by David Melton
The season of giving is here. Christmas is overladen with materialism to be sure, but for those of us who give any effort at all, the wondrous, overwhelming exhilaration that shepherds and Magi experienced back in the Judean hillside lives on. The God of all wonders and might and holiness gave us a Savior. Himself. His Son. In an inexplicable context of simplicity and poverty, God wrapped His Gift for us in a newborn swaddled in rags. No wonder we give gifts in honor and celebration of Jesus.
I’ve been given many great gifts. But a wise friend of mine, Bill Lane, loved to say, “When God gives a gift, He usually wraps it up in a person.” I think Bill was spot on. Certainly Jesus proves that point. And the list of such “gifts” jumps right off the memory of my life as I think about it. But this Christmas season I am thinking a lot about one of my “gifts” in particular. Ed. Because he is not with us this Christmas.
Ed Flynn was my friend of almost 30 years. He had recently agreed to serve on one of our boards at Boston Baptist College — something both of us were excited about. Then, in November, the gift was gone. With no warning, on a normal day, Ed suffered a massive heart attack and the Lord opened heaven’s doors for one of the really good guys. I wish you could have known Ed. He was an amazing gift. Nobody knows that better than his much-loved wife, Carole. Dierdre and Siobhan, their beautiful daughters, can tell you, too. But all of us who knew Ed knew we were given something amazing. A godly friend extraordinaire. A partner in godly endeavors. A thoughtful man of the Scriptures. A gift from the Lord “wrapped up in a person.”
As far as I’m concerned, Ed and those like him, are what makes our Fellowship what it is. I know we are technically a “fellowship of pastors,” and I get all the reasoning for that. But as a pastor, I can tell you we wouldn’t be much without the rock-solid church people who serve, who give, who support, who pray, who stay. If we didn’t have “Eds,” we wouldn’t need pastors. They are the ultimate “us.” Ed’s pastor was another friend of mine, Curt Wiedenroth. Ed always had his pastor’s back. A gift like Ed is on every pastor’s Christmas list. I wasn’t Ed’s pastor. I was his friend and beneficiary. For example, when my wife, Kim, and I were first starting out, one of our first vacations (back when we could barely afford to go out the front door) was to spend an awesome week with Ed and Carole and the girls on Martha’s Vineyard. We “shared” a house with them. What that really meant was that Ed and Carole paid all the bills and we got to have fun with them. That’s a good picture of Ed. And one of my last pictures of Ed? We did a college fundraiser and asked our officers to give a certain amount. Ed gave double. That’s just the kind of gift he was. I hope I found a few words to honor him. I wish you could have known him.