The End And The Beginning
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"The End and the Beginning" by Keith Hewitt
"John's Disciples become Jesus' Disciples" by Larry Winebrenner
"To the Great Assembly" by Larry Winebrenner
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Isaiah tells us that God can call us even before we're born. We are given great gifts that we can use in God's service, but do we always recognize those gifts? And do we always recognize the call? Sometimes it's a matter of perspective, more easily seen by someone other than ourselves. Keith Hewitt shows us one man who's confronted with those questions in his story, "The End and the Beginning."
The End and the Beginning
Keith Hewitt
Isaiah 49:1-7
"So, vat are you going to do?"
Jamison Lee stared down at the pile at his feet and wondered the same thing. Strange, how four years of campaigns and forced marches could accumulate so much baggage, like physical manifestations of the memories that he carried -- some good, others like Mississippi mud that clung to his boots and dared him to scrape them off. Here, a picture of Jamison and his staff at the courthouse in Port William, taken by that Brady fellow; there, a three-volume history of the Punic Wars, a gift from the general who had written it twenty years before -- a deadly dull, unscholarly work that had attached itself to his kit and followed him from camp to camp, state to state, like a faithful dog that wouldn't allow itself to be abandoned in the woods.
"I suppose I will take whatever I can fit in my two trunks, and donate the rest to whoever wants it," he answered.
"Nein," Friedrich Gottschalk said, shaking his head. "I mean, vat are you going to do now -- now that the war is over?" He nodded toward the train, which was taking on water and coal for the journey north. "Ve all used to talk about 'ven this war is over' -- and now, all of a sudden, it is. Ve start home today."
"Ah, now I see. I thought, perhaps, you had some advice to offer about how to travel with all this gear now that we're without horses."
His friend and adjutant smiled and shook his head slightly. "I vould not presume to offer advice about caring for such treasures, Colonel."
"You're a wise man, Fritz."
Friedrich nodded and etched a thin-lipped smile across his narrow face. "As you say, sir."
Jamison poked at the pile with one booted toe, shoved a few things from here to there. "I don't rightly know what I'm going to do, to be honest. I'm pretty sure I can't go back to being a bookkeeper again. After everything that's happened, I can't imagine spending the rest of my life imprisoned in an office with a bunch of ledgers. That all seems so pointless, now."
Friedrich nodded again, his expression more somber. "I understand."
"I was thinking about trying my hand at farming. I could sell my house and buy a farm -- I think there would be something refreshingly simple about the problems of farming: planting, watering, harvesting... and there are probably a lot of farms for sale, these days." A lot of good men are not going home, and we can pick at their leavings; the thought disturbed him at a visceral level, but he pushed it aside.
"I can tell you of four, at least, outside of Hafen-Stadt," Friedrich agreed.
Neither man spoke the names, but Jamison's eyes shifted down, touched the leather-bound Bible that sat in a small open chest. They would be in there. The cream colored flyleaves of that volume were filled with columns of names, written as small as could be read by lantern light. The writing had to be small, because there were so many. One hundred ninety-seven with the notation (K), for killed in action; another 212 with a (D), for died of other causes. His son's name was first; the last was a private from Fort Neshotah, dead of cholera two months after Appomattox.
That one was squeezed in on the last page, written sideways in the right margin. He had thought there would be no more names to write, and then...
There was a long silence, then Friedrich continued. "It is beautiful country, and the land is fertile -- but farming is not as easy as you might think. I know of more than one farm that was struggling before the war. I do not imagine it is any easier now."
"I don't care if it's hard -- I just want something besides this."
Friedrich nodded slowly, his eyes now on the mass of troops milling around on the far side of the town square. They were in uniform and armed -- but with every day, every week since the war had ended, they had drifted further and further from being an army. Officers and sergeants walked among them, trying to get them organized to march to the dock for the first stage of their journey back to Wisconsin.
"Look at them," he said, nodding toward the men. "It reminds me of the first muster, back at Fort Neshotah. They ver an undisciplined lot, back then."
Jamison smiled. "They were. But they learned quickly."
"They had a good teacher. But you know vat I realize now, vatching them?"
Jamison shook his head, looked at him curiously.
"You could valk into that mob right now and have them in parade formation in five minutes."
Jamison looked away. "I don't know about that."
"I do. Since that first day, back at Fort Neshotah, you have been their leader. Sometimes you inspire, sometimes you explain, sometimes you even put the fear of God into them -- but you lead. You change how you approach them by the situation, by the personalities involved, but you always manage to make the right choice for the moment. It is a gift, Colonel. My uncle would say it is a God-given gift."
