The Extraction

My partner and I headed into the city, shrouded both by our robes and by the gathering darkness. We were dressed like the locals, and we stayed away from main streets and public places. We had worked together before, so it was easy for us to slip through the alleys and up quiet residential streets, headed toward our subject and the planned extraction.

The orders were unmistakable – get this family out.

I Want to be Ready

              The two tall shining ones were ushering their newbies into the New Land. Ayzair’s charge, Sam, kept chattering away, overjoyed. 

“Hey, thanks for helping me…when do I get to see Jesus? Oh, wow! Look at the size of those trees! Are those apples? Oh, my gosh, can I eat one?”

“Of course,” said his giant helper. Sam jumped maybe 20 feet in the air and landed holding an apple the size of a grapefruit. “Oh, my gosh – that’s the best apple I’ve ever tasted,” he said, mouth full and chin dripping juice.

Big Daddy and the New Name

I want to tell you a true story, but I don’t blame you if you don’t believe it. It starts out normal, but it ends in a miracle. For real.

He was born Terrance Junior, the oldest of the three kids, so he was Junior to his parents and his little brothers. Nice family, my mom said. I was just a baby when we moved next door, so I don’t really remember Mr. Terrance. But Momma always said they tried to help us out when they could, what with Momma on her own and a baby on her hands.

Momma told me Mr. Terrance worked three jobs to keep the family going, and she figured his heart just gave out even though he was only 42. Junior was 10 at the time, and that’s when folks started calling him “Big Daddy.” He was nearly 10 years older than me, and I never knew him as anything but. Back in those days, nobody thought anything about an unusual name. You just looked at the person and didn’t worry if their name was new to you.

Who Then Is This?

Who then is this?
Blazing fire
Fiery holiness, furious righteousness, fearsome wrathfulness
I fall to my knees, terrified

Who then is this?
Pink and plump cheeks
Adored innocence, admired humanness, alighted peacefulness
I fall to my knees, hopeful


Who then is this?
Straight and strong
Commanding wind and water, disease and demons
I fall to my knees, wondering

Who then is this?
Cross hammered
Bloodied and betrayed, accused and abandoned
I fall to my knees, ashamed

Who then is this?
Stone-rolling satisfaction
Arisen accomplishment, just justifier
I fall to my knees, accepted

The Most Unusual Wedding I Never Performed

When I was a young pastor I naively thought that the couples who asked me to officiate at their weddings would be mainly young, godly people who were raised in the church and who grew up attending Awana and the youth group. I figured they would be starry-eyed virgins with Scriptural values and godly examples from their own intact families of origin.

I learned pretty quickly that performing a wedding as a Christian pastor is complicated, and that people’s lives are often very broken. Sometimes it’s hard to know how to do the right thing. Especially if you care more about pleasing God than about pleasing people.

Rob and Rachel (not their real names) were an attractive couple in their early 30’s who began attending our church a few years ago. He had worked for a Christian non-profit agency in another state, and she was a personal trainer at a local gym.

Avalanche!

Adam and Chris had been best friends since grade school. They grew up in the same neighborhood and graduated high school together. And even though they went off to separate colleges and separate lives, they still stayed in touch.

They were in each other’s weddings, and they got together at least once a year to fish or hike or go to a ballgame.

Two weeks before Adam’s 40th birthday, he invited Chris to join him for a weekend of skiing and hiking up in the mountains. They rented a cabin and both left work early on Friday to drive up. The weather was clear Friday night, but snow was expected Saturday.

The Surprise Guest at the Funeral

Recently I had lunch with a pastoral colleague, and we started swapping funeral stories. Macabre? Maybe, but there are some pretty unusual things that happen at funerals. For example…

I was doing a graveside service for a lady in our church. Her casket was perched on one of those portable stands the funeral home provides. This one was on rollers. And the grave was on a hillside. I bet you can see what’s coming. I had just started into my remarks when the casket started moving. Downhill, of course. I blocked it with my body, and some of the other funeral staff jumped in. Disaster averted. But the lady’s daughter thought it was funny – “Mom was headed for the ocean,” she remarked.