[Prayer] Thank you for loaning (Bill) to us for just a little while, not long enough for us but long enough for You, and we bow before Your sovereignty now, in removing him from us.
Shortly before his death in 1834, Samuel Taylor Coleridge took the time to write a piece that never really got much press. It was titled Youth and Age. In that little book he wrote, “Nought cared this body for wind or weather when youth and I lived in't together.” But I think the best line is the small statement in only a few words, five of them, toward the end of the book…. “Friendship is a sheltering tree."
You can’t think of Mount Hermon without thinking of trees and you can’t walk among these trees without realizing how they shelter all of us. The blast of wind is broken by the presence of this forest of trees. The hot rays of the sun cooled by the sprawling limbs and leaves of the trees.
Friendship is like a sheltering tree. Isn’t it? We stop and think about it… all the way through the Bible we find individuals sheltered by the tree of another life. It was Joshua who found great encouragement under the sheltering tree of Moses. And it was the older Elijah who was sheltered by the presence of Elisha the prophet. David, when he was hunted and haunted by King Saul for a dozen or so years, found himself sheltered by the tree of Jonathan.
Even our long-time friend Paul had a grove of trees – when you stop to think of his life – there was a physician named Luke who was there with him to the end. There was a traveling companion named Barnabas and another named Silas, then of course, that unusual name inserted in Paul’s last letter, Onesimus…. “who oft refreshed me and he wasn’t ashamed of my chains.” Unknown to us but not forgotten by Paul were those who refreshed him. Even our Savior at the little hamlet of Bethany enjoyed the friendship of Martha and Mary, and their brother Lazarus. In unguarded moments, He could kick his sandals off, relax, and be refreshed under the sheltering tree of that family of those two sisters and their brother.
A little over a hundred years after Coleridge wrote his piece, Carl Sandberg finished his massive four-volume work on Lincoln in the war years. And when he got to the next to the last chapter of the fourth volume, which is the chapter covering that very delicate subject of those days following Lincoln’s assassination, he was at a loss to know what title to choose. He selected an old woodsman’s proverb for the title of that 75th chapter, “A Tree is Best Measured When It’s Down.”
For 37 years I enjoyed the sheltering tree of Bill Gwinn. For a number of you it was many years longer than that, but I will tell you without hesitation that he is one of those men who has marked my life and I am honored beyond words to be asked to speak today. I spend my life surprised, and this is another of those surprises, that the Gwinn Family would ask me – of all the people they could have asked – to stand here today and speak about the man who sheltered us so many ways.
I’m looking into the face of a wife who knew the love of this man for almost six decades, imagine that! And I can’t imagine how lonely you must feel, I really can’t, I just have to tell you. Cynthia and I have thought of you hundreds of times. And for the first time you go to bed alone, and for the first time you enter a home alone.
The tree is down. And now these four children – grown admittedly and have their own families – but for the first time in their lives they are fatherless. I’ll never forget when my father died – and please allow me a little bit of time to go through some of this – it’s all part of what I think the Lord would have us hear. For the first time in my life I felt orphaned. And I feel there’s a little of that in these four children. And the best part of today were the tears of Karianne… I loved the fact that you just couldn’t do all the song. There’s a great beauty in that… it may not make for great concert work but it makes for magnificent authenticity. We all melt with tears. It’s because the tree is down….
So my task today is to measure the tree. We couldn’t measure it while it was standing, but now that it is fallen we can look it over. The leaves are withered, the branches are now gone from our sight. This great massive trunk of a life knows enormous roots; they’re now there for us to look at. And I thank God for imagination, we can do that together, and we must. Though the tree, 79 years old when it fell, a little after 3 o’clock on that fateful Friday afternoon in April. April 17. None of us was ready for it… and it fell. So we come today to mourn his passing and also to celebrate his homegoing (Chuck reached up toward heaven in saying this).
It may be of interest to you that when Bill got to the bottom of the barrel and invited me to come to Mount Hermon (my first time), I know he had gone through his lists several times and they all had said “no.” We stayed at Ellenrock, which used to be back here (he pointed behind the auditorium). Leaned a little (he laughed)… The wind didn’t blow around it, it blew through it. And so it was a cold June day in 1972. Our youngest had just turned two. His older sister, Colleen, turned five just before we got here. Carisa was then only eight. Our oldest, Curt, was ten.