Jamison said nothing, at first, just stared across the square. Here and there, men were starting to form up -- but it was still chaotic. "They're good men, Fritz. They just need direction."
Friedrich hesitated. "May I speak freely, Colonel?"
Jamison blinked, turned to his friend. "Only if you don't call me 'Colonel' again. We are on our way to being civilians, again. I want to start getting used to it."
Friedrich bowed slightly, a deferential dip from the waist. "Then let me say this, Col -- Chamison. You can lead men into Hell, you haf proven it many times over the last four years. Maybe it is time for you to lead men away from it."
Jamison's eyebrows crawled together. "Beg your pardon?"
"I am saying I don't see you as a farmer, Chamison. But I think you vould make an excellent minister."
Jamison studied his friend's face for a moment, tried to discern if he was joking, then started to laugh -- laughed until tears came to his eyes. Friedrich just watched, impassively, until Jamison pulled himself together with obvious effort, dabbed at his eyes with a bandana tugged from his coat pocket. "Fritz, even after four years, you can still manage to surprise me. Thank you -- that was very funny."
"I was serious, Colonel."
Jamison looked at him in amazement. "Then you are mad. No offense, Fritz."
Friedrich smiled, then. "None taken."
"Why would you suggest something like that? Even if it was something I wanted to do, I am so far from being right with God that I would be the last man you'd want in a pulpit."
"You haf the spark, Chamison -- you are a born leader. God gave you that gift. And you haf been through this --" he waved a hand at the troops, and the world beyond them, and all the times behind them, "and it has made you different from vat you were. More than what you were. My uncle said that war changes all men -- some it destroys, some it makes better."
"I don't feel better, Fritz."
"You haf seen the worst of men, Chamison, the worst that we can do. I think it has helped you to see how men could do better. My uncle said that God chooses some of us in the womb. He gives us gifts and experiences that act like fire, to temper us and make us stronger, and like a whetstone, to sharpen our skills. And ven all is said and done, he has a servant."
Jamison Lee pondered this idea for about all the time it was worth -- perhaps a second or two -- and then he shook his head. "With all due respect to your uncle, Fritz, I am nothing special. I'm just a man who had a job to do. And when I'm done with it, I'll find another job. I am many things, Fritz, but a man of God is not one of them. You're just wrong on this one."
Fritz looked back at him impassively; then gave a quick nod of his head. "As you say Colonel -- Chamison."
They looked at one another in awkward silence for a moment or two, and then Jamison took out his watch, flipped it open to check the time, and slipped it back into his pocket. "Well, we're supposed to be getting underway soon. I suppose we'd better get these guys organized."
And with that, he walked toward the mass of men on the other side of the square. Friedrich Gottschalk stood in place, watched as Jamison waded into the men, and with a few commands and a bit of pointing began to transform them into orderly ranks and files. He watched order form from chaos, and quoted softly, "He has hidden me in the shadow of his hand. I am like a sharp arrow in his quiver."
Somewhere, the whistle sounded -- the first warning -- and men began to march toward the station. Friedrich watched the column and smiled. "Wrong my ass, Colonel. You are coming out of the shadow -- it's just a matter of time."
Soon enough, it would be time for the arrow to fly.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children.
John's Disciples become Jesus' Disciples
Larry Winebrenner
John 1:29-42
It was still 10 Tevet 3791. And they were still at the same ford on the River Jordan. But John had stopped baptizing. He was sensible, knowing some of the folks in the crowd needed time to walk home before dark.
Besides, at this hour every day he went to the altar he had built from the surrounding stones. His chapel was a chapel of the mind. He shut everything out but God. His prayer time was his period of conversation with God. Nothing could penetrate that relationship. It was said, "When God and John are in communion, John wouldn't even notice a hail storm."
Although Jimmie had announced his intention of returning home to Andy, something held him there at the ford. Something was going to happen. To him. And Andy.
"I'd better not start home now," Jimmy told Andy. "It's too late in the day."
"You feel it, too," said Andy.
Jimmy stared at him maybe a full minute. His voice was hoarse when he spoke.
"Feel what," he whispered.
"What you felt. The reason you didn't start out for home today. C'mon. You know what I mean."
Jimmy glanced around. Although no one else was near, no one within 100 paces, he moved closer to Andy.
"Shhhh. You'll get us accused of witchcraft. Remember what happened to Joel? Just because he could predict changes in the weather."
