For God Alone: Come Home!
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me;
See, on the portals He’s waiting and watching, watching for you and for me.
Come home, come home, ye who are weary come home;
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling, O sinner, come home!
Oh! for the wonderful love He has promised, promised for you and for me;
Tho’ we have sinned He has mercy and pardon, pardon for you and for me.
Come home, come home, ye who are weary come home;
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling, O sinner, come home!
Will L. Thompson, 1847-1909
Evangelicals teach, preach, and sing about heaven with determined frequency, because we place our hope in the One who offers eternal life with Him in his Home. There is a longing for every believer to be with our loved ones who have departed before us, but, most especially, to see the face of Jesus and fall at His feet and declare as Thomas did: My Lord, and my God!
Face to face with Christ, my Savior, face to face - what will it be,
When with rapture I behold Him, Jesus Christ who died for me?
Face to face I shall behold Him, far beyond the starry sky;
Face to face in all His glory, I shall see Him by and by.
Face to face - oh, blissful moment! Face to face - to see and know;
Face to face with my Redeemer, Jesus Christ who loves me so.
Face to face I shall behold Him, far beyond the starry sky;
Face to face in all His glory, I shall see Him by and by!
Carrie E. Breck, 1855-1934
This past Saturday, May 16, my mother-in-law, Bess Ann Greene, was called Home. Living just beyond her 91st birthday, Mom was -
- an exceptional daughter - she was ‘second Momma’ to her baby brother, Billy, when he came into the world;
- a loving sister - she had a bunch of siblings, and she loved each one of them well;
- an adoring wife to her dear pastor-husband, Billy Greene, who died twenty-five years ago;
- a model mother to her five children, Richard, John, Margaret, Mary, and Martha, her two daughters-in-law, Sandra Greene and Beth Greene, and her son-in-law, Paul Magyar;
- precious MaMaw - God blessed Bess Ann and Billy Greene with nine grandchildren, and eleven great-grandchildren - and counting;
- a faithful high school English teacher for nearly thirty years;
- and a fervent lover of God and God’s word.
I first met Mary’s Mom (and Dad) on Thanksgiving weekend of 1982. Mary and I, both first semester master of music students at Southwestern Seminary, had been dating for two months, and Thanksgiving was ‘meet the family’ weekend. By the time we stepped into Mary’s brother’s house in Shreveport that Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I had fallen completely in love with this cute Mississippi Magnolia called Mary Bess, and I was more than eager to meet the family she loved and dearly loves to this day.
Yes, my bride’s middle name, Bess, was her Momma’s first name.
Two family members, an aunt and an uncle, always referred to my Mary as “Mary Bess.” I saw Aunt Mildred Taylor and Uncle Roland Johnson at least every other year at the beloved and always much-anticipated Smith Family Reunion, when all of Mary’s Mom’s family, the Smith’s, gathered for two days of story-telling, laughter, eating, and, of course, the Hoe Down, a time of singing, guitar strumming, and double-bass plucking. Both Uncle Roland (the bassist), who, at 91, is still kicking, and Aunt Mildred, now with Jesus, always called their niece Mary Bess. Well, a few years ago, I started calling my bride Mary Bess as well, not all the time, but frequently for sure, and the beautiful sound of her two names is as dear to me as any sound in the world. I suppose that’s how marriage goes - it gets sweeter as the days go by.
In fall of 1982, as Mary and I were getting acquainted and falling in love, we discovered we shared a mutual love for and appreciation of the person and voice of poet-musician, Cynthia Clawson, who has now been a cherished friend for many years. Cynthia’s albums, The Way I Feel, and Finest Hour were regularly played on our cassette players and on my LP player. (Oh, those were the days!) One of the many reasons I fell completely in love with Mary was her beautiful soprano voice. (And, to this day, some of our most treasured moments are sitting at the piano playing and singing together.) And, just for the record, Mary did not get her lovely voice nor musical talent from her Mom, but from her Daddy.
One of Cynthia Clawson’s most cherished songs, a classic, really, is Raymond Brown’s piece, Softly and Tenderly, and my Mary has sung it many times in worship. While the song refers to a ‘sinner coming home,’ (we are, in fact, all sinners by nature - Romans 3:10 - and by choice - Romans 3:23), I completely believe that, this past Saturday morning, our Savior, Jesus, said to His dear child: Bess Ann, Come Home! And this lover of God took the hand of Jesus, and went Home!
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. (Psalm 116:15)
Softly and Tenderly (Raymond Brown), Cynthia Clawson
Softly and Tenderly (Gaither Homecoming) Cynthia Clawson
© Paul R. Magyar, DMA, 2020
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