On August 4, 2005 at 12:00 p.m. a dear brother in Christ, C. Virgil Brittingham, stepped into the presence of the God He loved dearly. I received the news at around 12:15 p.m. that day while I was preparing my sermon for that Sunday. The news of his death did not take me by surprise because we knew that the cancer was in its final stages, but the range of emotions I felt at that moment was unexpected.
You see I have known Virgil for most of my life. A person will have only a few individuals in his lifetime that he considers influential, and Virgil was one of those men for me.
As a young boy I knew him as just one of the men at church. One of those men you always knew would be there no matter the occasion. As a teenager, when he came to work for my father as a mechanic, I began to see him as much more. I can remember him helping me install a rather complicated stereo system in my car. I learned much about electronics and mechanics from him during that time. Within the past 10 years, however, I got to know a different Virgil. I always knew Virgil as a Godly man, but it wasn’t until I began to hunger and thirst after God myself that I appreciated this about him.
In recent years when we would see one another we would get into deep discussions about the Scriptures and the greatness and glory of God. Virgil was a man who could never get enough of God. He was always learning and growing. He had many interests but you always new they were secondary to his passion for God and His word. Virgil was also a consistent man, and he always seemed the same no matter when you saw him, even in the midst of poor health. I believe this can be attributed to the solid foundation upon which his life rested.
It was just a couple of months ago that Virgil and I had our final “deep” conversation. He came to the church for UPLIFT (our midweek prayer and worship time). We prayed for him and his health and God’s comfort for him and his family as he fought the disease.
Then Virgil prayed. His voice was very hoarse from the radiation treatments to his neck but his words were clear and unforgettable. He didn’t complain to God about the cancer, he didn’t even beg for healing, instead he praised the God he loved, and thanked Him for His grace and mercy, and prayed for the ministry of our church.
After the meeting everyone left and Virgil and I spent about an hour or so talking in the parking lot. He spoke very candidly about the cancer and his desire to live, but he also knew that it may be the means by which God would call him home. He spoke much about God’s sovereignty and the fact that we can trust him in all things. It was a great evening and one which I am thankful for.
So when I received the news of Virgil’s death I stopped what I was doing at that moment and I tried to take it all in. I felt a range of emotions. I felt sadness that there would be no more conversations, and I felt sorrow for his family and their great loss. The strongest emotion I felt however, was a sense of joy and even a bit of envy that what Virgil had lived for his entire life was now a reality for him. As the old hymn says his “faith had become sight.” The God he worshipped and had shared with so many people through his witness and his teaching was now greeting him as he entered Heaven.
As I sat there with my Bible, sermon notes, and books before me the thought occurred to me “This is what it is all about.” Just a few minutes earlier Virgil had experienced the culmination of all that I was preparing to share with my congregation in just a few days. I preach the Word of God to show people Christ and to bring them into a closer relationship with him, and Virgil had just experienced that in the ultimate sense. I share with people that which they cannot see and must accept by faith. What Virgil had accepted by faith had become that which he could now see. What an overwhelming thought!
In his Christian allegory “The Chronicles of Narnia” C.S. Lewis gives us a glimpse of what it may be like to enter Heaven through Digory and Polly, the main characters of the story. Upon being thrust into a new world an overwhelming sense of peace comes over them. They feel as though they had always been there but at the same time they had the sense that had just arrived from somewhere as well. It was new but at the same time it was familiar.
Is this what it was like for Virgil? We can’t know for sure but one thing we can be sure of is that while we who remain may look at death with eyes of dread, those who have experienced it in Christ look back upon it as their greatest joy.
An anonymous quote I came across several years ago sums it up best. “Death is not extinguishing the light from the Christian; it is simply putting out the lamp because the daybreak has come.”
Virgil, I will miss you, but I look forward to seeing you in the morning.
