remain undefeated almost 20 years, have their debate coach coach the president of the United States, and then win all 3 championships again the following year. In the future if any school ever wins all 3 championships in the same year besides LU, they most likely will never do it again, much less the following year. Jerry was extremely active and a constant source of support for all of the LU extracurricular activities. He consistently came to almost every game that the LU football and basketball teams played, as well as all of the theatre performances and many of the band concerts until the day he died; I saw him there about every time I attended them.
It was perhaps Liberty’s finest year; I know it was my best year. And rightfully so, as it would have to be the finest for Jerry to truly go out on top; God knew that and so that’s why it happened as it did. I realize how extremely blessed I am to have attended Liberty University in its finest years- the final years of its founder.
[5/16/10-On a side note, 3 years after his passing, May 15, 2010, was also coincidentally graduation day for the last Jerry generation- that is, the last student class to see Jerry alive (who were freshman when he died). This was also the first time since May 15, 2007 that LU was not already in summer vacation for May 15th, so that the school could honor his passing day. Jerry had a goal of 50,000 LU students, and while at the time of his passing there were only 25,000, now (right before the last Jerry generation graduated) LU for the first time passed the 50,000 mark with the explosion of the LU Online program, ranked as the 3rd best online program in the nation. This made Liberty University the largest non-profit online school in the world, and also the largest Christian University in the world (whereas before it was just the world's largest evangelical university).]

All I know is that my faith was strengthened, and is currently, constantly being renewed as I read the words that he himself wrote through the years and research the words of others concerning him. It’s ludicrous to say that there was not some divine intervention at work in the events preceding, during, and following his death. It was the perfect death for Jerry in that his death has made just as big of an impact in people’s lives as anything thing he could have done in his life.
The conclusion is this: if you live like Jerry did and with the passion Jerry lived it, it will not slip by God and God will not slip by you. You are going to go where Jerry went and go like Jerry went out. On top.

“I would prefer to die in the pulpit right now, today, than to finish poorly, than to abandon my witness for Christ.” – Jerry Falwell, May 2, 2007 in Liberty University Convocation.