First Presbyterian Church
Wichita Falls, Texas
June 29, 2011
Witness to the Resurrection
Betty Patricia Newman
(March 2, 1925 - June 23, 2011)
THE FINISHING TOUCH
Isaac Butterworth
Philippians 1:3-6 (NIV)
3 I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
They say that every good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. If that’s true of stories in general, it is certainly true of the story of faith, and it is true of Betty’s story.
The Beginning
In his letter to the Philippians, when Paul writes about how God ‘began a good work in’ us, he has in mind the beginning of our life in Christ. So, let’s begin at the beginning. Let’s start with how God’s great ‘good work’ gets started in us and, more particularly, how it got started in Betty.
God was actively engaged in Betty’s life long before her birth -- in fact, long before creation. Does that surprise you? If so, then it may surprised by the Bible’s claim that this is true of you as well. In Titus, chapter 1, verse 2, Paul talks about ‘a faith...resting on the hope of eternal life, which God...promised before the beginning of time.’ He confirms this in Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 4, when he claims that God ‘chose us in [Christ] before the creation of the world.’
Before God ever uttered the words that set creation in motion -- before he ever said, ‘Let there be light’ -- he made plans for you. He knew the day of your birth. He knew the extent of your years. And he promised ‘before the beginning of time’ that, in Christ, you would live forever. You and, of course, Betty.
But, if that seems too remote, too distant for comprehension, consider this. God once said to Jeremiah, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, [even] before you were born’ (Jer. 1:5). And David says to God in Psalm 139, ‘You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.... My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.... Your eyes saw my unformed body’ (vv. 13, 15).
That knowledge alone should provoke praise from our lips! How awesome is our God that he has planned for every detail and every need of our lives!
But now let’s fast forward a bit to a more proximate beginning. Recall, if you will, the day of your birth. Of course, you were not aware of anything on that day, at least, not consciously. Others were taking care of you; others were seeing to your needs. No doubt, you brought smiles to the faces of the people around you. Your parents and others probably looked upon you with awe.
God was there, too. The Scriptures say of him, ‘He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing’ (Zeph. 3:17). Betty was born on a spring day in rural Oklahoma, and, if you could have listened that day, you might have heard God humming!
God was at work in Betty’s life even in her childhood. Paul writes how God ‘began a good work’ in us, and, from the start, the grace of God was visible in Betty’s life. She was raised in a loving Christian family with her brother, Harry, and her sister, Maureen, and there in that setting she began to develop the unique features of her personality that would in time disarm us, each one, and win the favor of all who knew her.
The Middle
Paul says not only that God ‘began a good work’ in us but that he ‘will carry it on.’ God doesn’t just shove us out of the nest and leave us on our own. In fact, he says to us, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you’ (Heb. 13:5).
Betty was twenty-one when she married Dan Newman, and what a force they were in our lives -- in this whole world, really. One of the great purposes of marriage is for us to learn, as Paul says elsewhere in Philippians, to ‘do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility [to] consider others better than’ ourselves (Phil. 2:3). Betty and Dan modeled this for us and gave us a glimpse of what God intended when he designed marriage. They loved each other, honored each other, and made it seem natural and easy to show deference to one another.
Betty brought a great deal of joy to those around her. She could have had her own show on the Food Network if it had been around at the time. Every meal Betty prepared -- and she prepared lots of them -- was an occasion. Most of us don’t have a four-course meal with any frequency, but if you ever put your feet under Betty’s table, you did: breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It was always a dining experience.
And Betty was able to do that -- and many other things, demanding things, like growing her own vegetables -- she was able to do all that she did without giving the appearance of being stressed. In fact, her presence always set others at ease. She saw the humor even in the mundane, and she was famous for her dry wit and her one-liners. Who wasn’t drawn to Betty’s laughter? And tell me this: Didn’t things pick up for us all when she entered the room?
Of course, Betty faced many challenges. After just over half a century of marriage, she lost her beloved Dan. Losing a spouse is difficult enough, but to lose a child is even more so. As you know, Betty’s son, Jerry, was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS. And Betty moved to Dallas to join her daughter-in-law, Garla, in taking care of Jerry until his death. And then Garla took care of her.
All the while, God was carrying on the good work God had begun in Betty. Her love for her family was unwearied, overflowing the bounds of convention. Such love comes straight from the heart of God. And none of us will ever have a higher calling than the one we saw fulfilled in Betty: to let God’s love flow through us to others.
The End
As we said, good stories have not only a beginning and a middle; they also have an ending. Paul says in Philippians, ‘that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.’
For those who, like Betty, put their faith in Christ, the ending of the story is an ending without end. The book may close on this earthly journey, but Scripture tells us that a second volume is in the making.
Psalm 121 says that ‘the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.’ We have seen how God watched over Betty’s ‘coming.’ We are gathered here today to affirm that he is watching over her ‘going’ as well. The Twenty-third Psalm concludes with the words, ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.’ We have seen how ‘goodness and mercy’ pursued Betty in the course of her eighty-six years. We have come here today to attest that, now, she will ‘dwell in the house of the LORD forever.’
Betty’s baptism is complete. She has loved her love. She has done her work. And she has suffered her suffering. She could say with Paul, ‘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 Tim. 4:7f.).
‘That day’ has come for Betty. She is ‘with Christ’ even now (Phil. 1:23). Her ‘citizenship is in heaven’ (Phil. 3:20). And, in God’s time, on what one old song calls ‘that great gettin’ up morning,’ ‘the Lord Jesus Christ, ...by the power that enables him to bring all things under his control, will transform [her body] so that [it] will be like his glorious body’ (Phil. 3:20f.).
What an ending to a great story! Why, it’s no ending at all. It’s simply the finishing touch!
