Recently my wife and I flew to North Carolina to attend the memorial service of our dear friend and former missionary colleague Eugene Ruble.
Gene and Peggy served in Indonesia for many of the years we also were there as Baptist missionaries. Gene was a wonderful physician and Peggy a talented and trained counselor. We have known all four of their children — Dan, Linda, Eddy and Andy — since they were youngsters decades ago. It was very special to be together with this good family to remember the faithful life of their husband and father.
Participating in the service of celebration for Gene at Knollwood Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, we were reminded of the years of sacrifice and dedication Gene and Peggy gave to God and to God’s children, the people of Indonesia. When the Rubles could not in good conscience serve after the sponsoring mission agency changed its direction, they returned to their home in North Carolina and raised the money to return on their own to continue serving at Immanuel Baptist Hospital in Tanjungkarang, Southern Sumatra.
Robert Sellers
During the memorial, representing all four siblings, Linda, a cardio-pulmonary clinical specialist who lives in Tel Aviv, and Andy, who lives in Penang, Malaysia, talked about the many valuable lessons their dad had taught them. Linda began:
Dad, I’ve dreaded this day my whole life — the day we have to say goodbye, never seeing again the mischief in your eye, never seeing you reach out to help someone in need, never again listening to your thoughtful perspective on life’s quandaries. I thank God that he gave you to me as a father. Thank you for loving me and encouraging me to be who I am, even when I don’t fit the expectations. Thank you for teaching me to question the accepted way of doing things and to be willing to think for myself.
Among other memories, Andy said: “We had a VW van, 1972, I believe, and we would be driving down a little road … and they were all one-lane blacktop roads, and he would see a side road, and would say, ‘Hey, let’s go see where that road goes.’ Next thing you know, we’re going down some road, no idea where it goes. Don’t know really why we’re doing it. But we usually found something interesting and someone to talk to.”
These collective stories began to summarize, but didn’t completely capture, the curious, observant, thoughtful and compassionate man that was Gene Ruble.
Then Knollwood’s pastor, Bob Setzer, delivered a beautiful homily on the selflessness Gene expressed in his life. He said:
“As we sang the fourth verse, I thought about where God was when Gene took his last breath.”
In James Fennimore Cooper’s magnificent novel The Last of the Mohicans, the scout, Natty Bumpo, is asked why he will not forsake others to save himself. “Because,” Bumpo answers, “it is better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an evil conscience.” More than once in his long and storied missionary service, Gene Ruble faced that very moral quandary — whether to save himself or do what he knew was right and true and good. And every time, he chose conscience. And that’s what made him a … man of such character and courage, integrity and principle, adventure and faith. … Now, in his memory and honor … let us dare chase Jesus down whatever far-flung road he leads us. That’s how Gene Ruble grew to be such a remarkable human being.”
The congregation at the memorial sang together the beloved Fanny Crosby text, “I Am Thine, O Lord.” But as we sang the fourth verse, I thought about where God was when Gene took his last breath. The hymn concludes, “There are depths of love that I cannot know ’til I cross the narrow sea; there are heights of joy that I may not reach ’til I rest in peace with thee.” So, I began to consider that “narrow sea,” that dividing river, and to realize again where God is when we are experiencing the end of our journey.
There are many references in the 1956 Baptist Hymnal collected under the theme “The Immortal Life.” Many of these texts refer to the river we have perceived separates us from God in heaven.
“On Jordan’s Stormy Banks” begins: “On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand and cast a wishful eye, to Canaan’s fair and happy land, where my possessions lie. I am bound for the promised land, … I am bound for the promised land; O who will come and go with me? I am bound for the promised land.”
“When the Roll is Called up Yonder” declares: “When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more, and the morning breaks, eternal, bright and fair; When the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore, and the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.”
“O Think of the Home Over There” imagines: “O think of the home over there, by the side of the river of light, where the saints, all immortal and fair, are robed in their garments of white. Over there, over there, O think of the home over there.”
