Condolences to the Furtado family in Brazil, where we are partners in Mission and Ministry, on the death of Rev. José Magalhães Furtado, uncle to Rev. Nilse Furtado Gilliam (Pastor at Duncan Memorial UMC, Ashland)
From his son
“Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.”
I am not sure how many times I have spoken those words at a celebration of life or beside a grave. I have offered them to grieving families as words of comfort, hope, and promise. But today, they carry a different weight for me.
Early this morning, my father, the Rev. José Magalhães Furtado, entered into eternal rest.
By almost any standard, dad lived a remarkable life. Born into deep poverty, he worked relentlessly and somehow managed to accumulate more degrees, accomplishments, and accolades than seems humanly possible. His life took him through more vocations than most people could fit into several lifetimes. He served in the Brazilian military, worked for the telephone company, served as a union leader, was an excellent musician, lyricist, recording artist, radio personality, congressional aide, theology professor, pastor, and denominational leader.
But those roles and titles, as remarkable as they are, do not tell the whole story. He was also a father, grandfather, husband, brother, son, uncle, friend, and mentor. And those are the things that matter most to us today.
Dad and his brothers first encountered Jesus as young teenagers. That encounter transformed the trajectory of their lives, and they never looked back. Faith was not simply one part of his life; it became the thread running through all of it.
Perhaps nowhere was that more evident to me than during these last years.
Alzheimer’s slowly took so much from him. Names disappeared. Memories became harder to reach. Pieces of the world he had known so well gradually slipped beyond his grasp. Yet somehow, his faith remained.
I always found it fascinating that even when so much else seemed inaccessible to him, if someone asked dad to pray or to offer a word of encouragement, something changed. He would spring into action. Words would come. Scripture would flow. Prayer would be eloquently spoken. He would beautifully and confidently speak about the faith that had sustained him throughout his life.
It was as though, when so much else had been stripped away, what had been planted most deeply remained.
As a preacher’s kid, I deeply hesitated to journey into ministry. I knew enough about the church to know the challenges that followed those who said yes to a set apart ministry. And I was not sure I wanted any part of it. And perhaps, like many children, I needed to find a path that belonged to me rather than simply inherit the one laid out by others.
Yet here I am.
And today I cannot help but recognize how much of him has followed me into this calling.
Not because I became the same kind of preacher or pastor he was. I did not. We were different people, shaped by different experiences, different questions, and different contexts. But long before I understood what ministry would mean for my own life, I watched him.
I watched him preach.
I watched him pray.
I watched him sing.
I watched him lead.
I watched him proclaim that the gospel could actually change a person’s life because he knew that it had changed his.
And perhaps that is what Revelation means when it tells us that the dead “will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.”
Dad’s labor has ended.
After a lifetime of working, striving, studying, preaching, singing, serving, traveling, leading, loving, and believing, he now rests.
But his deeds indeed follow him.
They follow him in the congregations he served and the people whose lives were touched by his presence. They follow him in songs sung, sermons preached, prayers offered, and lives encouraged.
They follow him in his children and grandchildren.
And they follow him in me.
Today I grieve my father. I grieve what Alzheimer’s had already taken from us little by little, and I grieve the finality of his death now. But beneath that grief is profound gratitude.
Gratitude for a life that began with so little and by the grace of God touched so many.
Gratitude for the faith that sustained him when memory itself could no longer do so.
Gratitude that the boy who encountered Jesus all those years ago spent the rest of his life trying to help other people encounter the same grace that had found him.
And gratitude that death does not get the final word.
So today, words I have spoken countless times for others become words I must receive for myself:
“Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.”