THE
CARIBBEAN PIONEER
Celebration of a Godly Sister in Christ
(Editorial - December 2004)
On October 30, 2004, Sis. Mary Eyre fell asleep in Christ after eight years of debilitating illness. Sis. Mary is well known to readers of this publication through her perceptive writings in the Caribbean Pioneer section of this magazine during the past several years. She was baptized 60 years ago, married to Bro. Alan for 53 years and a pillar of the Jamaican ecclesias for nearly 50 years. A service of thanksgiving, joy and celebration was held in Kingston, Jamaica, on November 13. Following is “the message,” as it was termed on the program, a testimonial to Mary’s faith given as part of the one hour 45 minute service.
This
is a service of joy. A celebration of the life of Mary
Eyre. It’s a joyous celebration of a life well-lived because of
the legacy Mary has left us. She was a wife, mother, grandmother, servant
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And she was Mom to dozens, nay, hundreds of
people.
Alan and Mary are Dad and Mom to so many because they have devoted their
lives to bringing people to a new birth. A new birth into the Lord Jesus
Christ that many, many people might be related to the hope of eternal
life.
Mary’s hope
You see, Mary believed the Bible. She believed the great theme of the
Bible that, eventually, “All the earth will be filled with the
glory of God.” She yearned for that time to come. She looked
forward to being a part of it and she wanted as many people as possible
to share that day with her.
Mary believed the whole Bible. She believed the promises God gave to Abraham.
In Genesis we read, “Now the Lord said unto Abraham, Get thee
out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s
house, unto a land that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a great
nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt
be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that
curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
And the Lord said again to Abraham: “Lift up now thine eyes,
and look from the place where you are northward, and southward, and eastward,
and westward: for all the land which you see, to thee will I give it,
and to thy seed for ever.”
My friends, these ancient promises to Abraham, and there are a number
of them in Genesis, were the benchmark, the foundation of Mary’s
faith and the guiding light which illuminated the pathway of her life
as a believer.
Why was this so? Because Mary was a very careful Bible reader. She saw
the implications of God’s promises to Abraham. From these promises
she saw that the future of the faithful was here on the earth. She saw
that the faithful of all nations would be blessed through these promises
to Abraham.
And she saw how they were explained in the New Testament where she read
in Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, “Now to Abraham and
his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many,
but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ…For as many of you
as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ…And if ye be
Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according
to the promise.” So every person of true faith in God is an
heir to God’s promise to Abraham, to live on the earth in a blessed
condition for ever.
There was absolutely no doubt in Mary’s mind that her future did
not lay in heaven but in the Kingdom of God here on the earth. “The
meek shall inherit the earth” was her hope. And she prayed
with vigor, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as
it is in heaven.”
What Mary looked forward to was the coming of Christ when “many
of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake…And they
that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they
that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”
You’ll notice scripture says, “shall awake.” That’s
why we speak of Mary as being asleep in the grave, awaiting the coming
of her Lord.
In connection with her great hope, Mary vigorously preached adult baptism
as a spiritual rebirth and confession of repentance because she believed
that if one is baptized, he or she becomes an heir of the promises to
Abraham, which is nothing short of eternal life in the kingdom of God
along with the faithful of all past centuries.
In Galatians we read, “For as many of you as have been baptized
into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there
is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are
all one in Christ Jesus.” Mary thrilled to the fact that both
Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, black and white, could have a place in
the Father’s gracious plan for salvation. She longed for the return
of Christ when all faithful men of every race and culture would finally
live together in legitimate harmony and peace, here, on the earth just
as God promised Abraham.
Even today if only mankind would follow the principles of the kingdom
of God, the world would be a better place in which to live. Mary wrote:
“The kinds of qualities and virtues Peter urges us to develop appeal
to me. Submit yourselves. Show proper respect to everyone…All of
you, be sympathetic, be compassionate and humble…Rejoice…Be
eager to serve…Do not lord it over those entrusted to you. How desperately
we need these virtues today!” Mary believed that if we develop
these Christian attributes now, we will be better qualified to minister
to mankind in the coming kingdom which Christ will soon set up on the
earth.
Mary’s Lord and Savior
During the past few years when Mary was very ill, she took advantage of
her time by writing some articles which we had the privilege to publish.
As we read back over those articles, we could hear Mary speaking to us.
It is as if, “She being dead yet speaks.”
I’d like to just quote some sections from a series Mary wrote about
“The Jesus I Imagine.” Mary had a very biblical view
of her Savior. She did not view him as a co-equal, co-eternal God who
appeared for 33 years in human form. She viewed him as a human being.
Oh, she believed he was the Son of God, conceived in the womb of Mary
by the power of God. He was a very special, a unique, human being, God’s
son. But he was, and is, a member of the human race. At the present time,
of course, he is the glorious, immortal Lord in heaven waiting to return.