“Shall we Gather at the River?” invites: “Shall we gather at the river, where bright angel feet have trod; with its crystal tide forever, flowing by the throne of God? Yes, we’ll gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river; gather with the saints at the river, that flows by the throne of God.”
“Perhaps this concept is actually more Greco-Roman or early Jewish belief than Christian.”
These images of a river that separates the living from the Promised Land, the river where the saints of God will gather on that other shore, the river that flows by the throne of God — perhaps this concept is actually more Greco-Roman or early Jewish belief than Christian. In the Odyssey, Book IV, the Greek poet Homer writes of the Elysian Field, or Paradise, where the dead are rewarded for their good behavior on earth, and of Hades, where they will be judged for their evil actions. These afterlife places are separated from the land of the living by a river — alternately Acheron, the River of Woe, or Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness, or the mysterious River Styx — which the newly deceased must cross over with the ferryman Charon.
Perhaps Jesus was reflecting a commonly held view when he told a parable about a rich man and a beggar (Luke16:19-31). When both the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar, die they go to the afterlife — Lazarus to the arms of Father Abraham in paradise and the rich man to Hades. Baptist New Testament scholar Richard Vinson comments:
We presume that Luke thinks of the dead residing in Hades or in Paradise, either tormented or rewarded until the Day of the Lord, when all accounts will be settled permanently. In Luke’s understanding, the dead cannot cross from one place to the other, but the wicked can observe the pleasures of the righteous, which adds to their torment.
Christians, however, have considered that God is with them when they pass from this life to the next. The story of the repentant thief on the Cross next to Jesus strengthens this belief, for to this frightened, trusting man Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Years ago, I heard my friend and mentor, John Jonsson, tell of the tragic loss of his child, David. John and Gladys were enjoying a church picnic with friends one day in South Africa. Sitting under a tree in a park, talking to adult friends while the kids were swimming, suddenly someone ran up in a panic and said David had disappeared in the Ingogo River.
John and many others rushed into the water and began frantically to search for David. Sadly, they eventually found the small body downstream. Then, taking a deep breath before continuing the story, John told us the only thing that kept Gladys and him from hopeless despair was the knowledge that God was not on the other side of the river, waiting to welcome David into heaven. No, God was in the river, drowning with David.
God also was in the River Ganges a couple of weeks ago with the 37 Indian children who drowned in the swollen waters during a Hindu festival.
And God also was in the river with Julie Le Roux when floodwaters from Hurricane Helene carried her to her death near Marion, N.C.
“Paul declares God is with us at all times and circumstances, even in the moment of our death.”
Isaiah 43: 1-3 expresses this promise of God’s accompanying presence plainly:
But now thus says the Lord, your Creator, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through fire you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
Paul declares God is with us at all times and circumstances, even in the moment of our death: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This is the God we worship and to whom we cling in our hours of deepest grief. As the pastor said comfortingly: “So it was that last Tuesday, Jesus came looking for Gene at Trellis Hospice. And that’s when, for Gene, faith turned to sight as he gazed upon the radiant, smiling face of his Lord and master and was transformed into an immortal expression of himself, made to be like Jesus.”
Where was God each time Gene encouraged Linda, when he taught her to think for herself and loved her for exactly who she is? Where was God when Gene and Andy, Eddy and Dan explored so many unknown, narrow roads where they encountered something interesting or someone with a need and a desire to talk? Where was God when this good man, reduced by the scourge of dementia, could barely recall the Lord who had been a companion all his life?
God was at that kitchen table with Gene and his daughter. God was in that 1972 VW van with Gene and his sons. God was alongside that hospice bed with Gene and Peggy and those four loving adult children.
God was not on the other side of the river waiting for Gene to arrive; God was in the river carrying him into that glorious forever.
Rob Sellers is professor of theology and missions emeritus at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, Texas. He is a past chair of the board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. He and his wife, Janie, served a quarter century as missionary teachers in Indonesia. They have two children and five grandchildren.