Now I’ve given a lot of sermons in my day, some easy, some not. While all of them were heartfelt, I know that many fell on deaf ears. Folks make up their minds about the Lord in their own time. Besides, it’s up to me to plant the seed, but only our Heavenly Father can make that seed take sprout. I glanced at Mel; she blew me a kiss.
“Good morning, everyone,” I said.
Murmurs of hello came from all over the room. “Isn’t this a glorious day to worship the Lord!” A few “Amens!” and “Yes, sir, it sure is!” echoed off the walls. The tall windows on either side of the sanctuary, polished to a diamond shine by the good ladies of this month’s cleaning committee, shimmered with streams of sunlight magnified by the snow that glittered and sparkled outside.
I took another look at the crowd and began. “The question was asked of me recently just how on earth a sane, responsible, clear-headed, and reasonably intelligent person could ever believe in a God—a God Who, despite His great wisdom, could create a race of human beings who are as flawed, and yes, as sometimes downright hateful as we seem to be. It didn’t make sense to this person that something so evil—meaning human beings, in general—could spring from Someone as supposedly good as our Heavenly Father. Since this was a no-nonsense person I was addressing, I knew the usual platitudes weren’t going to cut it. No ‘You know, God works in mysterious ways,’ or ‘The fall of man happened in the Garden of Eden when Eve partook of the apple and here we are today, paying the price for her—and Adam’s—mistake.’
“No, none of that was going to work. This lady wanted details; she wanted clear-cut answers; she wanted to know why she should believe in a loving, benevolent, all-powerful and merciful God when the signs of hatred, pride, envy, lust, violence, greed, and selfishness are all around us. Indeed, they’ve invaded the very fibers of our society. I had to admit her question was valid.
“I asked if I could get back with her. I needed to ponder this question, and I knew her soul hung in the balance. If I gave her an answer she considered trite or condescending, she’d turn away faster than Sadie Simms’ chickens light out when the gate’s open.” Laughter erupted around the sanctuary. Everyone in Road’s End, at one time or another, has had a run-in with Sadie’s meandering flock.
“A pastor is often asked difficult questions. This is nothing new. Folks have been asking these questions of their spiritual leaders for centuries and will no doubt continue to do so until the Lord comes to get us. For some reason, people seem to think that those who stand behind pulpits have all the answers to the hard questions, or at least a shortcut to finding those answers.
“Ha! The truth is I’m just as much in the dark about God’s ways as you are. But I—and you, his faithful children—have His Word to guide us and that’s what makes all the difference for us. We have His assurances, His promises, His eternal love and grace to wrap around us, to protect us against the sins of the world and our own tendencies to reveal our sinful selves. We have the inside track.
“Because I stand before you in this pulpit, and because Pastor Parry did for forty years before me, and because it’s my duty as your leader to be as learned as I can about God’s Word, I study the Bible. I can say with absolute assurance that Pastor Parry does, too.” I waved my arm toward the pastor, and he nodded his agreement and held his Bible up for all to see. I continued. “I pray to our Lord. I listen for His voice, I immerse myself in thoughts of Him, in His Word, in His glory. It’s what I do; it’s how I get through the day. I’d do this even if I weren’t your pastor or hadn’t been a chaplain in the Air Force for the past twenty-seven years. Like many of you, I was raised in the church and wouldn’t know how to live my life without including His infallible Word in my daily walk with Him.
“Many of you do the same, I know, and perhaps you could answer this dear lady’s question better than I. After all, many of you have lived longer, accumulated more knowledge, accrued more wisdom, faced more experiences, stared down the devil and put on the armor of God on more occasions than I have. You know that life is one hard thing after another, punctuated now and again by a joyous occasion—just often enough, it seems, to keep us on the sane side of the ledger. We all know that if it weren’t for those good times occurring once in a while we’d all end up in the corner, sucking our thumbs, and bawling our eyes out. We’d be heartbroken, frightened, lost, hopeless sinners. We’d be sore afraid.
“Back to the question. I guess the only way I can answer this dear lady truthfully is to ask a question of her in return. So here it is. How can you not believe? How can a reasonably intelligent person not come to the conclusion that God does indeed exist, that He guides our every step, that He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for the sins of all mankind, and that after Christ rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God, Our Father sent the Holy Spirit to watch over us and help us make the decisions that are required of us daily? I repeat: How can you not believe?
“Let me ask you this. If you were offered the challenge of proving that one of the following statements was true, which would you choose? Or put another way, which of these statements would you not want to have to prove?
“Ready? Here they are:
“God exists.
“God does not exist.
“If it were me, I know I’d have an impossible time proving that God does not exist. In fact, I couldn’t. For in order to prove that God does not exist, that He did not send His Son to earth as a man—yet still fully God—to save us, I’d have to disprove hundreds of proven facts, disregard documented historical events, ignore the coming to pass of hundreds of prophecies. I’d have to assert that the Bible and its writers—spread over centuries—all conspired to write letters, psalms, proverbs, prophesies, and other accounts that would ultimately make up our Bible. Think of the scope of that conspiracy! Each person who had a hand in writing the Word of God, and many of the other documents unearthed from that time, would have had to “know” what every other person had written or was going to write in the future—before the advent of modern technology—and then agree to conspire with one another to make it all match.
