By Kip McKean
Sunday, December 11, 2011 was Elena’s and my 35th Wedding Anniversary! We are so grateful to God for not only bringing us together in the Lord, but for His sustaining us in our darkest hours. We are also humbled by the gracious love of all of the disciples through the years who have enriched our marriage and family through discipling. Encouraged by these thoughts, I shared the following at communion that special Sunday for the South Central Region of the City of Angels Church.
Communion is the time in our service where we draw close to God by remembering the sacrifice of Jesus’ body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. Since Jesus was physically exhausted and emotionally traumatized through inhumane ridicule and severe blood loss through floggings, Mark records this heart-wrenching event, “A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry [Jesus’] cross.” (Mark 15:21) Before we go further, let’s remember that to have your name inscribed into the New Testament, you either had to do something very wicked such as Pilate or Judas, or you were named because you were one of the early disciples of Jesus. So the fact that Mark names Simon, Alexander and Rufus most likely means they became baptized disciples!
Interestingly, Mark records that “Simon… was passing by… [when the Roman authorities] forced him to carry [Jesus’] cross.” As Christians, we understand that nothing is by chance. In fact, “God determines the times set for us and the exact places where [we will meet a disciple.] God did this so that men would seek Him… and find Him.” (Acts 17:26-27) Though in Simon’s mind he was “merely passing by,” God had ordained this both horrific and glorious moment, where Jesus no longer had the strength to carry His cross. Simon would be forever known as “the man that carried Jesus’ cross.” I am confident that this singular moment was one of the reasons Simon later became a disciple.
As with Jesus, oftentimes our cross is genuinely “too heavy to bear alone,” but God always provides His Spirit, who sometimes sends a person into our lives at just the “right” moment to help us carry this burden. By Simon carrying Jesus’ cross, Jesus was able to make it to Golgotha and become “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” (John 1:29) This act of grace, in time, blessed Simon’s entire family. For we read in Romans 16:13 in Paul’s farewell greetings to the disciples in Rome, “Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me too.” Amazingly, Simon’s wife became the “mother in the faith” to the apostle Paul!
As Simon was there for Jesus, Elena has been there for me. I became a true Christian at 17 years old as a freshman at the University of Florida. And though I was religious when I became a disciple, in retrospect, as a baby Christian I retained many worldly perspectives. In fact, after being a Christian for only eight months, I went home from the University of Florida to Chicago for Christmas vacation.
Though I understood that disciples only date disciples and disciples only marry disciples, I did not see any sister in our campus fellowship of around 60 Christians “good enough” to date because I was so arrogant. This left me open to temptation. So over Christmas break, I went to one of my old high school’s basketball games with many of my old friends and then for three days spent too much time with one of these girls and I committed “gross impurity.” After two days of sin, I was so convicted by guilt from the Holy Spirit that I went to her door and shared with her that I had become a Christian, apologized for my actions, and that I could not see her again. In tears, she expressed that she felt “great” about our relationship, but I simply repeated that I could not see her again and walked away. Upon returning to college, I confessed my sins, but I still had emptiness in my heart.
A short five months later in early June 1973, one of the sisters at the church, Carmen, asked me to reach out to her little sister and her boyfriend – a long-haired, charismatic Chinese guy — as they would be coming to the Friday devotional. This I did. Shortly thereafter, I was able to set up a study with Elena’s boyfriend. Over the summer, he became a “best friend.” But, by the beginning of August, Elena was baptized, broke up with her boyfriend, and since he was still an atheist, he headed off to New England for college.
In late September 1973, my younger brother Randy was baptized! The following day, I challenged him to get a double date for the coming weekend’s Gator football game. He refused several times saying he didn’t really know any of the sisters. Finally, I said, “Just pick somebody. You’re not going to marry them!” He said, “Well, how about that Spanish girl? I can’t remember her name?” I said, “Elena?” He said, “Yeah, that’s the one!” In my not-so-gentle and at this point worldly way, I said, “Hands off! She’s mine!” I immediately called Elena and we had our first date that weekend!
