For Tim Keller

Though I never met Tim Keller, like many others, the impact he had on my life is remarkable.

The first time I heard him speak was on a recording of a sermon called “Blessed Self-Forgetfulness,” assigned to me in a group counseling session back in 2013. It was a sermon based on I Corinthians 3:27-4:7 where Paul talked about how, each day, we step into a “court room” and are judged, either by others our ourselves. I sat at my kitchen table, notebook ready, and began to listen.

I was astonished.

I had never heard anyone speak with such kindness and such clarity. He was methodical and convincing. At one point he began to talk about how Paul said he “didn’t much care about what others thought of him, nor did he care much about what he thought of himself.”

I turned off the recording, laid my head on the table, and ugly-face cried. All I could think was, Why have I never heard this before? It was as though I had been given permission to stop beating myself up for not being able to live up to the standards set for me by the church and myself. For the first time in my life I understood that I couldn’t save myself, but that Christ had done the work - all of it. I could scarcely comprehend this piece of information, for it was too wonderful. The seed of that truth has grown in my heart ever since.

He talked about how Jesus took our sins and gave us his righteousness, free and clear, even exchange. Even now as I type that sentence, I feel those same emotions welling up, filling my eyes with tears. It was like water in the desert.

I continued listening to sermon after sermon, drinking it in. Later, shorty before I began researching for my dissertation on the place of lament in corporate worship, I stumbled across his 5-sermon series, Psalms: The Songs of Jesus. I’ve listened to this series so many times I can practically quote it with him. In it, he helped me understand how the Psalms are what he called “God’s case book” for all conditions of the human heart. He taught about what he called “a Gospel third way” for dealing with emotions: don’t stuff them down (the religious response), don’t let them define you, (the secular response), instead, pray your emotions, without filter, in the presence of God. This, Tim said, is what the Psalmists taught us; it was their great gift.

Through this series on the Psalms, and so many other sermons, Tim Keller helped me understand and receive in my heart the unfailing love of God for me. So many times he said, “This is what the cross proved: He will not forget you.” Slowly, slowly the truth of that began to “make it downtown to my heart,” as he often said. I fell in love - head-over-heels in love - with the Cross. I came to understand that the cross wasn’t only something Jesus endured for my salvation in the classic sense, but it was something he endured for all of my life: to heal abuse, to restore what was broken, to enable me to know my true self, my true calling, to make me a more loving, whole person. Many times, when I’ve thought God couldn’t possibly care about me, I have turned in my mind back to the cross. It tethers me, gives me hope, pulls me back from the edge.

In addition to the astonishing work of the Cross, Tim helped me to understand the depth of meaning in the resurrection. Towards the very end of this 2021 interview, Russell Moore asks Tim what one piece of advice he would give to young Christians who were worried about the future, Tim said, “If Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, if he really got up, was seen by hundreds of people, and talked to them, then everything is going to be alright.” He had already been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer at this point, which makes this statement all-the-more astonishing. He really believed this, lived this, trusted in this.

As I’ve wrestled with the news of his death, I’ve circled back to his teaching around suffering and the goodness of God. He so often taught that we could hold the belief in God’s goodness alongside our suffering and seemingly “unanswered prayers.” He often said, though there is suffering in our lives and around the world, it doesn’t mean that God has abandoned us, is not good, or is not capable of stopping the suffering. He taught that, if we believe in a God powerful enough to end all suffering, then we have to believe in a God that has reasons for allowing it that we cannot understand. O magnum mysterium. While I struggle with the strong flavor of “total sovereignty” in these statements, I have found comfort in the reminder that God is infinitely more vast and complex than I could ever understand.

I have hesitated to post these thoughts because of some accounts I’ve read that shared mental and spiritual pain caused by Keller and projects he was associated with, such as The Gospel Coalition. (I, too, disagree with much of that organization’s teaching.) I don’t want to reopen old wounds, or stir up pain. These few points I’ve shared are genuine and heartfelt, and I hold that knowledge in tension with the difficult stories about Keller expressed by others.

I’m so, so, so grateful for what Tim taught me, for the ways God used him to set me free and grow into a more whole person. I regret I never wrote to him to tell him so. What I can do is run the race, spurred and fueled on by the courage and grace he helped to plant in my heart.

Thank you, Tim Keller. Everything is going to be alright.