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Chapter 2: The Cross of Gold and the Man of God

  “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves” Matthew 10:16

 

  Six miles south of the Sad-am-I Swamp, after sleeping through the night and hiking through the morning, Luke began to suspect that he might be approaching the site of that preacherman the doctor had referred him to. Or at the very least, Luke decided, “Something’s up.” All morning he had had one of those feelings where the hair on the neck tingles a little and the heart beats harder and you just know that something’s coming.8 It was getting stronger now. Luke’s surroundings had suddenly changed too: the woods had become a jungle, the path a tangle. The plants seemed greener and healthier, and the bird and insect noises were louder--as though everything were especially blessed and thriving! Luke couldn’t quite believe that the presence of any preacherman could cause such physical manifestations, and he would rather have begun to doubt his own ears and eyes, were it not also for that strange sense of anticipation! The one thing Huns never doubt is their Hun instinct.

  Then, as suddenly as the volume of the forest had increased, Luke pushed his way through one final thicket and emerged into an odd circular clearing, where he was struck immediately by the fact that not only had this small area been cleared of trees and brush, but also of sound! All the birds’ songs, all the insects’ chatter, all the leaves’ rustle were gone abruptly, stopped at the edge of this sacred place, leaving only silence: a reverent and respectful silence, Luke decided later. But at the time, it seemed to him an unusual and terrifying silence. His hand went naturally to his knife, and he peered about intently.

  He saw no one, no threat, no ambush, and so he allowed himself to focus his stare on the most remarkable feature of this special clearing: on his left was a rock face, and a small cave mouth, and above the cave mouth the rock had been chiseled away in the shape of a cross...which glowed with an unmistakable hue that Luke recognized from the best days of Hun plundering. He was absolutely certain that there in the rock was set a huge cross of pure gold!

  Heart beating faster still, Luke had a strange moment where he almost felt that he should kneel, or show some similar reverence, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Something decidedly unHunlike was commanding him. Something unknown. Something beyond knowing. And Luke wasn’t sure he liked it. Huns are too proud to bow to any man, too bold to kneel to any god, and old habits won out over new wonder. So instead Luke stared in simple wonder, ignoring whatever voice it was that warned.

  Though he was distracted by the Cross, a Hun Double-Secret Super-Scout Warrior9 is never that distracted. Which is why what happened next was so unheard of.

  It was with amazement and disbelief that Luke pivoted, when he felt a hand on his shoulder! Wheeling, ready to draw his blade, he instantly stopped when he saw his assailant. Right there close to him, face pressed but inches from Luke’s own, was a wild man, dressed in sackcloth, with long, tangled red hair, wide eyes, clean teeth, and surprisingly pleasant breath. It wasn’t until much later, after he had done some reading, that Luke found the right phrase to describe the man’s fiery hair and flaming eyes: ‘A human Burning Bush’. Long before that, Luke thought of him with the more accessible metaphor: ‘Like a mad torch to light my crazy way.’

  Luke stopped his reach, not because there was no threat, but because he instantly had the sure feeling that his knife would be insufficient against whatever peril there might be. Was this fear, in a Hun who had never known fear? Possibly, but it didn’t feel like fear--more like the simple recognition of authority.

  In any case, Luke finally remembered to exhale his long-held breath, as he suffered a pseudo-shudder, a sort-of shiver, and a semi-shake, then wiped his palms on his shorts and merely hoped for the best--though he couldn’t help sighing and exclaiming a little nervously, “Strange Days.”

  The wild man laughed loudly in the stillness, then whispered mysteriously, “True. Strange indeed. But you’ve taken your first step!”

  After a pulling-himself-together pause, Luke managed to wonder, “Have I?”

  The wild man with the wild hair still was circling Luke, very close, eyeing him from all angles, with an intensity and curiosity that Luke found disconcerting. Leaning close to Luke’s ear he hissed sharply, “The first step is realizing that there is someone greater than ourselves.” Then he laughed too loudly again. “You’re just wrong if you think I am the one!”

  Luke digested that, and was silent for a moment, and then, though he hated to do it, he blurted “Look, can you back up a little? Please? You’re makin’ me uncomfortable, man. You‘re a bit too close is all.” He hated to make demands, since he sensed a strange power and didn’t want to start a conflict, but he could feel his Hun instincts might take over and force him to go for his weapon, so Luke chose what seemed to be the least hostile alternative!

  “Wise choice,” the man said knowingly. But he nevertheless failed to heed the request itself, continuing to lean around Luke in an unnatural and unnerving manner, smiling about it even more now: “Do I make you nervous? Good. We are most honest when we are a little scared. And change comes when we are made uncomfortable. Besides, God will look you over much closer than I am. He knows your mind, tries your heart, and scours your soul.”

  Luke was confused. “Honest? Are you expecting me to lie to you about something? Because I don’t lie. Never saw the need.”

  The laugh again. “No, you won’t lie to me. I would see through it anyway. I’m not worried about that, my son.” Then he cocked his head, looked Luke sharply in the eye, and said curtly, “I just don’t want you to be able to lie to yourself.” Abruptly he punctuated this statement by driving his pointing finger into Luke’s chest, and almost backing him into the rock, warning piercingly: “We are never such shrewd deceivers as when we lie to ourselves, and we are never such gullible dupes as when we follow our own wishes and follies.”