Andy laughed. He was a laugh-er. He could even see humor in a caterpillar climbing the side of a tree.
"The old coot claimed it was because of his toes. When they hurt, the weather was about to change."
"And they wanted to cut his toes off!"
Jimmy swept the area with his eyes.
"So you know why I'm nervous when you talk like that," he said.
Andy sobered up. He loved this fishing partner. The guy really wasn't a nervous Nellie. Andy had seen him haul a full net aboard during a sudden unpredictable tempest. Joel could have been a great asset that time, he thought. No. Jimmy wasn't easily frightened.
It must be the strange place. And the baptism they'd had that day. And the way the baptizer looked and spoke to them.
He noticed that John had finished his prayer vigil and was sitting with three men. The crowd had drifted away when John had begun to pray -- the Pharisees and Sadducees back to the temple. To report to the temple authorities, no doubt. The soldier had returned to their barracks. Maybe they had reports to make, also.
"Come on, Jimmy," he said. "He's about to teach. I want to hear him."
"He might chase us away."
"We'll never know unless we try," was Andy's reply.
As they approached, a less fiery, but no less intense, teacher paused and looked up.
"I wondered when you'd get here," he said. "I've saved the best until you arrived. Have a seat."
One of the men sitting there gave the newcomers a thorough inspection. He didn't seem to approve of what he saw. He turned back to John. "How can you say the Son of God is coming in our lifetime?"
"Because I baptized him."
"Hah!" spit out the questioner. "The Son of God surely needed baptizing."
John smiled.
"My thought exactly. This was some forty days ago. I told him, 'I should be baptized by you.' He said, 'Baptize me. This is the way it must be.' So I baptized him. As he came up out if the water, I saw God's Holy Spirit descend on him. Like a dove floating down. Covering him like a fish net."
He looked at Jimmy and Andy and smiled.
"And I heard a voice from heaven say, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' And he left. Like one being driven. He fled into the wilderness."
"Wilderness?" queried the questioner.
"To be tested, I would say."
The man stood up.
"They say you are mad. I didn't believe it. I will learn from this man how to be holy I told myself. But John Bar Zachariah, you are mad. And a blasphemer!"
He stalked away.
Andy, Jimmy, and the two other men stayed until dark. They built a small fire and stayed all night with John. They fell asleep one by one. And finally, the fire itself slept.
The next day, as they waited for John to finish his morning prayers and for the crowd to gather, a man walked past them. He was emaciated, but walked erect as a soldier. No. There was something regal about him. There was something about him that....
"Do you feel it again?" asked Andy.
"Shhhh," cautioned Jimmy.
They both jumped in surprise as John declared, "Look, the Lamb of God!"
They had not noticed John coming up behind them as they saw Jesus walking by.
They turned when John spoke. He nodded his head. They began to follow Jesus.
Jesus walked a ways. He realized that he was being followed. He turned around.
They stopped, waiting to see what Jesus would say. They simply couldn't bring themselves to speak to the Messiah -- the Son of God.
Jesus smiled. He indicated they were to approach. To come closer. It was a welcoming gesture.
"What do you want?" he asked, with kindness, as if asking a child.
Andy asked, "Rabbi (which means "Teacher"), where are you staying?"
It wasn't simply an idle question, seeking information. It was a question of acceptance.
"Come," he replied, "and you will see."
They were welcome to follow him! So they went and saw where he was staying. They spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.
Andy thought of his brother Simon. The big, energetic man wasn't a religious man. He paid his temple tax annually. He didn't fish on the sabbath. He was faithful to his wife. But religion generally played little part in his life.
The first thing Andy did, after spending the night with Jesus and listening to his stories about the kingdom the Messiah would establish, was to find his brother.
"We have found the Messiah (that is, the Christ). Come and meet him."
"Now what?" said Simon. "You are a religious nut."
But he followed at his brother's insistence. They traversed the crooked streets of Bethsaida and soon arrived at Jesus' house.
Jesus looked at him and quickly sized up this hard-headed fisherman. He said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated from Aramaic, their speech, to Greek, is Peter).
Cephas said, "Rocky. Yeah. I like that. Glad to meet you, Rabbi, but if you'll excuse us, Andy left all the work to me. He has to come home now."
He was totally unimpressed. A condition about to be changed a week hence when Jesus taught while sitting in Rocky's boat.
To the Great Assembly
Larry Winebrenner
Psalm 40
Little Rebecca crawled up into her grandfather's lap. It was her favorite resting place.
