Farewell for Now | A Testimony to the Church

Hello! My name is Mark. For the past three-and-a-half years, I’ve been gathering with you at Citylight. Though I grew up in church, I think I’ve only been walking with Jesus for the past few years. During a profoundly challenging season of life, I followed an invite to church from a classmate I had a crush on who attended Citylight. That first Sunday, I heard Chris Hruska preach about the armor of God. I remember crying in the chairs by the drum set up front. The Lord met me during the ensuing month, and that winter I came to believe in Jesus, the eternal Son who has made God known. The God who heals us. The God who dies for us. The God who forgives our sins. The God who gives us eternal life.

Never having gone “church shopping” in my life, I have been completely spoiled at Citylight. Church ... You are a fantastic church. Earlier in life, I detested evangelical Christians. I believed that you were, to a person, hypocritical bigots. At Citylight, I saw the humility and the kindness of people whose sins have been forgiven. I am so grateful for Pastor Chris’s consistent willingness to point the finger at himself and share his own sins. I am so grateful for Pastor Joe’s great gift for preaching through challenging, controversial, and confusing texts and topics. I am so grateful for Pastor Gavin’s warm, kind, practical teaching. And I am so grateful that week after week, Citylight preaches Christ crucified. Thank you for showing me a body with so many members who live the grace we do not deserve.

I am leaving now because I just graduated from medical school. I am moving to a new city for the next phase of my training. I am grieved to leave, but I have to go. I officially became a doctor on the day that I graduated. But I think the legal ceremony stamped and sealed something that had already happened. I really became a doctor in all the years spent grinding through digital flashcards, in all the test questions I answered, in all the discussions with friends and mentors about medicine. I became a doctor by learning to listen to people, stumbling through a physical exam, suturing wounds, and practicing the care of my patients. It began when I was accepted to medical school. By the time I did my last rotation of fourth year, I was a physician in all but name.

I think eternal life is similar.

One day, those in Christ will go to Heaven. One day, those in Christ will join Him in the New Creation. Your eternal life begins in a single moment, however it is lived here and now. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. John the Apostle wrote to those who believe in the name of the Son of God that we may know that we have eternal life. If you are in Christ, you will live eternal life in Heaven one day. If you are in Christ, would you please live eternal life here and now? Christ said to His Father that this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. The “know” here is like conocer in Spanish. It is not the way you know the answer to a trivia question. It’s the way you know your mother, or your brother or sister. It’s relational. Eternal life is lived when you love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. Eternal life is lived when you love your neighbor as yourself, when you do to others what you would have them do to you.

I sometimes feel like this all gets rather abstract and mysterious. What does it really mean to die to the self? What does it really mean to live in faith? What does it really mean to love God with my whole being? But I think the Lord gave us guidance when he said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” We have been given so many of His words. We have His foundational sermon in Matthew 5-7, the heart of Christian teaching for how to live life. We have His guidance on forgiveness and comparison and church life in Matthew 18. We have many other teachings from his representatives, like Romans 12-14 and Ephesians 4-6. We have His new commandment to love one another as He has loved us. And we have His greatest commandment: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

My heart aches at leaving Citylight. You have been my family during these years. I ache even more because I think a wind is blowing through this church, a movement of the Spirit teaching us that real life in Christ is lived here, lived now, with our entire selves. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. If we really believe that, we know that anything else, anything we hold back from Him, even if we enjoy it, is a counterfeit. I struggle with this every day. I struggle with a compromising spirit. A desire to hold back. To keep a little — or a lot, on bad days — for myself. I speak death over myself. “Let me keep this comfort.” “Don’t make me reconcile with this person I hurt.” “Don’t make me take trouble to help this person, I’m busy.” “Let me be.”

But the Lord calls us to live life to the full with Him now! All other ground is sinking sand. Eternal life is ours in Christ. It is lived in praying for our enemies and in giving thanks to God for small and big things. It is lived in forgiving those who wrong us and in giving of ourselves for someone else’s good. It is lived in prayer and fasting and giving for the simple joy of drawing nearer to God, with no need to tell anyone else about it. It is lived in seeking God every day in the words of life that He has given us, and in His presence offered to us through prayer and sacrament. It’s lived by doing what God wants done, in the name of Jesus, for all the world to see (quoting Joseph Tetlow).

I love you, Citylight Church. If we take the idea of being born again in a grossly literal way, I am a three-and-a-half-year-old toddler in Christ. You are the family who watched me and supported me as I took my first stumbling steps. As I toddle on to the next stage of my walk, I hope to God that He will give me a church as lovely as this one. I have been so richly blessed to be a part of it.

May we all live the eternal life of Christ in the places God has placed us. May we all live it together again one day, in this age or the age to come. Thank you for everything.

Your brother in Christ, Mark May