Spirituality Column #741

January 26, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Checkmate … or Prayer?

By Bob Walters

“For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! – Romans 5:10 (NIV)

Quite a scare last week.  It appeared our dear friend and Christian mentor Dr. George Bebawi was headed into home hospice. Turns out he wasn’t.

At issue, in the simplest terms, is a combination of problems (heart, kidney, etc.) where treating one exacerbates the other.  George, 82, has battled numerous serious health challenges the past several years.  He was always able to move the pieces around the board, in the tenacious care of his wife May (his “lioness”) avoiding and extending what he called Friday the looming Moment of Truth. 

This one looked like “checkmate.”

For his many friends and faithful students and those who worshiped Christ and learned about Jesus with him here in the Indianapolis area, you should know George had been on a downward health slide the past couple of months, of which I was unaware.  I hadn’t seen him since last February – pre-Covid – and spoke with him by phone as recently as early November.  I got the news about the potential “home hospice” late Thursday. 

Friday afternoon I was able to sit with George, at his bedside, along with minister Dave Faust, who – if you don’t mind a personal note – baptized me back in November 2001 not long after I had awakened to the truth of Jesus that September. 

That’s another story I’ve told many times.  But Dave, my first Bible teacher, left his post as senior minister of East 91^st Street Christian Church in June 2002 to become president of Cincinnati Christian University.  Ironically, I met George just a month earlier, oddly enough at a barbeque gathering of old high school friends. An Egyptian Bible translator and renowned early church scholar who at that time was a divinity lecturer at Cambridge University, England, George was here visiting a friend of a friend.

That friend of a friend was May, whom George married two years later

George, once a Coptic priest, retired from Cambridge in early 2004 and settled into Carmel, marrying May in April.  Former E91 pastor Russ Blowers (like Dave, also my mentor) participated in the ceremony at Northview Church.  That summer Russ and I convinced both George and E91 to begin a Wednesday evening Bible study series featuring George that ran from the fall of 2004 until December 2017.  I was the coordinator / scribe / secretary / amanuensis all 13 years of the class.  I still have all George’s class handouts and my own copious notes.

Anyway, Dave and I – masked – entered George’s bedroom Friday where he was lightly sleeping stretched out on a full body recliner while May was in the next room talking with the hospice folks and arranging for a proper hospital bed.  Dave (who became close with George after returning to E91 staff in 2014) and I were there for an appropriately short hospice visit to quite possibly say our goodbyes but mainly to offer comfort and prayer.

George stirred and was in and out of consciousness as he quietly, haltingly greeted us, and did in fact recognize Dave and me despite the masks.  Dave thanked him earnestly for his enormous contributions to the faith and the faithful.  I simply told George I loved him.  Dave asked George “How is your soul?” and George said, with an enfeebled but unmistakable lilt in his voice that so many of us know so well from listening to him speak, “I am ready to go!  This is the moment of truth.”

For those who know George, what happened next – for nearly two hours – won’t be a surprise.  Dave began to read Romans 8:36 about facing death, but George said “No, read Romans 5:10!” (today’s intro verse atop the column, about being reconciled with God through the death of Jesus).  George gently chided Dave for using an NIV Bible (George, never an NIV fan, typically teaches with his own Bible translations).

George gained some steam, then went into a determined, if halting, instruction on Jesus while phasing in an out of sleep and with slurred speech.  He spoke of Augustine and the preponderance of sin in the human will and how it relates to a weakness he perceives in modern Christian teaching.  George believes – and I have heard him say it in various ways many times – that the modern church has been oversimplified into “sin and salvation and application” (as in, “sermon applications”) without proper understanding of our total humanity, reconciliation in Christ, and relationship with God. 

Yes … deep sledding.  That’s George to the end.  Only it isn’t the end.

As Dave and I and a couple other of George’s longtime friends struggled to understand George’s low, breathy speech – which with his accent, ancient theological references, and sophisticated word choice is a challenge even on a good day – George would not let us leave or interrupt him.  He was both on his death bed and on a roll.  We were there an hour and forty-five minutes, finally convincing him to let us pray (Dave is one of those awesome prayer guys) and for George to get some rest.

I kissed George on the forehead as I left, not knowing if I would see him again.

Dave said it was unlike any other hospice visit in his long ministerial career.  When had the person he was praying for ever argued with his Bible choice?

Only it wasn’t a hospice visit, and I will always believe that’s because George still wants to talk about Christ.  For a little or long while?  Nobody knows.

Most folks here in Indianapolis probably don’t realize George has taught and influenced thousands of Orthodox and Coptic Christians around the world and has regular weekly teleconferences / Zoom sessions with Christian students (of all ages) worldwide.  Put us all together and there were an awful lot of folks praying.  And while I won’t reveal the number, George has said for many years he thought he knew how long he would live … and he’s not there yet.

After visits and calls from friends and colleagues over the weekend – and massive prayer – George perked up enough that his physician and hospice care folks reversed field.  I’ve never heard of that happening before, though I’m sure it does.

George is tenacious and brilliant in sharing Christ … and it appears his body respects the fact, for now, that the mission continues. 

I rejoice that the mission – and prayer – brought him back to us.  For now.  Praise God.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that George insists “Augustine” is properly pronounced “aw-GUS-tin,” not “AW-gus-teen.”  And the deal with the NIV?  When pressed for an acceptable English version of the Bible, George occasionally relents from saying “There isn’t one” to providing a nod to the Revised Standard Version.  But this is a guy who knows the Bible in nearly a dozen languages.  And please friends, pray for May – Walters’ “favorite Phoenician” – and for the marvelous Christian sisters she has attending to her in this inspirational but challenging season.