But during the days of his mortality, Jesus was essentially like we are
now, he was tempted by human desires, just like we are tempted, and he
enjoyed things, just l ike we do.
These are Mary’s words as she imagined Jesus: “I picture
Jesus as a person bubbling over with joy, full of life, telling his stories,
enjoying the company and friendship of all sorts of people. I can see
him enjoying the company of the ladies, who were not afraid to share their
special concerns with him, an unmarried man. And he encouraged them. Amazing!
Children especially loved his magnetic personality and easy manner…Sometimes
his close helpers tried to shoo the children away, but Jesus said, ‘No,
let them come to me.’”
While Mary had vivid images of Jesus in the days of his flesh, she also
spoke enthusiastically and insightfully of her Savior now. Recently she
wrote, “I am an old woman now, and I think of him (Jesus) laying
his right hand upon me as he did upon the aged John, and saying to me
also, ‘Don’t be afraid. I have the keys of the grave and of
death.’”
Because of her great confidence in her Lord Jesus Christ, Mary knew that
her brief repose in the grave will be merely a temporary sleep, a cessation
of life which will be dramatically interrupted by the resurrection and
call of the angel, “Arise, Mary, the Lord is calling for you.”
And again let her speak to us: “I know that my redeemer lives,
and that he shall stand in the latter day upon the earth. I know like
Job, that I shall see him for myself. And though, like Job’s my
skin is shriveled and wasted, and my body now isn’t much to boast
about, I know that like Job and poor doubting Thomas, in my flesh I shall
see my Lord. And I shall see the wounds he received in the house of his
friends, and perhaps even the stripes by which I was healed…”
Then Mary continues, “My king will rule from ZION in righteousness.
The poor and needy, the despised and humble ones who have been my loving
friends for half a hundred years will then be honored – to my great
joy – in a world where there will be no place for the arrogant.
As Mary, the mother of Jesus, sang: The Mighty One has done great things
for me; holy is His Name.”
My friends, how many hearts beat to these profound emotions? How many
of us long for the appearance of our Savior with this intensity?
The coming of Christ
Mary believed in the physical, literal second coming of Christ to the
earth. She believed he would come as a victorious King, the title and
office to which he was, in fact, born. She loved the words of the angel
to her namesake, Mary, in Luke 1, “He (Jesus) shall be great,
and shall be called the Son of the highest; and the Lord shall give unto
him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house
of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”
So passionate was Mary’s longing for the coming of Christ to set
up his world-wide kingdom that she recently lamented: “It is
a big mystery to me, but I know that even in his blazing heavenly glory,
his hands and his feet are still pierced. For me. When I am low and anxious,
it gives me peace. Sometimes I wonder, especially when I feel the burden
of injustice and unconcern, why does he (Jesus) not rend the heavens and
come down as he promised? But when I think of all the wonderful people
he has called and justified and saved from despair in the last few years
of my life, I am content. I think of all the people who need the Lord,
and my disappointment passes for a while.”
Human nature
Mary had no mistaken concept as to the cause of her ravaging disease,
nor did she view any of her trials in life as caused by anything more
than the fact of her mortality. She did not believe in demons or a devil
who targeted her for extraordinary torment. Rather she believed with Job
who remonstrated with his devastated wife, “What? Shall we receive
good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did
not Job sin with his lips.”
Furthermore, Mary fully believed the words of Jeremiah, “The
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know
it?” With remarkable candor she wrote, “I have done
vain and foolish things in my life, but I know him in whom I have believed,
and sixty years ago I gave my life to him and I believe his promise that
he will never leave or forsake me.” Here was a blend of the
great elements of discipleship: open and candid confession followed by
an unerring confidence in the forgiveness of sins.
Would that we might face our own shortcomings with the same honesty and
contrition of spirit!
In an insightful article entitled “Legion,” Mary
reveals her knowledge of sickness and its symptoms and causes and debunks
the superstitious belief that disease and mental illness were caused by
demon possession. The account is found in Mark 5 and Luke 8.
Mary writes: “One of the two deranged men called himself Legion
because he suffered from a delusion that he had been ‘possessed’
by a whole army of demonic spirits, a common belief of the day, so no
wonder why he believed it.” Mary continues, “This is
what we know about Legion and his fellow sufferer:
- They lived in the local cemetery, not in a house.
- They were so violent that no one could pass that way.
- The local police had tried to keep Legion under guard, but had not succeeded.
- No one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. He snapped the handcuffs and broke the irons on his feet.
- For a long time they had worn no clothes.
- Night and day they would cry out and cut themselves with stones.
- Legion believed in the Day of Judgment, but he was terrified of being rejected and tortured as a punishment for a life of sin.
