“Thank You, Sweet Alice”

When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last.” —Revelation 1:17

For sixteen years, when we lived in Nashville, I taught a class every Sunday morning. Right before we sang the opening class chorus, “This Is the Day that the Lord Has Made,” I took a moment to look up the page numbers of the Bible verses I was teaching from that day.

For many years—probably eight or nine—I would turn to my friend Alice Rogers, who, by this time, was eighty-seven years old. She always sat in the same seat in the second row, and she and I had a habit of my looking up the page numbers from her Bible. On this day, in my typical fashion, I looked at Alice and smiled. She handed her Bible to me, returning my smile. I got the page numbers, returning the Bible to her with, “Thank you, sweet Alice.”

We were cutting through a seven-part series on the basics of our faith. This Sunday was session number four: “Jesus Christ Is God.” After we sang our opening song, I dove into the lesson. “Jesus Christ is perfect,” I said, giving several scriptural references to underscore this truth. Then, “Jesus Christ is the Creator of the universe,” again following this up with a few confirming verses from our Bibles and a few points of illustration.

I closed the lesson with my final point, “Jesus Christ is glorified.” I read from Mark 9, where Jesus took three of His disciples to a high mountain and showed them His glorified body. Then I took the class to the apostle John’s detailed account of the transfigured Savior that we have recorded here in Revelation 1. “When we see Jesus,” I concluded, “we will not see a sandal-clad, Middle Eastern peasant carpenter. We will fall on our faces at the sight of this exalted Lord.”

Class was dismissed with a prayer, and everyone who hadn’t attended the early worship service, including Alice Rogers, headed toward the sanctuary. She sat in her favorite second-row spot—just like in Sunday school. Then, during the organ prelude, Alice gently laid her head on her daughter’s shoulder and fell asleep. In fewer than ten minutes, she had passed away.

No, in fewer than ten minutes, Alice Rogers was in the presence of her magnificent Savior. How could any of us have known that this precious woman, who had been listening to a description of her Lord only moments before, was going to be ushered into His incredible presence just moments later?

At her age Alice wasn’t nimble. But when she saw Him for the first time, she must have gone to her knees like a sinewy athlete. The face like the brilliant sun, the hair like pure wool, the eyes like blazing fire, and the voice like rushing water must have been awesome. “We were just talking about You,” she may have gasped, her voice trembling with wonder. “But even so, I wasn’t nearly ready for this.”

No one knew that day that within minutes, one of us would be with our Savior. If I had known, I would have surely stopped Alice Rogers on her way to the sanctuary. “Please say hello to Jesus for me,” I’d have asked her. “Tell Him thank you for being so glorious. Oh, and tell Him thank you for loving me.”

“Please deliver this message for me,” I would have said with a hug. “Thank you, sweet Alice.”