by Pastor Dan Baumgartner

“In life and in death, we belong to God.”

One of the Presbyterian Church Confessions begins with these words, and it is a good place to start telling you about Luke. Russell Jack Luke, that is. “But just call me Luke,” he always said.

Luke was seventy-five years old when he died on the steps outside my office window at Bethany on Tuesday March 16. I identified him for the King County Medical Examiner. He was my friend, and a friend to several folks at Bethany. He carried far too much weight. He had heart issues, skin issues, eye issues and a number of other maladies.

Luke came to Bethany via the Wednesday Night Dinner community. He had some disabilities, and lived in subsidized public housing downtown for nearly 30 years. The details of his life are pretty sketchy. Roots in Texas. Some history in New York. Time in a sort of Christian commune in California in the 1960’s, perhaps a stint with a traveling evangelistic crusade. He had no remaining family that anyone knows about. What is clear is that Luke knew Jesus. I once told a story about him to a small group, and I said “Luke probably knows more scripture and theology than all of us put together.” And I wasn’t exaggerating.

At the same time life was hard, sometimes very hard for him. He could barely function in society, living on the margins. He snapped at people, and was distrustful of many. There were dark places in his life (and certainly in his past) that he didn’t let anyone near.

I met Luke years ago through the Wednesday Night Dinner. Eventually he started making appointments to come visit me once a month or so. He liked to talk about Jesus. He liked to quote scripture. He liked to write out Christian acrostic puzzles (I’ll let you look that one up). And he dearly loved to argue theology. He was pretty conservative, sometimes Catholic and always provocative. Luke liked to think that he was mentoring me as a pastor. And I’d like to think that I was at least open to that. Sometimes he was mentoring me.

Whenever he came to visit, he would lug his body into my office, lean on his cane and plop into a chair with audible groaning. He’d stroke his long grey patriarchal beard, squint at me (he could hardly see), talk loud (he was hard of hearing) and start arguing theology. With passion.

On his last visit, we discussed one of his favorite and oft-revisited topics: crucifix or cross? Luke was adamant that Catholics understood the necessity of Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross and showed it by using crucifixes with Christ on the cross. Protestants were totally missing it by using plain crosses, he pontificated. I, on the other hand, would point out that an empty cross could symbolize not only the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice, but also simultaneously, His resurrection. Hence a cross, but an empty one. I never won the argument.

On the morning we found his body, Luke apparently knew something was wrong. He’d scribbled a short note to me and left it on the desk in his little apartment. A couple of books were next to it that needed to go back to the public library. And then, apparently, he had made his way up to Queen Anne in the predawn dark and sat down on the church steps and died of heart failure.

We’ll never know exactly what was going on or how he knew his time was almost up. But it seems very significant to me that he found his way here. He always said he could tell that the Lord was in this community. Luke knew that he was loved by people at Bethany- he belonged. And he knew that Jesus loved him.

By the time you read this, it will be either just before or just after Easter. No matter. We’ll come through the predawn dark that we call Lent, having reflected long and hard on life, death and eternity. We will have waited through the bleakness of Good Friday and Holy Saturday to find ourselves at Resurrection Morning. The cross will be empty, as will the tomb (score one for me in my argument with Luke). And we will joyfully celebrate together that we belong to God, in life and in death. You, me, and Luke. Russell Jack Luke, that is.