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Yesterday we said goodbye to Glenn Whitehead.

Glenn was born on the 10th of August, 1953 and died almost a week ago at around 11:30pm on Saturday 27 February 2010. He drifted away gently and calmly, under sedation to relieve him of the discomfort his various bed sores were bringing him. Glenn had been hospitalised for the previous 4 weeks as he came to the end of a long fight with cancer.

But it wasn’t just the sedation that made Glenn’s passing calm. While he never really gained consciousness on that last day he had plenty of lucid moments even the 24 hours before. On Friday Glenn had been as calm facing death as he was when it finally took its hold on him as his wife, Sue, and I kept our vigil at his bedside.

Glenn had been calm in the face of death because of his unshakeable confidence in the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

It had not always been that way. As the new millenium opened 10 years ago Glenn was a very different man. By his own admission his life was “in the toilet”. A slave to the bottle, his marriage was in a mess and the tax office were also champing at the bit. One friend at the wake yesterday commented to me that Glenn might very well have drunk himself to death.

So what changed? What made that Glenn become what his son-in-law at his cremation call “21st Century Glenn”?

The answer is simple. Jesus. Glenn met Jesus.

Glenn had begun a journey of spiritual discovery investigating the truth-claims of so many ism’s; Buddhism, Suffism, Taoism, Hinduism, Islam and, finally Christianity. As part of that investigation he came to a talk given at St Augustine’s by Dr. John Dickson. There he heard that the statements that Christianity makes about Jesus weren’t simply wishful thinking but verifiable historical claims. And so Glenn, the barrister, set about verifying those claims.

Glenn was no fool. The more he investigated the more he realised that there was no other conclusion to come to than that the Bible’s claims about Jesus were true. Most of all he saw that Jesus really did rise from the dead. And that changed everything. Glenn became 21st Century Glenn - he entrusted his life to Jesus.

And he kept trusting Jesus, all the way to his death. He kept trusting Jesus because he saw clearly the difference that Jesus’ resurrection makes. Nothing spoke more clearly of this to Glenn than his very favourite chapter of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 15.

1 Corinthians 15:1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, ² and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. ³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. ¹¹ Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

And Glenn believed it. Not in some vague “I hope this is true” kind of way but as utterly convinced as a man could be. And as he read through 1 Corinthians 15 he saw how much promise the resurrection of Jesus has for the Christian.

The chapter finishes with these climatic words:

⁵¹ Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. ⁵³ For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.” ⁵⁵ “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” ⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁵⁸ Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

So, as Glenn lay dying he was calm. 21st Century Glenn was a new man, trusting in the resurrected man Jesus and waiting patiently till he, himself, would become a new man.

And those of us who knew him in the 21st Century also testify to the fact that because of these truths he laboured for the Lord.

And because Jesus rose from the dead it was not in vain.