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ARTICLES AND ESSAYS

For Clete Brittain, May 28, 1943—September 13, 2003

During our few days there, Jan and I participated in the CAM Touch the World banquet in Sarasota, visited our home church, listened to friends as they told how God has been proactive in their lives, and walked on the beach.

But in the providence of God, I believe those things were not the primary reason we were there. I believe we were there to attend the memorial service for a friend.

I met Clete when we moved to Florida in 1989 to begin the pastorate at Venice Bible Church where Clete served as an Elder. We soon discovered we were the same age—he was born 34 days after I was—and we discovered we had attended high schools in the same district near Cleveland, Ohio, and that we had wrestled each other. In fact, I had a vague recollection of wrestling a barrel-chested kid who turned me over and pinned me before I could break a sweat.

By the time I got to know Clete almost 30 years later, he had become a muscular, incredibly strong man with a black belt in karate. You couldn’t give him a bear hug, because you couldn’t get your arms around him.

In his B.C. days, Clete was a pretty bad dude, but his life was transformed when he met the Lord. And he became a man’s man, not because he had big biceps, but because he had a big heart. He was a hero to his wife and kids, and to the kids at church, because his true strength was in his love. He got involved in the youth ministry and helped coach the HS wrestling team. Those kids knew that he loved them. Clete became a diligent student and teacher of the Word. And he always challenged the status quo--he wanted only that which was authentic and real. Clete lived his life to the beat of a slightly different drum. He would say, “I’m going to tell you,” And then he would tell you, straight from his heart. And he used his gifts in a lifestyle of evangelism.

I saw Clete a year ago and he was fine. But then he started getting headaches, and an MRI revealed a tumor on his brain stem. Another scan revealed cancer in his whole body. The surgeons could do nothing for him. Five months after the first diagnosis, Clete graduated to his next life.

Clete was my friend. If Clete was your friend, he was loyal. And he had a lot of friends—400 of them showed up for his memorial service. I talked to one person after another who had been affected by his life. He left a legacy that will last, imprinted on the lives of people. Like Paul, he needed no letter of recommendation—it was written on the hearts of those he served.

I keep thinking about 2 Corinthians 4:16. Clete lost 65 pounds and all his hair, but the more he lost ground with the battle of the body, the more his inner man was being renewed. Clete saw his remaining days on earth as his last opportunity to glorify God on earth, and he was determined not to mess it up. The last five months of his life were perhaps the most fruitful. One friend said, “I have never seen a man die with such dignity and grace.”

The transient nature of our journey has become more real to me. Clete’s son Todd said to a friend, “If he could draw back the curtain, he would shout, ‘You ain’t gonna believe what’s here.’ So I don’t miss him like I thought I would, because he is seeing what we all long for.’”

But there is something else—something less tangible—something that I haven’t been able to get my head around just yet. It is the swirl of diffused feelings that I put in the file labeled “late life mysticism.” It’s the illusive sense that life on earth doesn’t go on forever, and that my appointment with my maker is just around the corner, a feeling that is impossible to experience when you are 20, is lost in the crush of career in your 30s, is confused with your mid-life crisis at 40, but washes over you like a tidal wave at 60, while you are sitting at your friend’s funeral, listening to people talk about him in the past tense.

Well, when it comes to eternity, timing has meaning, and God’s timing was right for me. I believe God had me in North Port, on the Gulf Coast of Florida, for Clete’s memorial service. He wanted to tell me something. He wanted to remind me that he has been my dwelling place, that before the mountains were born, or he gave birth to the earth, even from everlasting to everlasting, he is God. (Psalm 90:1-2)

Written by: Jonathan Edwards