- The two of them believed that Jesus was the Son of the Most High God, the Messiah, and the Judge of the living and the dead.
- They suffered from agoraphobia and probably were in the advanced stages of venereal disease, which severely affects the mind.
Mary observed that Legion’s biggest problem was his terror of eternal
damnation. These two men lived in fear, torment and sickness. But Jesus
was equal to the task. Mary wrote: “Jesus’ method was
to convince them that they didn’t need to fear him but to love and
follow him. They needed to be converted and believe that their disease
was cured, their fears and their torments banished for ever, and to approach
the Judgment Seat with eager anticipation of glorious immortality and
not terror of torture.”
This was typical of Mary’s beliefs in that she was completely free
of all superstitious notions and knew that God is in control. There is
no god of evil, and god of good. There is only one God and His Son, Jesus
Christ to whom the Father has now given all power in heaven and earth.
Practical discipleship
Another important concept that shines brightly in Mary’s life and
writings is that we must be real and not pretend disciples of our Lord.
The concept of “Once saved, always saved” was foreign
to Mary’s understanding of scripture. She recently wrote: “I
was busy in his (God’s) household until this infirmity closed in
upon me, and I am sure He will not forget.” While Mary did
not believe that we can “earn” salvation, she was
convinced that “faith without works is dead.”
In her study series “Listen to the Prophets of II Chronicles,”
she said that in II Chronicles, Hanani the seer set forth an important
principle that helps us to be real servants of God: “The eyes
of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts
are fully committed to Him.” She wrote: “For me,
there are two wonderful things here. First, God is not snooping on us.
His searching vision has a purpose -- to observe our commitment, to watch
over our safety, and to strengthen our resolve.”
In the same series, Mary cited a prayer of David:
I know, my God that you test the heart and are pleased
with integrity.
I have seen with joy how willingly your people have given to you.
O Lord, keep this desire in the hearts of your people for ever,
And keep their hearts loyal to you (I Chron. 29).
She then commented: “This prayer that God’s people will remain loyal with wholehearted devotion remains a kind of standard or measure with which the later prophets compare the responses of their hearers.
Later, Mary quoted from the prophet Jahaziel in II Chronicles:
“Stand firm, and then see the deliverance that the Lord will
give you.” Mary comments, “Typically, God does not
deliver the chicken-hearted. In our present distress in the Caribbean,
the need to stand firm is absolutely paramount, I was so encouraged when
I reached the Kingston meeting hall to be greeted with a wonderful smile
by faithful Daisy Allen, a sister far older and feebler than myself, not
long out of hospital after major surgery, whose regular presence at the
Lord’s table says without words, Stand firm, my sister, stand firm,
my brother, stand firm.”
While the Lord wants our obedience, Mary took great comfort and consolation
that, in her words, “God does care for the lost. He wants me
to know of His love and He wants to forgive and restore sinners and moreover,
God offers us all true freedom so that I can serve Him in love for ever.”
In one of her last and best pieces of Bible study, Mary wrote about Lot,
the nephew of Abraham, and she pointed out how Lot is an example of someone
trying to love an unlovely world. Many Bible readers are critical of Lot,
but Mary noted that scripture does not condemn him, and actually speaks
of him as a righteous man. In her insightful manner, Mary wrote: “Do
not run down someone God has so plainly commended. Take care how you expound
the word of truth.” And then she went on to point out how Lot
cared for those around him, seeking to save them. “Lot vexed
his righteous soul over the sins of his fellow citizens. He called them
his friends and pleaded with them to prevent the judgment of God. This
was just like Jesus Christ who vexed his righteous soul over the sins
of his contemporaries and sought to save them from the impending judgment
of God.”
No wonder Mary could resonate in this way with Lot, and Jesus and
the Father, because she, too, sought to turn many to righteousness. She,
too, sought to love an unlovely world, to help others to be saved.
A final word
You see, Mary’s Lord was her Savior, the one who wants to save each
of us from sin and death. Mary wrote: “As I took the emblems
today, in my imagination I did see Jesus as he will be when he comes in
his glory. When John heard the Lion of Judah roar, he turned and was amazed
to see a Lamb! Although in the plentitude of his power, king of the world,
Jesus’ glory will be all-surpassing, yet somehow he will, to his
redeemed, always be the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world.
Then I will have a much stronger voice. And I will want to sing with every
creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, singing,
‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor
and glory and power, for ever and ever, Amen.’”
And the Lord Jesus Christ himself says, “And behold I come quickly;
and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall
be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the
last…and the spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth
say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him
take the water of life freely…surely I come quickly. Amen.”
Even so come, Lord Jesus, Amen and Amen.
Don and Ellen Styles