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| My dad and me |
My father was the biggest man I’ve ever known, even though he was relatively small of stature. He did a man’s work on his family farm from the time he was twelve. He was a gifted athlete, hunted all his life, and boxed Golden Gloves as a young man. He was a man’s man.
I’ll never forget the day I thought he might kill the
neighbor kid.
My parents had invested a small fortune in a Brown Swiss
heifer, a lovely animal with large brown eyes and a beige and tan coat. They
were hoping she might improve the milk production of the small dairy herd on
our Western Colorado farm.
Not long after we bought her, Dad found her dead in the
pasture, a bullet-hole in her head. It was obvious to him that one of our
neighbors’ adult sons had shot her.
Unlike most of the “salt of the earth” neighbors in our
farming community, the Corcoran clan (not their real name) were sour,
unpleasant people, touchy and arrogant. Their two sons, Ray and Johnny, were in
their early 20's. They were bullies, and as a little boy, both of them scared
me. They had a reputation for physical violence and careless use of firearms. Dad
had good reason, but no evidence, to suspect Johnny the younger of the two.
The day after our heifer was killed we were driving back
from town on the gravel road that passed the Corcoran place. Johnny was walking along the side of the road
with all the James Dean arrogance of the fifties: hair greased and sculpted,
cigarette pack rolled up in the sleeve of his white tee-shirt, tight blue
jeans, a lit Chesterfield
hanging from his lower lip.
Dad stopped the car, rolled the window down, and explained
that he'd found our heifer shot dead. Please be more careful, Johnny, Dad said
with a smile.
Corcoran answered Dad with a burst of profanity and
continued to walk past the car. I
remembered being shocked and frightened that anyone would have the nerve to
talk to my father that way. Dad slammed the car into reverse and rocketed back
to stay even with Johnny. He didn't say anything. He just stared at the kid. It
was a terrible look.
We drove home in silence. Dad parked the car in our driveway,
jammed down the emergency brake, and strode into the house. Mom and I followed
rather timidly.
Dad was removing his deer rifle from the gun case. “What are
you going to do, Bus?” my mom asked in a
tremulous voice. “I'm going out to the back pasture, and if I see that kid back
there, I'm going to shoot him in the leg.”
Dad walked into the field with an awful calmness, almost a
serenity, the rifle in the crook of his arm, his face like flint.
Johnny never showed up. Thank God. I am absolutely confident
my father would have shot him, just as I am confident he would have believed it
was the right thing to do. Dad would have ended up in prison.
I saw a terrible wrath in my dad that day. But frankly I’m
proud that I had a father like that, a man whose commitment to his family and
his home meant he would defend it, even violently if need be. Because the same
man who walked into the pasture with a gun on his arm put me to bed at night. I
was never afraid when my father was around.
I said all that to say this: Jesus Christ is gentle and
mild. He said this about Himself (cf. Matthew 11:29). But that’s not all.
Moses’ fiery desert encounter with Christ knocked him to his
knees (Exodus 3:2-6; cf. John 8:58). When Joshua met Him at Jericho, He was the Commander of the heavenly
army, and Joshua rightly fell at His feet (cf. Joshua 5:24-6:2). Isaiah’s
vision of Christ on the throne (Isaiah 6:1-8; cf. John 12:41) changed him, and Israel,
forever. The risen Christ threw Saul the heresy hunter from his horse and blinded
him (Acts 9:1-9). At the end of days the King of all Kings stands with flaming
eyes and the sword flashing in His mouth (Revelation 1:12-20).
Our gentle Shepherd protects and keeps His sheep. His grace
is amazing. But His enemies will face a terrible wrath.
