Years ago, when I was living in Belgrave, on the edge of Sherbrooke Forest, I developed a friendship with a local calligrapher and graphic designer who lived just a few houses up the road. Rodney was much older than me and he would often drop by and curiously check my progress while I was building my house. Being an avid conservationist I think initially he was just checking to see that my building project didn’t violate any local laws or destroy too many trees! It soon became evident that Rodney and I shared some common interests: Alternative building, calligraphy, typography, design and computer graphics. This was in the early days of desktop publishing and early in our friendship Rodney declared himself to be a [Jewish] atheist. Many of our discussions over the years (more than I could count) danced around the issues of art, design, computer graphics, philosophy, politics and faith.

Dear Rodney was colourful and deeply eccentric. I had heard one account from another neighbour who had dropped by his house to see of they could borrow a tool but found no-one answered the door. Then upon hearing a noise up on the roof they stepped back and looked up, only to have Rodney looking down at them wearing nothing but his gumboots and gloves! Rodney himself told me, with great amusement, that he’d heard accounts of a strange eccentric hairy man who inhabited the forest near where we lived and that he had gone out for walks in the forest looking for this man, only to realise some time later that the stories were describing himself!

But like so many other people who knew Rodney, I deeply respected him. I respected him for his blunt honesty and complete lack of pretention. I enjoyed his child-like curiosity and sense of humour. I respected the fact the he never cared at all about what other people thought of him – good or bad. I respected him because he was an elder and master in my chosen profession and I admired his amazing talent and his dedication to his craft. And, secretly, I also valued him because I saw him as a wayward son of Abraham – a lost sheep whom the Messiah was longing to bring back into the fold.

Rodney had heart problems, which grew increasingly worse as the years passed. He never discussed that with me but during one of his times in hospital I gave him a card that read, “One of your ancestors once wrote: ‘My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.’” It was from Psalm 73:26. By this time Rodney was well aware of my repeated attempts to bring God into our conversations, but this time he seemed to actually appreciate it. Maybe because I wasn’t pushing Jesus but was actually trying to honor his own cultural heritage, which seemed to become more important to him each time he confronted his own mortality. Rodney’s health improved and seemed to get a little better for a while. But although I was making deliberate efforts to communicate God’s love to Rodney I was still just an apparently conservative (and gentile) Christian and Rodney was still a green, alternative, conservationist (Jew), who by now declared himself no longer atheist, but agnostic.

My friendship and clumsy attempts to share Jesus with Rodney continued for more than a decade. He would drop into my Rammed Earth studio on the edge of the forest to learn more about digital graphics, and I would drop into his mud brick studio on the edge of the forest to learn more about calligraphy. But in the end it wasn’t Rodney’s frailty and vulnerability that seemed to finally open the door for deeper communication between us… it was actually my own frailty and vulnerability.

I’d been through a bit of a rough time and it was weighing heavily upon me. The publication that I had invested so much of my time and money in had been met with complete indifference by the Christian community that it was intended for. This had left me not only financially depleted, but deeply and profoundly discouraged. Also, George W Bush’s “Gulf War 2” was looming and in what was by either prophetic unction or complete foolishness on my part, I was bursting with uncontained conviction that the impending allied invasion of Iraq was being advanced on the basis of a lie. More than that, I was convinced that this misguided military incursion into the Middle East was going to be a disaster that would unleash a new generation of global terrorism. (Yeah… I know.. ISIS… I was actually right about that.) But my efforts to raise awareness about this were met at the time with mockery, ridicule, derision and my fixation with that issue had strained my relationships with more than a few dear friends and completely terminated friendships with others. So one day when I dropped by Rodney’s studio, as I had done many times before, my feelings of dejection must have been impossible to conceal. And I didn’t know that this discussion with Rodney would not only be the most significant discussion we would have, but would also be the last that we would have here on earth too.