"Grampa," she said. "Tell me the story again."
The story was not a twice-told tale. It was a many-times-told tale. Told to his children. Told to his grandchildren. Told to his friends. Especially those in church. Unlike the children, they got tired "after the umpteenth time." No matter. There was always someone new to hear it.
"It happened back in the 1940s," he told her. "In the South Pacific. That's part of the world's largest ocean."
"I know, Grampa."
"Well, if you know the story, maybe I should let you tell it to me," chuckled Grampa.
Rebecca could. His telling was like a record. She had heard it enough that she knew it word for word by heart. But she liked to hear him tell it.
"No! You tell it," she cried.
He cleared his throat.
"It was typhoon season -- the worst time in the world for a landing. The little island didn't seem worth the trouble, but the big brass wanted it. Trouble is, the Japanese didn't want to give it up."
"The Japs was the enemy," she said.
"We called them that back then, but that's not a nice way to refer to them. We don't call them that any more."
This wasn't part of the story. She was sorry she interrupted. She told Grampa she was.
"We had dug in. Making foxholes to hide in. Hoping no mortar shell or grenade would fall on us. We were pinned down by a machine gun. It had stopped shooting because it couldn't hit us in our foxholes. We couldn't stand up because of the machine gun and the sharp-shooting soldiers.
"The rain made our foxholes more like mud holes. It was wet and cold and dirty. I hummed and mumbled some words I remembered from worship services -- 'A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.'
"I even remembered the opening words of Psalm 40 and muttered them to myself. Hopefully.
"I waited patiently for the LORD; God turned to me and heard my cry. The LORD lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; God set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand."
"I don't know where that came from. Some deep, dark crevices of my memory. Brought to the surface by the slimy pit I found myself in.
"Then I heard a voice say, 'Get up, Samuel. I'll be with you.'
"Now, you don't just get up with a machine gunner and sharp-shooting soldiers waiting for you to show yourself. No matter how uncomfortable you are.
"Again, the voice said, 'Get up, Samuel. I'll be with you.'
"I placed my helmet on the tip of my rifle barrel and raised it until the top of it could be seen by the enemy.
"Nothing happened.
"I raised it higher.
"Still nothing.
"I lowered it and put it back on my head. I peeped over the edge of the foxhole. I'd dug it next to a large shelf of coral. It was a very safe place. Only a direct hit by a mortar shell or a grenade could damage me.
" 'Get up, Samuel. I'll be with you,' said the voice for the third time."
Rebecca squirmed. She had a question. But she didn't want to interrupt Grampa's story.
"Was that God talking to you?" she whispered.
He ignored her and continued with his story.
"I stood up. No shots, I climbed out of the 'miry pit.' I stood on the coral shelf. I was completely exposed to the enemy. They took no notice.
"For ten seconds. Then, pandemonium broke out. Bullets whizzed past my head like hornets from a disturbed nest. Bullets to the left. Bullets to the right. I started to dive headfirst into my mud hole.
"Then I was hit. A bullet grazed my helmet. It sounded like the helmet had been hit by a sledge hammer. It felt like it, too. My bell had been rung. I was knocked to the ground.
"Before I came to my senses, the machine gun fire began sending volleys of bullets over me. I guess they thought I was dead and there was no use wasting shots in a dead body.
"But I saw where the bullets were coming from. I eased my arm over and my hand to a grenade in my belt. I moved the grenade so I could grasp the pin with the other hand. I flung the deadly missile at the tongues of fire that announced the gun's presence. I rolled over into my foxhole.
"The exploding grenade not only silenced the machine gun. It also silenced the rifles momentarily. My buddies and I swarmed over the protective barrier the enemy had set up.
"They were so startled at our sudden appearance that they threw their weapons to the ground and raised their hands."
He tousled her hair.
She giggled and said, "Stop."
"Okay." he said. "But only after I read you Psalm 40."
She snuggled down, ready to listen. She loved the way her grandfather read the Bible. Just like he was there.
Larry Winebrenner is now retired and living in Miami Gardens, Florida. He taught for 33 years at Miami-Dade Community College, and served as pastor of churches in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Larry is currently active at First United Methodist Church in downtown Miami, where he leads discussion in an adult fellowship group on Sunday mornings and preaches occasionally. He has authored two college textbooks, written four novels, served as an editor for three newspapers and an academic journal, and contributed articles to several magazines.
