Blessed Be the Tie

Christmas Eve Sunday (12/24/23) Somewhere else in the Gulf of Mexico -

 

I met John and Carol Murphy in the autumn of 1977 at a small church house in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They were among a handful of families that had decided to start a Work in the southern part of that city and were meeting in a cinder block structure that had formerly served as a repair shop for diesel engines.
It was…aromatic.

 

Thru the years, our families remained engaged in one form or another. My parents stayed at the Murphy home while they were away during one visit to the "Okie Contingent" of the Clanton clan.
The Murphy's are like that--come stay at our house.
We won't be there…

 

I met Heather and Steve Bergman under slightly different circumstances. Steve was a preacher at a church in the Cypress-Fairbanks area of NW Harris County, Texas. I'd met Heather long before that: She was in diapers. Her father worked on my car and on my father's vehicles.
I've known her longer than I've known my wife.

 

These couples, plus another pair of "newly-weds" in their '90's, and a single fellow from College Station all managed to be on the same cruise ship as my Bride and I over the Christmas break.
They didn't know we were coming.

 

While most on the ship were preparing to celebrate the commonly accepted birth of Jesus, we gathered on that Christmas Eve Sunday to commemorate the death and resurrection of the Christ. Steve had procured some unleavened bread and a small bottle of grape juice; the Murphy's had brought along a supply of single-serve communion packets ("the bread tastes like Styrofoam," Carol would sneer), and we had all the makings of a proper Christian communion service.

 

On the way to the worship, I ran into a couple in an elevator lobby, Wade and Rebekah Matthews, from Temple, Texas. She noticed I was carrying a hymnal and copies of sheet music. "Are you going to a worship service," Rebekah asked. "Are you a worship leader?" When I affirmed that I was heading forward for that purpose, she asked, "Can we come?"
And so we went.

 

We sang the hymns that Steve had copied, which included one of Carol's favorites, "Count Your Many Blessings," took the Lord's Supper together, and then sang two songs from memory, "I know Whom I Have Believed," and "Blest Be the Tie that Binds," before closing out our service.

 

The last hymn was so poignantly significant: Meeting up on a cruise ship with a couple I'd known for 46-years; a woman I'd known since birth and her husband; and the establishment of new friendships with 90-year old newlyweds, a vacationing accountant, and our new friends from the elevator lobby…all joined by a common faith and purpose on that Sunday before Christmas.
Blessed be the Tie that Binds, indeed.