“I’d have to look into the faces of my newborn children and grandchildren and pretend I didn’t see that spark of divinity in his or her eyes, or feel that unmistakable awareness that a miracle has just happened. I’d have to convince myself that those cells inexplicably multiplied in such a way that his or her heart and brain and lungs and liver, eyes, arms, legs, ears, and fingers—all of them came about through sheer coincidence, luck, and happenstance.
“I’d have to ignore the miracles that happen around me every single day; things that occur on such a regular basis as to be nearly unnoticeable. The sun stays suspended, the moon keeps its distance from the earth and doesn’t crash into us helter-skelter, the tide goes in, the tide goes out, the billions upon billions of stars float in the heavens above, the earth itself stays in its assigned orbit around the sun, the other planets in our solar system are positioned where they are—and indeed stay where they belong—in order for the earth to exist and continue to support life. Do you know that it’s estimated—and this is a conservative estimate, mind you—that if the stars in the universe were divided among every person on earth, around 6.5 billion of us, we’d all have billions, perhaps trillions of stars for our very own? Think about it!
“So to take this idea—in this make-believe world where there is no God—and run with it, I’d have to believe this: the utter chaos and devastation resulting from such turmoil is averted on a daily basis by mere chance, because in this make-believe world, God isn’t around to keep things under control. He’s not here to knit our bodies together, to keep our universe in working order, to heal or love or guide or console us. He isn’t around to save our souls for all eternity. So if I believe there is no God, I must also believe that the absence of that inevitable chaos, the chaos that would result in an existence without a Heavenly Father, is a colossal accident in itself—a coincidence of such enormous proportio
ns as to stagger the imagination. Things just happen to work together for our good; the universe just happens to keep ticking, as do our hearts, by the way. And then after all this stuff just happens to occur, we die. That’s it. It’s all over. There’s no purpose to living, no life after death, no judgment, no salvation. We live for a speck on the timeline of eternity—with no purpose to our lives—then we die. The end.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m not brave enough or smart enough or stupid enough to live in a world without God. I need my Creator; I need my Savior, Jesus Christ; I need the Holy Spirit to get me through my days and nights. I need to know I’m not going to be snuffed out forever the second my heart stops beating, that I’m going to once more be with my loved ones who died in Christ, that I’m going to spend eternity with our Heavenly Father. I need to believe in salvation, in divine justice, in an all-powerful God, in the knowledge that I am a part of the precious body of Christ.
“So in closing, I guess my answer to our dear lady friend would be simply this: I cannot fathom a world in which our Lord does not exist. He reminds me every morning, with every ray of sunshine or droplet of rain, every passing cloud or snowfall or streak of lightning, every star-studded night, every time I draw a breath or see a child, hear a bird warbling or pet a purring cat, chase a chicken, or gather with friends and loved ones in churches and homes around the world. He reminds me of His unending love and awesome power and endless grace and infinite wisdom.
“Yes, God exists. He exists because nothing makes sense without Him. If you haven’t yet accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, let me beg you to do that today. Cast your burdens upon Him, shed your sins, change your life forever, and live eternally in the presence of our Heavenly Father. Shall we pray?”
There was a quiet shuffling of feet and repositioning of bodies as the congregation bowed their heads. “Heavenly Father, we thank You today for Your bountiful love, Your everlasting generosity, Your awesome power, and Your perfect grace. We beseech You to soften the hearts of those in this congregation who have not yet accepted Your Son, Jesus Christ, as their Lord and Savior, to beckon them to Your side, and to instill in them a deep desire to know You eternally. We also ask for Your help, Lord, in finding ways to save this fine church, to bring more souls to You, to rejuvenate the spirit and love that have guided this church and its congregation for so many years. In Your Precious Son’s name, we pray. Amen.”
Following our closing hymn, I addressed the congregation once more. “Don’t forget, folks. Tonight we’re holding our first annual live Nativity right out here behind the church, just beyond the parking lot. We have some surprises in store for you, so don’t worry about the cold—just bundle up, bring anyone you can find to enjoy this special program with you, and plan to have a wonderful Christmas Eve. The ladies of our Christ Is Lord Ladies Circle will be selling hot refreshments—coffee, tea, hot chocolate—and Sadie Simms will have lots of her inimitable baked goods on hand for purchase, as well. This would be a good time to stock up on your holiday goodies while doing the church a big favor by contributing to its rebuilding fund. See you all tonight. God bless.”
The scuffling began as folks stood up, stretched, and started working their way out of the pews and down the aisle to the back of the church. “Oh wait, folks. I almost forgot. Following the program, we’ll hold a short candlelight Christmas Eve service right here in the sanctuary. Nice way to end the evening. We’ll be singing some beautiful Christmas hymns and we’ll be accompanied on the piano by none other than our very own Ruby Headley.” I pointed in the general direction of the flower garden that was bobbing its way along the length of a pew in the middle of the sanctuary. Ruby stopped and waved to her adoring public with one hand, while hanging on to the blooming acreage above her with the other.