Now for those of you who may not understand why it is so difficult for a Jew to listen to a gentile talk about Jesus, let me explain something some people may not know: Most Jews grow up being taught that Hitler was a Christian and the WW2 Germany was a Christian nation. The horrors of the holocaust and the deaths of 6 million Jews are burned into the psyche of every Jewish man, woman and child. Consequently, even genuine Christians are often misunderstood and not completely trusted by Jews.

During this last conversation Rodney and I covered a whole lot of ground – beginning with my honest confession that I was bitterly disappointed with many of my fellow Christians… something that made Rodney sit up and shift forward in his seat and really listen for the first time ever. And if I’m being honest, it was probably the first time that I dropped my own agendas in his presence and was just 100% absolutely honest. I talked to my older friend like a young dejected man would talk to an uncle. I narrated to him all of my disappointment with the Church, beginning with some of my conservative right-wing American Christian friends who, in my view at the time, couldn’t see past their own cultural and political assumptions to see Biblical truth if it flew up and hit them in the face. We then discussed racism and the mad anti-Semitism that led to WW2 and the holocaust, and we talked about Christian Zionism and the prophetic restoration of Israel. As I left I also gave Rodney a copy of my magazine which, surprisingly, he promised to read. I felt that we’d had a deeply significant discussion, but it wasn’t until weeks later that I learned from Rodney’s widow how very significant it had been for him too.

Sadly, a few days later I got a call from Jenny to say that Rodney had a massive heart attack and was not expected to live and I immediately went to prayer. And because I didn’t want to disturb the family I just kept praying… fervently… pleading to God for Rodney’s soul, asking the Lord to remind him of what we had discussed in the past and to bring to his remembrance the testimonies that I had hoped he had recently read in my magazine. Most of all I prayed for Rodney to have a personal encounter with Jesus.

A few days later I received a call from Rodney’s wife confirming that Rodney had in fact passed away. But as I offered my condolences Jenny was also eager to tell me the complete story of all that had happened. According to Jenny, the family had been keeping a vigil around Rodney’s hospital bed where he was lying in a coma. Because this could have gone on for many days, the medical staff advised them to go home and rest, assuring them also that they would be notified immediately about any change in Rodney’s condition. But no sooner had they arrived home when the hospital rang, advising them that Rodney had passed away. So the family went back to the hospital to see the body and pay their last respects. After arriving home again, several hours later the hospital called again, only to tell them that Rodney was in fact alive again and was on life support! They raced back to the hospital and were told that one of the staff had noticed that his covered body was breathing! So the family held a vigil at his bedside for the second time, only to be told after some time that they might as well go home again.

After getting home they received another call from the hospital informing them that Rodney had passed away… again. And so back to the hospital they went, only to find on Rodney’s face an expression of rapturous joy! Rodney’s son later remarked to me, “I don’t know what Dad found in his last moments, but he found something for sure!” Then Jenny told me this interesting back story: Previously Rodney’s grandaughter had asked him if he believed in God and Rodney had answered, “I don’t think so darling, but I’ll make you a promise. When I die, if I find that God is real I’ll try and get back and tell you!?”

I’m not sure what role my prayers or my conversations with Rodney over the years may have played in this short-term resurrection, but when I commented to Jenny how significant our last conversation had been to me, and how grateful I was for that opportunity, Jenny told me that Rodney had told her that night how deeply significant it had been to him too.

So many things are temporarily hidden from our eyes beyond the veil of death, but I choose to believe that I will see Rodney again. I imagine him in rapturous joy and worship in the presence of his Messiah… a lost lamb now back in the care and company of the Great Shepherd. Am I sad that Rodney didn’t live to tell his own story? Not so much. Not all miracles are about escaping physical death. It’s fairly safe to assume that all of those whom Jesus healed while he was on earth have since passed away of some natural cause by now. No, miracles are not always about escaping death… but they are precious interventions from God to ignite our faith so that when that time comes, we can meet the unknown with complete assurance, knowing that death no longer holds any sting. Beyond the veil waits life eternal for those who believe and trust in the only One who has the power to save us… the One who died and who is alive forevermore: Yeshua HaMashiach – Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”