When I called Curt to tell him that the tree had fallen there was a long pause on the phone. He said, “Dad, do you know my first memory of Bill Gwinn?” I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “We were at that crummy little cabin back behind the auditorium.” He said it was cold… you had just tucked Chuck in the crib and we heard this knock at the door – it was pouring down rain and the wind was blowing. I opened the door and here stood a man with an arm-full of firewood in a driving rain. And the rain was dripping off his nose and he kept going “whew”, “whew” (Chuck demonstrated by blowing air from his mouth across his nose) to get the rain. He said, “You Swindolls must be freezing your butts off in there.” “That was the opening line that I remember,” said Curt. (and we are). I told him to come in… I had no idea who he was, we had never met. And he came in and he lit the fire and stayed there till it got going and he did that every day of our seven days at camp. Curt says, “That’s Bill Gwinn.” It is Bill Gwinn.
A servant at heart never once called himself anything significant when he was with us. He was a servant, a friend, a sheltering tree.
Bill put up with a lot from us but did we have fun ??? He put the fun back into the faith (Chuck described the hilarious episode of the pancake throwing in the auditorium)….
But when you come back to Mount Hermon, you are coming back home…. Bill set the stage for what a camp ought to be and my prayer is that it will never get sophisticated….
So we’ve come to the reality as Joshua had to come. He heard the words, “Moses, my servant is dead.” Bill Gwinn is dead. He is dead. We will never see him on this earth again.
So what can we say that will be for us worth remembering? I decided to turn to the words of a man who was as close to death as anyone – and knew it – when he took up his stylus to write his last memoirs. Paul’s words in 2nd Timothy. His tree hadn’t fallen but it was leaning and the sheltering of his life was just about done. He’s filled with memories. And he writes to his friend and he says in 2nd Timothy 4:6, “The time of my departure has come. And then he looks back and there are like three short bursts, like little staccato notes on the score. “I have fought the good fight.” Literally, it reads, “the good struggle, I have struggled.” The word rendered “struggled” is the word from which we get our word, “agony.”
Let’s be candid with one another, Bill was not a perfect man. This is not a day to rehearse scars and failures, but he had them, as we all do…. there were heartbreaking, painful times, as is true of every one of us… and this is what made the tree magnificent. Like a gnarled old tree near the beach with the roots twisted and turned… my Mother used to say, “The roots grow deep when the winds are strong.” And with all the struggles, Bill’s roots went deep. He had fought the good fight. I admire him and I admire you, Colette, and I admire each one of you his children for hanging in there with him through the struggles. You know him better than anyone. Bill had his crucibles and his agonizing moments. But he fought them.
“I have fought the good fight,” and then with the struggles passed he says, “I have finished the course.” The course that began way back at his years at seminary, including Lake Avenue. There was a wonderful story I heard just this morning, the two men who came from Mount Hermon to talk with Bill about becoming a part of this team. Bill had dreamed of them the night before… isn’t that amazing? And just as he had dreamed, they said “We’d like you to consider being at Mount Hermon.” Bill said, “Wait a minute, I gotta sit down, I just last night dreamed this.” And Bill wasn’t one for dreams and all that jazz… he just had that dream and it was sort of verified. So he came… 1957 and on through 1978, and then on to areas of ministry that others of you have had your lives touched by him: Whittier, Outdoor Resorts and other places.
And then Paul says, “I have kept the faith.” That may be the best part of all. I fought the fight, I finished the course but all the way through I never ditched the faith. I kept it, I stayed true to it.
I never once could call Bill Gwinn and talk with him without having my faith deepened. Never once was there not a word of affirmation or an encouragement. You can’t say that about too many people. He not only kept the faith, he kept it strong for others.
So that course he ran with zeal and passion and joy, and that faith he kept… and here’s the current testimony, listen to what’s happened, because we weren’t there to see it. “In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award me on that Day.” So along with all the other great delights where he is, is the reward in words now, and later when they are given – in a crown. The crown for what? Fighting the fight, finishing the course, keeping the faith. I love the end, I just saw this in a new way… “and He will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory for ever and ever.”
Guess what the next word is? “Amen.” Amen? Doesn’t mean I’m through, but it does say “Amen.” And so we go on with our lives, we go on with the struggles, and every person in this room has them. How we love at times to rehearse them. The struggles are there, they will stay there, that’s part of being on this old earth. That’s why we need trees, called “friends” who shelter us. That’s why it’s invaluable to measure the tree when it’s down. And as we do that we remember that he has come to that magnificent heavenly reward.
I failed to mention one thing and I can’t end without mentioning it. Once the tree fell we were able to see what was carved on the trunk. “Bill loves Colette.” And on the other side if you could push it over, “Bill loves Melissa, Doug, Casey, and Jenny.”
“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” Now that’s Bill. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, so shall we ever be with the Lord.” And the next verse we often forget… “Comfort one another with these words.” Comfort one another with these words. You kids, comfort your mother with these words. Colette, comfort the grandchildren with these words. We will forever be with the Lord. Comfort them with those words. We’ll be home at last. - Chuck Swindoll