I followed my parishioners down the aisle and into the foyer. While they grabbed their coats and said their good-byes to one another, I opened the door and stood ready to shake hands as they left the church and began their trek home. A frosty chill filled the room almost immediately, but the sun glimmered off the crystalline surface of the churchyard. It was glorious. I looked behind me to check on Roscoe just beyond the wrought iron fence. Only the arrow-tipped tops of its balusters were visible above the snow and as I suspected, Roscoe was covered, with only a small hump rising above the level of the rest of the white layer to show where he lay on his back. “We’ll do something soon, Roscoe,” I promised. But just what did I think I could do?
I spent the next few minutes shaking hands, exchanging pleasantries, and repeating my earlier invitation to the evening’s festivities. Bristol was the last one out, and he volunteered to lock up the church. “I’ll be over in a little while, Pastor,” he said. “Gotta get fitted for my costume, you know.” Bristol was playing the part of Joseph. The decision to award him that all-important part was a unanimous one; apparently if you save an entire town from gun-toting, drug-dealing, senior citizen-kidnapping bad guys, you get plum parts in local Nativity productions. Go figure.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Twenty minutes later, Melanie and I were on our way back home, walking in the same footprints we’d made on the way over.
“That was a wonderful sermon,” Melanie said.
“Thanks. I worried that I was covering old ground with a lot of these folks, but I guess we all need reminding every once in a while just why we fell in love with the Lord in the first place.”
Nearby, a shower of snow leaped to the ground from a branch high above our heads. It landed beside me, pressing a delicate pattern into the smooth layer of snow below it. It reminded me of the lacy pattern of confectioner’s sugar my mother used to sprinkle through a paper doily over warm gingerbread. “You didn’t see Emma, did you?”
Mel didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “No, I didn’t.” She stopped and put her hand on my arm. I stood still and looked down at her. “But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there somewhere.”
“It’s not that big a church, hon. Where was she? Crouching under a pew?”
Mel smiled. “Maybe not, but with Emma, you never know. Besides, if she wasn’t there today, there’ll be other times. The Lord knows what He’s doing.”
“It’s not the Lord I’m worried about. It’s me. I’ve led a lot of folks to Christ, but many of them were getting ready to go to war, and that’s a big incentive. Emma’s pretty set in her ways. Who knows? She might never make the right decision.”
We started walking again, this time holding hands. I gave up trying to walk in my old footprints and scuffed my way through the snow, sending little arcs ahead of me that caught the sunlight and reflected rainbow colors back at me. “And maybe she already has,” Mel said. “You’re just the messenger here. You bring her the message, and God will imprint it on her heart. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Mel was right. All I could do was do all I could do. It was that simple. I hoped I’d see Emma later that night at the Nativity, but there were no guarantees there, either. She might come out of curiosity, and she might just as well stay home. Perhaps she’d had enough of the eccentric folks of Road’s End, not that she didn’t have some odd tendencies of her own. But compared to a few of these folks, Emma River was downright boring.
The afternoon was spent mediating arguments between Winnie and Sadie, George and Dewey, Winnie and Dewey, Martha and Sadie, and any other combination of Road Enders I could imagine. Mel and I weren’t alone from the moment we stepped inside the inn to the moment we left for the Nativity. I felt as if we were running a daycare program for tall, white-haired, opinionated preschoolers.
Somehow, The Inn at Road’s End had turned into “Nativity Central” and there was no escaping the activities going on all around me. Winnie, who apparently chaired the whole thing, although that might have been a self-made appointment, was making her last-minute casting decisions. I argued with her for twenty minutes, but couldn’t get out of the role of innkeeper. “It just makes so much sense, Pastor,” s
he said, patting me on the back with one hand and holding a cloth tape measure with the other as she eyed my frame. “Get it? You own an inn; we need an innkeeper.”
“Yes, Winnie, I get it, but I’ll have plenty of chances to be the innkeeper. Why don’t we give this role to one of the other men here? How about Leo? Or George? Dewey? Or Bristol! How about Bristol?”
“Bristol’s playing Joseph.”
Right.
She pointed to each of the men in turn. “Leo’s a wise man,” she said.
Leo nodded his head and puffed out a squiggle.
“George is the head shepherd.” George nodded gravely
“And Dewey … well, my Dewey is in charge of something very special this year.”
Dewey gave me a little two-fingered salute. I briefly wondered what that role might be, but my mind was still stuck on getting out of being the innkeeper.
“Frank?” I said half-heartedly.
Winnie just gave me that look that women give you when they know you know they know you’re being stupid.
“Okay, okay, I’ll be the innkeeper. But if anyone else steps forward and wants the part, it’s all his, okay?”
“Agreed.” Winnie had already turned around and was giving my measurements to Martha who was holding up a colored sheet, or a shower curtain—couldn’t quite tell—to my face.
“I think this one will do very nicely, Pastor,” Martha said. “Matches your eyes.”
Misstep (The Road's End Series Book 1) Page 27