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StoryShare, January 16, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"The End and the Beginning" by Keith Hewitt
"John's Disciples become Jesus' Disciples" by Larry Winebrenner
"To the Great Assembly" by Larry Winebrenner
* * * * * * * *
Isaiah tells us that God can call us even before we're born. We are given great gifts that we can use in God's service, but do we always recognize those gifts? And do we always recognize the call? Sometimes it's a matter of perspective, more easily seen by someone other than ourselves. Keith Hewitt shows us one man who's confronted with those questions in his story, "The End and the Beginning."
The End and the Beginning
Keith Hewitt
Isaiah 49:1-7
"So, vat are you going to do?"
Jamison Lee stared down at the pile at his feet and wondered the same thing. Strange, how four years of campaigns and forced marches could accumulate so much baggage, like physical manifestations of the memories that he carried -- some good, others like Mississippi mud that clung to his boots and dared him to scrape them off. Here, a picture of Jamison and his staff at the courthouse in Port William, taken by that Brady fellow; there, a three-volume history of the Punic Wars, a gift from the general who had written it twenty years before -- a deadly dull, unscholarly work that had attached itself to his kit and followed him from camp to camp, state to state, like a faithful dog that wouldn't allow itself to be abandoned in the woods.
"I suppose I will take whatever I can fit in my two trunks, and donate the rest to whoever wants it," he answered.
"Nein," Friedrich Gottschalk said, shaking his head. "I mean, vat are you going to do now -- now that the war is over?" He nodded toward the train, which was taking on water and coal for the journey north. "Ve all used to talk about 'ven this war is over' -- and now, all of a sudden, it is. Ve start home today."
"Ah, now I see. I thought, perhaps, you had some advice to offer about how to travel with all this gear now that we're without horses."
His friend and adjutant smiled and shook his head slightly. "I vould not presume to offer advice about caring for such treasures, Colonel."
"You're a wise man, Fritz."
Friedrich nodded and etched a thin-lipped smile across his narrow face. "As you say, sir."
Jamison poked at the pile with one booted toe, shoved a few things from here to there. "I don't rightly know what I'm going to do, to be honest. I'm pretty sure I can't go back to being a bookkeeper again. After everything that's happened, I can't imagine spending the rest of my life imprisoned in an office with a bunch of ledgers. That all seems so pointless, now."
Friedrich nodded again, his expression more somber. "I understand."
"I was thinking about trying my hand at farming. I could sell my house and buy a farm -- I think there would be something refreshingly simple about the problems of farming: planting, watering, harvesting... and there are probably a lot of farms for sale, these days." A lot of good men are not going home, and we can pick at their leavings; the thought disturbed him at a visceral level, but he pushed it aside.
"I can tell you of four, at least, outside of Hafen-Stadt," Friedrich agreed.
Neither man spoke the names, but Jamison's eyes shifted down, touched the leather-bound Bible that sat in a small open chest. They would be in there. The cream colored flyleaves of that volume were filled with columns of names, written as small as could be read by lantern light. The writing had to be small, because there were so many. One hundred ninety-seven with the notation (K), for killed in action; another 212 with a (D), for died of other causes. His son's name was first; the last was a private from Fort Neshotah, dead of cholera two months after Appomattox.
That one was squeezed in on the last page, written sideways in the right margin. He had thought there would be no more names to write, and then...
There was a long silence, then Friedrich continued. "It is beautiful country, and the land is fertile -- but farming is not as easy as you might think. I know of more than one farm that was struggling before the war. I do not imagine it is any easier now."
"I don't care if it's hard -- I just want something besides this."
Friedrich nodded slowly, his eyes now on the mass of troops milling around on the far side of the town square. They were in uniform and armed -- but with every day, every week since the war had ended, they had drifted further and further from being an army. Officers and sergeants walked among them, trying to get them organized to march to the dock for the first stage of their journey back to Wisconsin.
"Look at them," he said, nodding toward the men. "It reminds me of the first muster, back at Fort Neshotah. They ver an undisciplined lot, back then."
Jamison smiled. "They were. But they learned quickly."
"They had a good teacher. But you know vat I realize now, vatching them?"
Jamison shook his head, looked at him curiously.
"You could valk into that mob right now and have them in parade formation in five minutes."
Jamison looked away. "I don't know about that."
"I do. Since that first day, back at Fort Neshotah, you have been their leader. Sometimes you inspire, sometimes you explain, sometimes you even put the fear of God into them -- but you lead. You change how you approach them by the situation, by the personalities involved, but you always manage to make the right choice for the moment. It is a gift, Colonel. My uncle would say it is a God-given gift."
