Day 271: Honestie Hodges

DAY 271

                              Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic                     

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty-nine    Thursday 10 December 2020

Those We’ve Lost: Honestie Hodges, 14

“Gone home to be with Jesus.”

“Honestie Hodges, who was handcuffed by police outside her home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when she was 11, a frightening incident that drew outrage and national headlines in 2017, died Sunday. She was 14. Her death was caused by Covid-19. Honestie developed severe stomach pains on November 9^th, her 14^th birthday. Taken to the hospital, she tested positive for the new coronavirus and was sent home. But her condition worsened that evening, an ambulance was called, and she was admitted to the hospital’s intensive care unit. She was placed on a ventilator that same day, but her condition never improved. She had been healthy with no underlying health conditions. Then on Sunday her grandmother wrote, ‘It is with an extremely heavy heart that I have to tell you that my beautiful, sassy, smart, loving granddaughter has gone home to be with Jesus.’” (Note: In March of 2018, the Grand Rapids Police Department adopted the ‘Honestie Policy’ which called for using the least restrictive options when dealing with youth.)” - From a current newspaper ongoing series “Those We’ve Lost.”

This particular Covid-19 generated obituary is hard to read – only 14. I have been a reader of obituaries for decades, not for morbid reasons focused on death but rather for curiosity reasons focused on the lives lived and what others wrote about them. There are regional patterns in the US – in the Pacific Northwest, for example, religion or faith is rarely mentioned, and a growing number of obituaries read, “At their request there will be no service.” In the South however, where a higher percentage of the population consider themselves born again Christians, funerals are most often held in the church the person attended, and the phrase ‘Gone home to be with Jesus’ is regularly part of the obituary. Is this just a matter of culture or is there more to it than that?

The simple yet eternally determinative statement that someone has gone home to be with the Lord is rooted in something simple: those about whom this is said more often than not really believed that this would be the conclusion of life on earth, going home to be with Jesus.  

Reflective question: At your passing, would you want what was said about Honestie to be said about you in your obituary? If so, why? If not, why not?

Reflective Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:8 – “…to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”

Reflective hymn:

“Safe in the Arms of Jesus” – Fanny Crosby (1820-1915)

Safe in the arms of Jesus, safe on His gentle breast,

There by His love o’ershaded, sweetly my soul doth rest.