Yesterday was Sunday. It started out like other Lord’s days of its kind. I had woken up bleary-eyed to a blaring alarm, gotten ready haphazardly, grabbed some cereal to go despite my momma’s plea to make time to eat breakfast in the house, gotten gas, picked up Kristine and Jeremy, jet to church in time for Sunday school at 9am lest Pastor Henry’s vigilant eyes catch my tardiness-prone self late, greeted and socialized with lovelies over Styrofoam cups brimming with steamy coffee between Sunday school’s end and worship service’s beginning, and was settled in my usual seat in the third row behind the Navales’ for the sermon.
Once we flipped to Romans 8:28, Pastor Ed opened with the comforting verse that all things work together for good for those who love God, including one's placement in his/her local church, which is the body of believers in which God has placed us to serve Him and reflect His glorious character. Just as Christ was committed to the point of death on the cross for us as the body of believers, so are we to be committed to sacrificially loving one another to the end in order to be an image of Christ to the world that knows Him not. Pastor Ed’s voice thundered, “Faithfulness to the local church—”
Except the thundering in his voice suddenly gave way to his body meeting the linoleum floor with a thundering thud.
It all happened so fast. A gargantuan gasp erupted from the 250-member congregation. The men in the front rows rushed to our pastor’s side. Some ladies screamed. “911! Call 911!!!” Tito Joey yelled frantically. More of us remained rooted in our seats in a shocked daze, staring at the spread-eagled face-down collapse of our beloved senior pastor.
Terror grappled my heart. I squeezed my eyes shut to stop the tears welling in my eyes and to plea fervently with God. Please, Lord, please don’t take Pastor Ed yet. He just underwent a colossal heart attack earlier this year. Please be merciful to him. But you are sovereign. You are good no matter what happens. Help us to trust you. Please, God, please.
A couple of minutes later, we heard Pastor Ed’s reassuring voice break through the chaos that enveloped him. “I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m fine,” he said. They pulled him up gingerly, placed him in a chair, and slowly backed away to grant him space, but were ever alert for the subsequent sign of abnormality. “Thank you for your concern. I’m okay,” Pastor Ed reaffirmed as he took a swig of the water handed to him. Several ladies around me attempted to muffle their uncontrollable sobbing.
“Now, where was I?” Pastor Ed asked. “Faithfulness to the local church…” I could scarcely believe my ears. Pastor Ed just keeled over on his face and resumed preaching as if nothing had happened.
It was clear everyone else was stupefied as well, but no one dared interject. As Pastor Ed preached on, I could tell everyone’s, along with my, minds were racing 137508 miles a minute. Was he okay? What’s going to happen? When are the paramedics going to get here? Please, God, please let him be okay.
Then we heard the shrill alarm of the ambulance bellow ever closer. As a handful of paramedics marched in, Pastor Ed kept preaching vehemently until he could disregard their towering presence no longer.
“You want to take my blood pressure?” he asked them, rather amused at all the fuss.
We chuckled nervously.
“Time out for a bit, folks,” one of the paramedics told us. “We need to run some tests.”
“How many minutes is this going to take?” Pastor Ed asked them. “I have a sermon to preach,” he explained, motioning toward us.
The paramedics smiled as they efficiently helped him up onto a gurney.
“Alex Hong, you are preaching the sermon today,” Pastor Ed announced.
Alex stood up without question.
“Here, you can look at my manuscript,” Pastor Ed offered.
Alex took the sheaf of papers and stared at Pastor Ed, dumbstruck, as they took him away.
Alex turned to face us, took a deep ragged breath, and said, “That’s commitment to the local church right there.”
That Pastor Ed recommenced preaching minutes after his collapse expounded on his example as a great man of faith. He continued serving us in sacrificial love and passionate commitment to the people God has given Him to shepherd, not desiring for us to miss the sermon for our growth in the knowledge and love for Christ.
“How does the world know who Christ is?” Alex asked us as he spontaneously continued where Pastor Ed left off after he led us in heartfelt prayer for our pastor. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another,” he declared, citing John 13:35. “If we love God, it will show in our actions. We are to serve one another with our time, resources, and effort, just as Jesus came to serve us.” He added in a pained voice, “As you can all see, Pastor Ed is a servant to the very end.”
‘Twas no accident God led Pastor Ed to select Alex to finish the message, who did so magnificently by God’s grace. I’m sure this was not how Alex envisioned preaching his first Sunday sermon, but God had grander plans. God is so very good in bestowing upon Alex the wisdom and grace to speak without forewarning after such a staggering ordeal, who undertook the task with immense faith and spoke from what God has been pressing upon his heart –the call for us to love one another by laying down our lives for each other so the world may know Christ.
Praise God for His sovereign goodness. Praise God for using yesterday’s incident to bring us closer to one another as a church family, reigniting our commitment to one another. Praise God for unveiling to us how he has, is, and shall continue to use every situation for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. We have a wonderful Savior.
Please (continue to) pray for Pastor Ed.