I knew early on, she was the one! It just took me three years of dating to get her to see God’s will! I’ll never forget the night that I fell to my knees there in front of Broward Hall and asked her to marry me, and she said, “Yes!” I believed then as I believe now, “the person you marry will most likely determine where you spend eternity.” We were married on December 11, 1976. Our early days together were exciting living in Charleston, Illinois. Charleston was a town with a population of 18,000 — a metropolis in the middle of the cornfields of the Midwest! Though rarely at home, we lived in a small one bedroom apartment usually eating “tuna fish casserole with peas” every other night and on the opposite evenings “feasting” on hot dogs and beans. However, since I was working as “a missionary” and supported by a very conservative Mainline Church of Christ in Texas (though we were appreciated by our local congregation) this overseeing church fired us as they thought we were “too liberal” with hand-clapping during the songs in our services and women praying in mixed groups! So four months after marrying me, I had no job and Elena was finishing her degree in Occupational Therapy. Amazingly, Elena was there to encourage me to not get down or take my eyes off of the Lord. Sure enough, just as Elena said, “The Lord will take care of us” the money was quickly found for me to stay on as the Campus Minister for the 9,300 students of Eastern Illinois University! During our three years there, the Lord allowed us to baptize 300 college students. Then it was on to Boston, and though in the ministry there is always a “wrestling with God and with men,” for the most part these were days of great victories for God. (Genesis 32:28) Making those times even sweeter were the births of our awesome three kids Olivia, Sean, and Eric. Praise God, in their appearance they all favor Elena!
During the latter part of the 80’s, Elena was always by my side as we planted churches in Manila and Bangkok, and for a summer led the church in Cairo. In the 90’s, the Spirit took us to Los Angeles where thousands were baptized into the kingdom of light. Perhaps one of the most exciting of our experiences in the 90’s, was that God allowed Elena and me to lead the Moscow Mission Team that saw 850 people baptized the very first year! Then in early 2001, after seeing what the Spirit had started in Boston grow to become 400 churches in 171 nations, the darkness came ruthlessly upon us. Challenges abounded as we were heavily criticized, our leadership stripped from us, and the phone stopped ringing, so much so that I felt that all of our friends deserted us.
I had never experienced such pain, loneliness and sadness. I came to realize that some of this was the direct backlash of my leadership sins and shortcomings. That said, I was immobilized by depression, bitterness, anger and self-pity, but Elena was there every day encouraging me to believe that God would somehow rescue us. The Scriptures are true, “Two are better than one… if one falls down, his friend can help him up.” For almost two years, my best — and I felt — my only friend Elena was “forced” to carry my cross. I believe that God placed her in my life to be my wife way back when I first met her in the summer of ’73. I believe with all of my heart that without her I would not have survived the crucifixion by Christians, as the discipline of God. (Hebrews 12:3, 7) Through these dark days God taught me humility, kindness, gentleness, and mercy to the weak, because this was how Elena interacted with me. She helped me understand that “a cord of three strands is not… broken.” With the Holy Spirit bonding Elena and me together, I once again began to believe, “Nothing is impossible for God” — even the evangelization of all nations in a generation! (Matthew 17:20)
In time, we began to see the dawning of a new day — God gathering His remnant “from the farthest horizon” and the birth of a new discipling movement of sold-out disciples in Portland, Oregon! Then God called us back to our beloved city of angels — Los Angeles. The first year was so encouraging as 104 were baptized! One of our greatest joys during our four years here are mission teams that the Spirit has sent to Honolulu, New York, Portland, San Diego, London and recently Sao Paulo. However, even in 2011 as the Lord has blessed the City of Angels Church with daily additions, though infrequently, I still have a dark time every so often at night. But my God and my friend are always there. For every night, since we were married — except when we are apart — Elena and I have prayed together. Then, Elena’s way is to snuggle up to me and fall asleep. Truly, “if two lie down together, they will keep warm.” This amazing disciple of Jesus has warmed my heart for 35 years and is fulfilling God’s ultimate purpose of marriage — to get your spouse to heaven! Today, as we take the bread which represents Christ’s body broken for us and the fruit of the vine which represents His blood that was shed for us: examine your life. If you have dropped your cross, pick it up. If you are unable, then beg for God to send a “Simon” or an “Elena” — so that your crucified life can be a seed “that falls to the ground and dies… to produce many seeds.” And to our God who is sovereign in all things and at all times be all the glory, honor and praise!
