Tribute to Robert William Hoffman

2 Samuel 3:38 (quoting King David) - "Do you not realize that a prince and a great man has fallen in Israel this day?"

Bob Hoffman was a prince. An unlikely prince, but truly a prince and a great man. A great and happy man.

He worked flying airplanes for TWA. His passion was worship. His mission was displaying God's grace to the men at the Moss Correctional Center. But his life was his family.

To the inmates he was a living gospel. To his friends a loving anchor and to his family Bob was everything.

He adored his wife, Minette, and would have instantly laid down his life for any of his sons - Jonathan, Joshua or Daniel. He patiently waited for their marriages to deliver the daughters he dreamed about and then treasured, Courtney and Martha.

Robert William Hoffman was born September 6, 1943 in South Chicago, the second of three sons. The eldest, Dan, now lives in Mesquite, Nevada and Bruce in Chicago, Illinois.

Generous, romantic, mischievous, and fear-free, Bob has deposited a legacy totally focused on life rather than death. That huge smile reflected his optimism and that glint in his eye was often the first hint that you had met a kind yet straightforward character.

Bob died on his way home from church, Sunday April 22 doing something his adventurous heart loved - riding his motorcycle.

Memorial Service
11:00 AM ~ Thursday, April 26, 2007
Bernsen Center ~ First Presbyterian Church Tulsa, Oklahoma

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Robert Hoffman Memorial Fund, c/o Oklahoma Central Credit Union, Attn.: Roger Hensley, 5350 S. Peoria Ave., Tulsa, OK 74105. This fund will continue his ministry at the David L. Moss Correctional Facility.

Ninde Garden Chapel ~ Tulsa, Oklahoma

I grew up near Pittsburgh in the 60's and remember watching the astronauts on our Sylvania black and white television. My second grade teacher Mrs. Black explained why astronauts needed a space suit to survive in space.

In a similar way, we need an earth suit to live on this planet. We call that earth suit our body. When it wears out or is broken we cannot stay on the earth any longer.

Bob's earth suit was broken beyond repair on Sunday, so he had to go to a place where no earth suit was required. His new heaven suit is much better, it won't ever wear out and it's unbreakable. I'm sure before he got his new suit he wanted to try to stay here with you. But he couldn't.

As a memorial to his life we have assembled today to return his earth suit back to the earth. And to declare this place a memorial to a life well lived. Always think of this place as a memorial to Bob's life, never as a monument to his death.

Bring your children and grandchildren to this place and tell them about this life and this man whose seed lives on in them.

And so we come to the place of saying goodbye.

We live here in a dimension of time marked by beginnings and endings, starting and stopping, greetings and farewells. When I say farewell to my children or grandchildren there is a hint of sadness, sometimes a tear. But there is the latent hope that before too long there will be a joyous greeting again.

Most farewells are laced with the hope of that next greeting, and today is no exception. Bob has discovered that life unbounded by time and we are not separated from him by some great distance, but only by a time which in the context of eternity is but a moment.

And as we say farewell to this man we love, it is a painful goodbye, but it is not a final farewell. An indescribably joyous reunion awaits us. Until then we will remember. And we will live.

What was it about Bob?

He could be totally confusing, yet amazingly profound. He'd tackle any problem, always certain that, "we can fix that!" He'd dismiss us doubters with a wave of his hand and a convincing, "Aaaggh!"

At an age when most sane people are moving to safer toys, Bob got a powered parachute and amused himself by spooking the Mustang herd east of Tulsa with his mock strafing runs.

Bob not only piloted Boeing 757's, but for years he also captained an aging and not-so-gently used 15-foot fishing boat. One day when the fish on Lake Skiatook were hiding better than we were seeking, Bob mentioned that he needed to name his boat. Unable to restrain my gifting as a smart aleck I blurted out - "Mephibosheth!" Many of you will remember that Mephibosheth was dead King Saul's crippled son whom King David welcomed to his table in great mercy.

We both laughed, I thinking I'd slipped in a pretty good insult under the radar. But a few days later while I was visiting Bob at his home he pulled up the front of the new tarp covering the old boat and with his signature boyish grin revealed the stenciled name Mephibosheth spray-painted in white on the fading blue bow.

