Good-bye is such a hard word to say to a family with such a long history in gospel music. Nor is this the first time the Homecoming family of singers have had to use this word. Rex Nelon left us in England the night before the London Homecoming taping in January of 2000. We wondered then how we would go on.
Rex and Judy Nelon’s wedding
Then on Friday before departing for the Homecoming Cruise to Alaska, this wonderful family of singers gathered around Autumn and Jamie, trying once again to come to grips with how we could possibly say good-bye before we’d even said hello to the 2100 passengers that would be boarding the ship expecting a week of joyful singing. And how could we surround the two of them with the love and support they were going to need as they planned to head back home to the reality of this tragedy.
Yet both that night in London and the Friday morning of July 26th—and the many good-byes in between--we have found God to be present and faithful. We’ve also learned that “good-bye” is not the operative word here. We have found that the veil between here and there is very shear, and it really doesn’t matter on which side of it we are singing.
We are acutely aware that there were three more precious lives that were lost on that plane for which there have been other celebrations. They, too, have families and dear friends who will have to find a way to go on without them present.
But all four of those we gathered to celebrate were singers. They were all about the music. We all know the Nelon name and their history as singers, but Jason and Nathan were singers, too, from the time they were little boys. I’d like to tell you the kind of men they were to Bill and me with two recent moments.
The Nelon group came to our home in Indiana not long ago to learn a couple of new songs and to hammer out their parts in the studio. One of the songs was brand new song Bill and I had written, “Angels Hover Near You”, which eventually featured Autumn on a spoken part I wrote especially for her.
While they were working out parts, Nathan and I had a two-hour breakfast at a local pancake house. We talked about many things from theology and his work at the Capitol in Washington to art, literature, and music. We were discussing at one point the profound and enduring words to the classic hymn “The Love of God”, and the question, “Is there a limit to the grace and mercy of God?” We focused particularly on the most familiar verse:
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen could ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care
God gave His Son to win—
His erring child he reconciled
And pardoned from his sin.
We wondered whether the thousands who had sung these words actually knew that “the guilty pair” in this verse were Adam and Eve, and whether those who sang it really believed that the blood of Christ reaches clear to the beginning of it all to redeem the first persons God ever created.
I mentioned a piece of art, an engraving from the early 16th Century by Albredt Durer that depicts the Christ, descending into hell itself to rescue Adam and Eve, then reaching even further to pull from the pits a figure who, the artist is reported to have said was him, himself.
I pulled up on my phone an image of the engraving on wood and showed it to Nathan. A few weeks later Amber and Nathan sent me—by some amazing technology—an engraving on wood of this very piece of art, which I immediately had framed and hung in our family room by the bookshelf of classic literature. Nathan was that kind of man.
Now, for Jason. Bill and I have always found Jason to be an artist who “got it”, got the deeper things of the spirit, got what it takes to get something done—the hard behind-the-scenes work it takes to make something happen in music and in life. He loved the scriptures and got how it applied to real life and was a good writer in his own right. He was such a hard worker, too, and was willing to help in any way.
Most of you know that singers are not morning people, and they are not famous for getting up early, mainly because they often sing late into the night and have to rest their voices to do it all over again the next night. And there is a 3-hour time change for most of us when traveling to Alaska; even so, the schedule called for us to do two concerts the afternoon and evening we arrived, and there was a devotion on the schedule for 7:30 the next morning. Jason knew that and also knew that I was scheduled to speak for one of the morning devotions, but did not know which morning.
I got this text from him a week before we were to leave:
If you need a special song before you speak on the morning session at cruise, please don’t hesitate to ask us. We are here to serve.
I responded: Is there any way one or some of you could sing “Through”?
This was not a song the Nelons had recorded, and I wasn’t even sure they knew it.
He responded:
Send it to me and we’ll have it ready.”
I sent to him the Vocal Band recording of the song and a lyric sheet including a second verse that had never been recorded. Jason’s response was:
We can do this.
Beautiful and powerful!
Only then did he ask: What day do you speak?
I told him Friday. He only said:
Got it!
That was Jason. Ready and willing and understanding what was needed, even at 7:30 am with a three-hour jet lag.
Kelly—You all probably know this strong woman best. She has been in our lives in a public and private way since she was a youngster singing with her dad. But she was also an attentive mother, wife, and companion in all things Nelon. She knew the business and was not only beautiful but involved.
But Amber. This child has been in our lives literally, since she was born. She was on the first Homecoming Kids video and from then on was a joy magnet. She could sing her heart out with an energy that made her a stand-out anywhere.
Early on at around six-years-old, she sang the song “Jesus, I Heard You Had a Big House.” This became her song. She owned it. She sang it again as a 12 or 13 year old on the Heaven video. And I’m sure had she been with us on the Alaskan Cruise, someone would have requested that she sing it.
I want you to hear her sing it now, but before she does, let me just say this.
Those good-byes that are so hard to say, don’t really need to be said. That Friday, those on that plane never stopped singing. They are singing now—with us all—only just on the other side of a very shear veil.
