January 7 marks a pizza party worth remembering

It was a brisk January evening, and my family and I gathered together to enjoy a time of fellowship. My parents, two sisters and their families, including six nieces and nephews, and I sat around the dining room table, turning fresh balls of sourdough into something that would look like pizza crust. My dad did it like he had kneaded dough before; my niece next to me made hers look like a heart; and my youngest nephews were trying. My brother-in-laws were outside in the cold, getting the new pizza oven to work.

The moment marked a pizza party in celebration of my brother, Jonathan, and his birthday. He was born January 7, 1980 and died at 44. Pizza is a quintessential favorite of American youth, and he never tired of childhood nostalgic food, from corn dogs, to donuts, to hamburgers. We put a homemade spin on one of his favorites by making pizza in an outdoor oven.

Jonathan was born with the same disease as I, Friedreich’s Ataxia, which was briefly mentioned in my post from last week. Cardiomyopathy is a complication of the disease and is the most common cause of death.

Just a moment ago, I thought about finishing my previous sentence with “the most common cause of premature death.” But I thought twice about using the adjective,“premature,” and it is because I just don’t like the implications. It gives too much credence to the idea that there is something else at work other than divine authority.

Psalm 90 expresses God’s authority over life and death. It is divine anger that is the cause of our toil and sorrow. And mercy and grace are the only hope for any joy in this life. All of reality is under God’s soverign hand.

Nothing goes through the grasp of the Almighty.“Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.” It is the Word of God that determines life and death. The psalm continues, “They are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.” A decree governs the whole realm of mankind, and the natural world follows the divine command.

Perishing is not just a divine decree but arises from the response of God’s anger: “For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.” What is being related in Psalm 90  are that the tragedies of the “days of our lives” have their ultimate purpose in God. “Yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”

The justification for God’s response of anger is his righteous indignation: “Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in light of thy countenance.”

Moses is identified as the author of Psalm 90, and what is his response to a grim reality in light of his own sin and the sin of the children of Israel? It is threefold. He implores God for wisdom: “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” He pleads for grace and mercy: “O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days." And he proclaims that a blessed life is from the hand of God. “And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”

At best, describing a death as “premature” comes from the creaturly perspective of an expectation identified according to nature. It is the kind of language that doesn’t jive with Psalm 90 and its emphasis on God’s sovereignty. Instead, it is a psalm that gives man’s response to a divine perspective.

Thus, celebrating and remembering Jonathan’s life is also a time to reflect on God’s grace and mercy. It is the common grace of God that allows a man to find any good and enjoyment in a fleeting life full of evil. And it is God’s grace in Christ, which frees us from bondage to sin and its terrifying expectation of the anger of the Almighty.

As we gathered to remember my brother and enjoy the blessed life God provides and sustains, my youngest nephew, Caleb, was a beneficiary. Adopted close to a year ago, he never had the pleasure of knowing Jonathan. Jonathan was already gone when he came as a foster child. But he brimmed as he partook in the pizza party and enjoyed company with those who lives have been shaped by my brother in various ways.