It would be years later before I figured out why Bob would adorn his vessel with the name of a crippled Old Testament lad, and why my surly suggestion made such sense to him. You see, Bob knew that he too was a cripple who had experienced the mercy of a great King. And Bob's big heart pulsed by showing grace to the cripple inside each one of us. He was always drawn to hurting people. The greater the hurt, the stronger the draw.

Devoted and faithful. Honest but kind. An imperfect man yet a near perfect friend. I've never seen a man grow and change more as he gradually morphed over the years from an angry man into a truly happy man. When I saw him at church last Sunday morning we exchanged our usual robust greetings and made plans to have coffee next week. Those plans still stand. They're just going to be delayed a mite.

So, what was it about Bob? What was the signature message of this unlikely prince? What is the truth branded into my heart and others by our exposure to the life of Robert William Hoffman? I sum it up in three words - God's Grace Works!

Well done, Bob. Well done.

12-15 Now, let me ask you something profound yet troubling. If you became believers because you trusted the proclamation that Christ is alive, risen from the dead, how can you let people say that there is no such thing as a resurrection? If there's no resurrection, there's no living Christ. And face it-if there's no resurrection for Christ, everything we've told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you've staked your life on is smoke and mirrors. Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ-sheer fabrications, if there's no resurrection.

16-20 If corpses can't be raised, then Christ wasn't, because he was indeed dead. And if Christ weren't raised, then all you're doing is wandering about in the dark, as lost as ever. It's even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection, because they're already in their graves. If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.

21-28 There is a nice symmetry in this: Death initially came by a man, and resurrection from death came by a man. Everybody dies in Adam; everybody comes alive in Christ. But we have to wait our turn: Christ is first, then those with him at his Coming, the grand consummation when, after crushing the opposition, he hands over his kingdom to God the Father. He won't let up until the last enemy is down-and the very last enemy is death! As the psalmist said, "He laid them low, one and all; he walked all over them." When Scripture says that "he walked all over them," it's obvious that he couldn't at the same time be walked on. When everything and everyone is finally under God's rule, the Son will step down, taking his place with everyone else, showing that God's rule is absolutely comprehensive-a perfect ending!

35-38 Some skeptic is sure to ask, "Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this 'resurrection body' look like?" If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a "dead" seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don't look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.

39-41 You will notice that the variety of bodies is stunning. Just as there are different kinds of seeds, there are different kinds of bodies-humans, animals, birds, fish-each unprecedented in its form. You get a hint at the diversity of resurrection glory by looking at the diversity of bodies not only on earth but in the skies-sun, moon, stars-all these varieties of beauty and brightness. And we're only looking at pre-resurrection "seeds"-who can imagine what the resurrection "plants" will be like!

42-44 This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body-but only if you keep in mind that when we're raised, we're raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that's planted is no beauty, but when it's raised, it's glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural-same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!

45-49 We follow this sequence in Scripture: The First Adam received life, the Last Adam is a life-giving Spirit. Physical life comes first, then spiritual-a firm base shaped from the earth, a final completion coming out of heaven. The First Man was made out of earth, and people since then are earthy; the Second Man was made out of heaven, and people now can be heavenly. In the same way that we've worked from our earthy origins, let's embrace our heavenly ends.

50 I need to emphasize, friends, that our natural, earthy lives don't in themselves lead us by their very nature into the kingdom of God. Their very "nature" is to die, so how could they "naturally" end up in the Life kingdom?

51-57 But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I'll probably never fully understand. We're not all going to die-but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes-it's over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we'll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:

Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now?

It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three-sin, guilt, death-are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!

Jeremiah 29:11-14a

I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out-plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. 12"When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I'll listen. 13-14 "When you come looking for me, you'll find me. "Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I'll make sure you won't be disappointed."

Galatians 5: 4-6, 13-18

4-6 I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.

13-15 It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows. For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That's an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out-in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

16-18 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

Ephesians 3: 14-21

14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit-not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength-that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

20-21 God can do anything, you know-far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

Romans 5: 20-21

20-21 All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life-a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.