XXXV

The bell rang, dismissing classes. Within minutes, students were pouring down the aisles. An usher, one of Dr. Pearson’s students, noticed him sitting in the corner pew and gave him a bulletin, displaying no little astonishment as he did so. The bulletin was plain, a folded sheet of paper. There was a bold woodcut of a crucifix on the front, with Mary and John standing at the foot of the cross. When bulletins were distributed at chapel, it usually meant that there would be no sermon or meditation. Led by the campus pastor, the focus would rather be on prayer by word and music and on the Word of God, with periods of silence interspersed.

Now soft strains of organ music were rippling through the air and a hush descended on the assembly. Steve recognized the full-throated serenity of Bach’s chorale arrangement of “Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh herab.”

The pastor stepped behind the lectern and intoned the Invocation: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

“Amen.”

“The theme interwoven into all parts of our worship this morning is dedication, and specifically the self-dedication to God asked of all who follow Jesus. We begin with Hymn 484, all stanzas.”

Quietly the organ introduction rose out of the choir loft. This was going to be a prayerful service, all right, conducive of private devotions in the company of fellow disciples. Stephan Pearson’s heart was in tune for a service like this. It felt about to burst from the pressure of its pent-up emotions.

Jesus, my Lord, my God, my all,

Hear me, blest Saviour, when I call;

Hear me, and from thy dwelling place

Pour down the riches of thy grace.

Jesus, my Lord, I thee adore,

O make me love thee more and more,

Jesus, too late I thee have sought;

How can I love thee as I ought?

And how extol thy matchless fame,

The glorious beauty of thy name?

Jesus, my Lord, I thee adore,

O make me love thee more and more.

Jesus, what didst thou find in me

That thou hast dealt so lovingly?

How great the joy that thou hast brought,

So far exceeding hope or thought!

Jesus, my Lord, I thee adore,

O make me love thee more and more.

Jesus, of thee shall be my song,

To thee my heart and soul belong;

All that I have or am is thine,

And thou, blest Saviour, thou art mine.

Jesus, my Lord, I thee adore,

O make me love thee more and more. Amen.

Cecilia loved that hymn. She used to hum it all the time.

The congregation rose and opened their bulletins to recite excerpts from Psalm 51. Steve knew the Psalm by heart, but never had he prayed it so fervently as now.

Have mercy upon me, O God,

according to thy lovingkindness;

according to the multitude of thy tender mercies,

blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity:

and cleanse me from my sin.

For I acknowledge my transgressions:

and my sin is ever before me.

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,

and done this evil in thy sight:

that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest,

and be clear when thou judgest.

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity:

and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts:

and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean:

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me to hear joy and gladness:

that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

Hide thy face from my sins:

and blot out all mine iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God:

and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence:

and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation:

and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Then will I teach transgressors thy ways:

and sinners will be converted unto thee.

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation:

and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

O Lord, open thou my lips:

and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:

a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:

as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,

world without end. Amen.

“O God, that’s me! That’s me! David fell for Bathsheba and killed Uriah. I fell for theoretical physics and killed two cities.”

In the silence that followed the Psalm, Steve heard the clear tone of a pitch pipe blowing an “F.” Then, like a thunderbolt:

VERILY, VERILY, I SAY UNTO YOU….

“O my God, you can’t be doing this to me!” he gasped.

EXCEPT A GRAIN OF WHEAT FALL INTO THE GROUND AND DIE … AND DIE, IT ABIDETH ALONE….

“It’s too much, dear Lord, too much….”

BUT IF IT DIE, IT BRINGETH FORTH MUCH FRUIT….

“You’re speaking to me out of the whirlwind, Lord! This is my whirlwind!”

EXCEPT A GRAIN OF WHEAT FALL INTO THE GROUND AND DIE…. AND DIE … AND DIE.

Dr. Stephan Pearson collapsed forward in the pew as the last tones faded away. His head was in his hands. His shoulders were silently heaving up and down.

It’s too much, Lord…. Too much….

How can I love thee as I ought?

He heard only bits and pieces of the rest of the service—his mind and heart were too full. The readings were all about the new creation we are in Christ, and the absolute priority of being reconciled to God before undertaking to do anything else in life. All of this now made enormous sense to him. It was either Christ or Satan, the Father in Heaven or the evil one. The failure to be reconciled to the Father, to the point of being a new creation in Christ, could have only one possible consequence, despite our best intentions. And Steve had lived it.

Floods of tears streamed down his cheeks.

“That’s what you were trying to tell me, my angel Cecilia. I wasn’t listening very well. But I’m with you now. It’s taken such a long time, but our good and merciful God has finally brought me to where you’ve always been.”

The pastor then offered a prayer of dedication and, glancing at his watch, announced the closing hymn:

“Number 463, Second Tune, first four stanzas.”

Jesus, thou Joy of loving hearts,

Thou Fount of life, thou Light of men,

From the best bliss that earth imparts

We turn unfilled to thee again.

Thy truth unchanged hath ever stood;

Thou savest those that on thee call;

To them that seek thee thou art good,

To them that find thee, all in all.

We taste thee, O thou living Bread,

And long to feast upon thee still;

We drink of thee, the Fountainhead,

And thirst our souls from thee to fill.

Our restless spirits yearn for thee,

Where’er our changeful lot is cast;

Glad, when thy gracious smile we see,

Blest, when our faith can hold thee fast. Amen.

The chapel emptied quickly as students hurried off to their next class. When Mary descended the stairs from the balcony, she found Steve still rapt in prayer. She left him like that until he opened his eyes, looked up at her, and smiled.

“Well,” he said. “I know what I have to do now.”

As soon as Mary had delivered him home and settled him in his chair, he reached for the tablet and a pen. Out of the overflow of his heart flooded torrents of memories and insights covering the pivotal events of his life, mostly in chronological order. He was driven by the urgent need to use every fleeting moment remaining to him to respond to the question: “How can I love thee as I ought?” Filling the sheets of several tablets with words, sometimes barely decipherable, he was impelled to write in fits of energy from one relapse to the next over the entire weekend. When he felt his strength swiftly ebbing away and his goal only partially achieved, he confided his plight to Mary.

“How about contacting Pastor Mork? You’ve known each other for years. Wouldn’t he be in a position to collate what you are writing and fill in some details?”

Steve was silent for a moment, a bit taken aback by her suggestion.

“Mary, I think you may just have given me the key.”

He took a clean sheet of paper and wrote on it in large wobbly letters the contents of the telegram quoted in the Prologue.

And that is where I entered the picture.

When I arrived the next morning, the floor of the living room around Steve’s chair was littered with several scribbled-on tablets and numerous loose sheets of paper. Mary had hesitated to disturb them, supposing they were in some kind of order. Steve was by now too weak to write, but my presence inspired him to unfold, often in amazing detail, the contours of the story you have just read. I assured him that, as I had already fulfilled the conditions of my sabbatical with several months remaining in it, I was in an ideal position to devote myself to telling his story.

“If you can only make something of all this, Paul, that may help someone to avoid the mistakes I made, by implementing earlier in life what it’s taken me until now to learn….”

Two, three, four days passed. Pain did not seem to be a major issue as long as Steve did not have to move about. His periods of wakefulness and lucidity grew shorter and fewer. He was able to take no nourishment, and very little water. This gave me time to expand the sketchy notes I had scribbled down as he was talking. It also gave me the opportunity to get better acquainted with his one daily visitor, Rolph Eriksen, whose hour-long visits were greatly appreciated by all of us.