Jamison said nothing, at first, just stared across the square. Here and there, men were starting to form up -- but it was still chaotic. "They're good men, Fritz. They just need direction."
Friedrich hesitated. "May I speak freely, Colonel?"
Jamison blinked, turned to his friend. "Only if you don't call me 'Colonel' again. We are on our way to being civilians, again. I want to start getting used to it."
Friedrich bowed slightly, a deferential dip from the waist. "Then let me say this, Col -- Chamison. You can lead men into Hell, you haf proven it many times over the last four years. Maybe it is time for you to lead men away from it."
Jamison's eyebrows crawled together. "Beg your pardon?"
"I am saying I don't see you as a farmer, Chamison. But I think you vould make an excellent minister."
Jamison studied his friend's face for a moment, tried to discern if he was joking, then started to laugh -- laughed until tears came to his eyes. Friedrich just watched, impassively, until Jamison pulled himself together with obvious effort, dabbed at his eyes with a bandana tugged from his coat pocket. "Fritz, even after four years, you can still manage to surprise me. Thank you -- that was very funny."
"I was serious, Colonel."
Jamison looked at him in amazement. "Then you are mad. No offense, Fritz."
Friedrich smiled, then. "None taken."
"Why would you suggest something like that? Even if it was something I wanted to do, I am so far from being right with God that I would be the last man you'd want in a pulpit."
"You haf the spark, Chamison -- you are a born leader. God gave you that gift. And you haf been through this --" he waved a hand at the troops, and the world beyond them, and all the times behind them, "and it has made you different from vat you were. More than what you were. My uncle said that war changes all men -- some it destroys, some it makes better."
"I don't feel better, Fritz."
"You haf seen the worst of men, Chamison, the worst that we can do. I think it has helped you to see how men could do better. My uncle said that God chooses some of us in the womb. He gives us gifts and experiences that act like fire, to temper us and make us stronger, and like a whetstone, to sharpen our skills. And ven all is said and done, he has a servant."
Jamison Lee pondered this idea for about all the time it was worth -- perhaps a second or two -- and then he shook his head. "With all due respect to your uncle, Fritz, I am nothing special. I'm just a man who had a job to do. And when I'm done with it, I'll find another job. I am many things, Fritz, but a man of God is not one of them. You're just wrong on this one."
Fritz looked back at him impassively; then gave a quick nod of his head. "As you say Colonel -- Chamison."
They looked at one another in awkward silence for a moment or two, and then Jamison took out his watch, flipped it open to check the time, and slipped it back into his pocket. "Well, we're supposed to be getting underway soon. I suppose we'd better get these guys organized."
And with that, he walked toward the mass of men on the other side of the square. Friedrich Gottschalk stood in place, watched as Jamison waded into the men, and with a few commands and a bit of pointing began to transform them into orderly ranks and files. He watched order form from chaos, and quoted softly, "He has hidden me in the shadow of his hand. I am like a sharp arrow in his quiver."
Somewhere, the whistle sounded -- the first warning -- and men began to march toward the station. Friedrich watched the column and smiled. "Wrong my ass, Colonel. You are coming out of the shadow -- it's just a matter of time."
Soon enough, it would be time for the arrow to fly.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children.
John's Disciples become Jesus' Disciples
Larry Winebrenner
John 1:29-42
It was still 10 Tevet 3791. And they were still at the same ford on the River Jordan. But John had stopped baptizing. He was sensible, knowing some of the folks in the crowd needed time to walk home before dark.
Besides, at this hour every day he went to the altar he had built from the surrounding stones. His chapel was a chapel of the mind. He shut everything out but God. His prayer time was his period of conversation with God. Nothing could penetrate that relationship. It was said, "When God and John are in communion, John wouldn't even notice a hail storm."
Although Jimmie had announced his intention of returning home to Andy, something held him there at the ford. Something was going to happen. To him. And Andy.
"I'd better not start home now," Jimmy told Andy. "It's too late in the day."
"You feel it, too," said Andy.
Jimmy stared at him maybe a full minute. His voice was hoarse when he spoke.
"Feel what," he whispered.
"What you felt. The reason you didn't start out for home today. C'mon. You know what I mean."
Jimmy glanced around. Although no one else was near, no one within 100 paces, he moved closer to Andy.
"Shhhh. You'll get us accused of witchcraft. Remember what happened to Joel? Just because he could predict changes in the weather."
