Got a Minute? “Can You Help Get My Mother In?”

Hi, friends in exile, got a minute?

In the late 1800s, Charles Berry, an English preacher, became the pastor of the great Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. He admitted that as a young pastor, he preached a very thin “gospel.” But one night that changed. A young woman appeared at his door imploring him to help “get her mother in.” She finally explained that she meant “get her into heaven.” He trudged to the woman’s side, and he began telling her how good and kind Jesus was and how he’d come to show us how to live. She cut him off. “Mister,” she cried, “that’s no use for the likes of me. I’m a sinner. I’ve lived my life. Can’t you tell me of someone who can have mercy upon me and save my poor soul?” “I stood there in the presence of a dying woman,” said Berry, “and I realized I had nothing to tell her.”

“In order to bring something to that dying woman, I leaped back to my mother’s knee, to my cradle faith, and I told her the story of the Cross and of a Christ who is able to save to the uttermost.” The tears began to run down the woman’s cheeks. “Now you’re getting it,” she said. “Now you’re helping me.” Berry concluded the story by saying, “I got her in, and blessed be God, I got in myself.”^[1]

Smiley Mudd

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[1] Gordon MacDonald, “The Centerpiece of the Gospel,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 137.