I should be thinking about the resurrection today. And, in some ways, I am. However, I must admit that I am also thinking about death – and, especially, the death of loved ones.

This morning, just as Easter Sunday was beginning in his part of the world, Merle Hanson passed into the presence of the Lord he loved. Merle was the father of Gary Hanson, one of my life-long friends. He was also someone who took a special interest in me when I was a new Christian.

Merle never tried to be a surrogate father to me. He knew I had my own father and always deferred to Morgan. Instead, he was one of the first men outside of my family who saw something in me and purposely chose to invest in me. Considering what I looked like back in those days, “gamble on me” might be a better use of the English language.

What he did was not out of the ordinary. However, as I look back on it, it is the essence of Christianity. He accepted me "as-I-was," spent time with me, and, helped build a foundation in my Christian walk that has served me in my own ministry many times over.

Whenever Su and I returned to Rochester we made a point to visit with Merle and Minerva. We could always count on leaving the Hansons' apartment with a book – something that Merle had read and which had spoken to his own heart. The last time we were with Merle he gave Su a copy of Joni Erickson Tada’s, A Place of Healing. He had read about the author’s battle with chronic pain and thought of Su’s own health struggles. I remember his voice broke as he talked about how he wanted to her to have this special book.

Looking back, I think one of the biggest lessons I took away from my relationship with Merle was the value of standing for Jesus – even in tough times and when the price is high. Merle knew how to “man up” before “manning up” was ever a part of the popular political lexicon.

It seems fitting that in sharing about a man who listened to me tell so many stories, that I should end with one – especially one that talks about standing for Jesus.

153 years ago a city-wide revival swept across Philadelphia. In some books it is simply referred to as “the work of God in Philadelphia.”

One of the best-known preachers in this revival was an Episcopalian priest named Dudley Tyng. He was known as a bold and uncompromising speaker. In addition to pastoring his own church, Rev. Tyng began holding noonday services at the downtown YMCA. Large crowds came to hear this dynamic, twenty-nine-year-old preacher.

On Tuesday, March 30th, 1858, over five thousand men gathered at mid-day to hear Tyng preach from the text, “Go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord” (Exodus 10:11, KJV). According to the records, over one thousand men committed their lives to Christ that day.

At one point in his message, Tyng shouted out, “I must tell my Master’s errand, and I would rather that this right arm were amputated at the trunk than that I should come short of my duty to you in delivering God’s message.”

Ironically, the very next week Tyng accidentally caught his loose sleeve between the cogs of a threshing machine on a farm he was visiting. The arm was crushed, the main artery severed. As a result of shock and loss of blood, the Rev. Dudley Tyng died.

On his deathbed he was asked for some final words by the group of friends and ministers who surrounded him. It is reported that he feebly whispered, “Let us all stand up for Jesus.”

The next Sunday, Tyng’s close friend and fellow preacher, the Rev. George Duffield, preached his morning sermon as a tribute to his departed friend. He closed his sermon by reading a poem that he had just finished writing, inspired, as he told his congregation, by the dying words of his friend.

I would like to close my own thoughts about my friend, Merle Hanson, by sharing the last two stanzas of that same poem:

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the trumpet call obey;

Forth to the mighty conflict in this, His glorious day.

Ye that are men now serve Him against unnumbered foes;

Let courage rise with danger and strength to strength oppose.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the strife will not be long;

This day the noise of battle – the next, the victor’s song.

To Him that overcometh a crown of life shall be:

He with the King of glory shall reign eternally.

Merle, for you the "noise of battle"is now past. This Easter morning you really did hear that Victor's song. I pray that some of us in whom you invested so much will now be "men enough" to live out the values you modeled for us.