Andy laughed. He was a laugh-er. He could even see humor in a caterpillar climbing the side of a tree.
"The old coot claimed it was because of his toes. When they hurt, the weather was about to change."
"And they wanted to cut his toes off!"
Jimmy swept the area with his eyes.
"So you know why I'm nervous when you talk like that," he said.
Andy sobered up. He loved this fishing partner. The guy really wasn't a nervous Nellie. Andy had seen him haul a full net aboard during a sudden unpredictable tempest. Joel could have been a great asset that time, he thought. No. Jimmy wasn't easily frightened.
It must be the strange place. And the baptism they'd had that day. And the way the baptizer looked and spoke to them.
He noticed that John had finished his prayer vigil and was sitting with three men. The crowd had drifted away when John had begun to pray -- the Pharisees and Sadducees back to the temple. To report to the temple authorities, no doubt. The soldier had returned to their barracks. Maybe they had reports to make, also.
"Come on, Jimmy," he said. "He's about to teach. I want to hear him."
"He might chase us away."
"We'll never know unless we try," was Andy's reply.
As they approached, a less fiery, but no less intense, teacher paused and looked up.
"I wondered when you'd get here," he said. "I've saved the best until you arrived. Have a seat."
One of the men sitting there gave the newcomers a thorough inspection. He didn't seem to approve of what he saw. He turned back to John. "How can you say the Son of God is coming in our lifetime?"
"Because I baptized him."
"Hah!" spit out the questioner. "The Son of God surely needed baptizing."
John smiled.
"My thought exactly. This was some forty days ago. I told him, 'I should be baptized by you.' He said, 'Baptize me. This is the way it must be.' So I baptized him. As he came up out if the water, I saw God's Holy Spirit descend on him. Like a dove floating down. Covering him like a fish net."
He looked at Jimmy and Andy and smiled.
"And I heard a voice from heaven say, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' And he left. Like one being driven. He fled into the wilderness."
"Wilderness?" queried the questioner.
"To be tested, I would say."
The man stood up.
"They say you are mad. I didn't believe it. I will learn from this man how to be holy I told myself. But John Bar Zachariah, you are mad. And a blasphemer!"
He stalked away.
Andy, Jimmy, and the two other men stayed until dark. They built a small fire and stayed all night with John. They fell asleep one by one. And finally, the fire itself slept.
The next day, as they waited for John to finish his morning prayers and for the crowd to gather, a man walked past them. He was emaciated, but walked erect as a soldier. No. There was something regal about him. There was something about him that....
"Do you feel it again?" asked Andy.
"Shhhh," cautioned Jimmy.
They both jumped in surprise as John declared, "Look, the Lamb of God!"
They had not noticed John coming up behind them as they saw Jesus walking by.
They turned when John spoke. He nodded his head. They began to follow Jesus.
Jesus walked a ways. He realized that he was being followed. He turned around.
They stopped, waiting to see what Jesus would say. They simply couldn't bring themselves to speak to the Messiah -- the Son of God.
Jesus smiled. He indicated they were to approach. To come closer. It was a welcoming gesture.
"What do you want?" he asked, with kindness, as if asking a child.
Andy asked, "Rabbi (which means "Teacher"), where are you staying?"
It wasn't simply an idle question, seeking information. It was a question of acceptance.
"Come," he replied, "and you will see."
They were welcome to follow him! So they went and saw where he was staying. They spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.
Andy thought of his brother Simon. The big, energetic man wasn't a religious man. He paid his temple tax annually. He didn't fish on the sabbath. He was faithful to his wife. But religion generally played little part in his life.
The first thing Andy did, after spending the night with Jesus and listening to his stories about the kingdom the Messiah would establish, was to find his brother.
"We have found the Messiah (that is, the Christ). Come and meet him."
"Now what?" said Simon. "You are a religious nut."
But he followed at his brother's insistence. They traversed the crooked streets of Bethsaida and soon arrived at Jesus' house.
Jesus looked at him and quickly sized up this hard-headed fisherman. He said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated from Aramaic, their speech, to Greek, is Peter).
Cephas said, "Rocky. Yeah. I like that. Glad to meet you, Rabbi, but if you'll excuse us, Andy left all the work to me. He has to come home now."
He was totally unimpressed. A condition about to be changed a week hence when Jesus taught while sitting in Rocky's boat.
To the Great Assembly
Larry Winebrenner
Psalm 40
Little Rebecca crawled up into her grandfather's lap. It was her favorite resting place.
"Grampa," she said. "Tell me the story again."
The story was not a twice-told tale. It was a many-times-told tale. Told to his children. Told to his grandchildren. Told to his friends. Especially those in church. Unlike the children, they got tired "after the umpteenth time." No matter. There was always someone new to hear it.
"It happened back in the 1940s," he told her. "In the South Pacific. That's part of the world's largest ocean."
"I know, Grampa."
"Well, if you know the story, maybe I should let you tell it to me," chuckled Grampa.
Rebecca could. His telling was like a record. She had heard it enough that she knew it word for word by heart. But she liked to hear him tell it.
"No! You tell it," she cried.
He cleared his throat.
"It was typhoon season -- the worst time in the world for a landing. The little island didn't seem worth the trouble, but the big brass wanted it. Trouble is, the Japanese didn't want to give it up."
"The Japs was the enemy," she said.
"We called them that back then, but that's not a nice way to refer to them. We don't call them that any more."
This wasn't part of the story. She was sorry she interrupted. She told Grampa she was.
"We had dug in. Making foxholes to hide in. Hoping no mortar shell or grenade would fall on us. We were pinned down by a machine gun. It had stopped shooting because it couldn't hit us in our foxholes. We couldn't stand up because of the machine gun and the sharp-shooting soldiers.
"The rain made our foxholes more like mud holes. It was wet and cold and dirty. I hummed and mumbled some words I remembered from worship services -- 'A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.'
"I even remembered the opening words of Psalm 40 and muttered them to myself. Hopefully.
"I waited patiently for the LORD; God turned to me and heard my cry. The LORD lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; God set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand."
"I don't know where that came from. Some deep, dark crevices of my memory. Brought to the surface by the slimy pit I found myself in.
"Then I heard a voice say, 'Get up, Samuel. I'll be with you.'
"Now, you don't just get up with a machine gunner and sharp-shooting soldiers waiting for you to show yourself. No matter how uncomfortable you are.
"Again, the voice said, 'Get up, Samuel. I'll be with you.'
"I placed my helmet on the tip of my rifle barrel and raised it until the top of it could be seen by the enemy.
"Nothing happened.
"I raised it higher.
"Still nothing.
"I lowered it and put it back on my head. I peeped over the edge of the foxhole. I'd dug it next to a large shelf of coral. It was a very safe place. Only a direct hit by a mortar shell or a grenade could damage me.
" 'Get up, Samuel. I'll be with you,' said the voice for the third time."
Rebecca squirmed. She had a question. But she didn't want to interrupt Grampa's story.
"Was that God talking to you?" she whispered.
He ignored her and continued with his story.
"I stood up. No shots, I climbed out of the 'miry pit.' I stood on the coral shelf. I was completely exposed to the enemy. They took no notice.
"For ten seconds. Then, pandemonium broke out. Bullets whizzed past my head like hornets from a disturbed nest. Bullets to the left. Bullets to the right. I started to dive headfirst into my mud hole.
"Then I was hit. A bullet grazed my helmet. It sounded like the helmet had been hit by a sledge hammer. It felt like it, too. My bell had been rung. I was knocked to the ground.
"Before I came to my senses, the machine gun fire began sending volleys of bullets over me. I guess they thought I was dead and there was no use wasting shots in a dead body.
"But I saw where the bullets were coming from. I eased my arm over and my hand to a grenade in my belt. I moved the grenade so I could grasp the pin with the other hand. I flung the deadly missile at the tongues of fire that announced the gun's presence. I rolled over into my foxhole.
"The exploding grenade not only silenced the machine gun. It also silenced the rifles momentarily. My buddies and I swarmed over the protective barrier the enemy had set up.
"They were so startled at our sudden appearance that they threw their weapons to the ground and raised their hands."
He tousled her hair.
She giggled and said, "Stop."
"Okay." he said. "But only after I read you Psalm 40."
She snuggled down, ready to listen. She loved the way her grandfather read the Bible. Just like he was there.
Larry Winebrenner is now retired and living in Miami Gardens, Florida. He taught for 33 years at Miami-Dade Community College, and served as pastor of churches in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Larry is currently active at First United Methodist Church in downtown Miami, where he leads discussion in an adult fellowship group on Sunday mornings and preaches occasionally. He has authored two college textbooks, written four novels, served as an editor for three newspapers and an academic journal, and contributed articles to several magazines.
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StoryShare, January 16, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