  Slowly, Luke drawled, “Well. Then I’ll try not to do all that then either. And you’re here to help me I suppose? By scaring me straight? Or are you going to be more specific and actually tell me what lies I have believed? That would save time perhaps.”

  “Perhaps,” the man acknowledged. “But it will be more convincing when you tell yourself! Sometimes the only way to counter self-deception is to tell ourselves the truth. So you must learn a few things, along the way, my son,” the wild man prophesied with a glint in his eye.

  “Along the way? Are we going somewhere? A journey of some sort? You said something earlier about a ‘first step’?”

  The wild man laughed. “No, I will not go with you. May God go with you.”Thinking that sounded like a blessing, Luke thanked him awkwardly, only to be told, “No, that was a question! May God go with you?” Then the rough laugh came again, as he saw Luke was unsure how to answer. “You don’t have to say Yes right away. As long as you don’t say No right away, you will say Yes at the end! ‘Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus’,” exclaimed the wild man, slipping into Scripture.

  Not liking to be taken for granted, Luke challenged him, “So how do you know I won’t say No?”

  The man laughed again. “But you’ve already had your chance, haven’t you? The Doctor told you there was a ‘preacherman to the South’. Do you know how many others would have instantly gone North?” Luke mulled this over, as the man continued. “You came because you thought God might be the answer to your questions. Every journey to certainty begins with ‘might’. First we say ours, then we feel His. Read and consider what this means: ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom’. I believe you are already feeling some of that fear here this morning. Surely you didn’t sheathe your dagger for fear of me, an unarmed man? You sensed power, and you knew...”

  Luke interrupted, interested. “So where would I read something like that then?”

  The wild man laughed, and bec
koned to the cave. “Come and see.”

  After a skeptical hesitation, Luke followed the man into his cave. The first room was a cloakroom, gravelly and dusty, where Luke respectfully took off his football shoes in case there was mud in the cleats. Then they entered into a small kitchen, with a rough old table and a slight store of provisions. “Care for some locusts and wild honey?” the wild man offered, displaying traditional prophet fare, and trying to hide a playful smile. Not wishing to offend, and having eaten worse on several campaigns, and having missed breakfast to boot, Luke took a bite of a locust, choked it down and grinned: “Crunch, Crunch, Mmmm!”.

  The wild man laughed, “Dipping them in the honey makes them go down easier actually; but have it your way. Or, I also have some grapes and pistachios, cider and sammiches if that’s more to your taste.”

  “Now ya tell me.” This time Luke laughed a little too. Then he finally got around to asking what he had been wondering all along: “So who are ya, anyway?”

  The fiery man shrugged. “The Doctor called me a preacherman? I do some of that. Some would call me a prophet: I’ve done that sometimes too. You might call me a teacher--I’ll try to teach you whatever I know. I like the word Servant: His, and yours...” he bowed humbly. “For others I have been a provider, a counselor, a shepherd, or a friend. If you asked me to choose an encompassing title, I like the phrase ‘man of God’: it gives Him the glory, and reminds me who is my Master.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been busy,” Luke remarked, with what might once have been sarcasm, but would now be sarcasm slightly mingled with respect.

  “Imagine how busy the Savior of the World must be...” said the man of God.

  This time, Luke was afraid not to bow, and he awkwardly and shockwardly dropped to his knees, exclaiming with alarm, “Oh my goodness! Are you really? That darn doctor just said ‘preacherman’!”

  Realizing that he had given the wrong impression, a look of surprise and horror fell across the face of the man of God. Showing startling strength he quickly jerked Luke to his feet, and then fell to the ground himself, offering prayers of submission and repentance before God for the misrepresentation.

  After a time, still flustered, he arose, and clarified. “Give God the glory. I just meant, imagine how busy the Savior is: A good servant will be like his master, ‘Redeeming the time, for the days are evil’; imitating Jesus’ own example, ‘My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.’ More to the point, if any remain unsaved, how shall I enjoy my own salvation? if any are not fed, how shall I eat? and if there is work to be done, should not a faithful servant hop to it?”

  Impressed by that dedication, Luke made a mental note that it might at least be worth looking into what had caused it, whether it was just superstition, or whether this guy actually knew something he didn’t. (Coz that happens too sometimes.) However, what he said out loud was a nearly-scoffing: “You make being a servant sound like so much fun.” And then a quick grimace.

  The man of God caught the unspoken thought however, and reminded him: “Step One, again, is to question whether your own way is right, or whether someone else might be onto something. Once you have taken that step, you can begin in earnest the search you are longing to make. And when the search is over, being a servant will not seem a burden at all, but rather a reward! ‘For His yoke is easy and His burden is light’ What does He require of you? Everything. But once you know Him, you will give it freely, like Moses ‘esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.’ Because earthly riches perish, but the treasures you lay up for yourself in heaven last forever! It will no longer be the burden of ‘I have to give up everything’, but the joy that ‘I get to give everything to He who made me’, knowing that no one who does so ‘will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields--and with them persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.’” The man of God slipped in and out of Scripture, as his voice quickened, his passion swelled, and he tried to impress on Luke the severity of the challenge and the beauty of the opportunity. Then he laughed again when Luke, after listening dumbly through this powerful call, gave the natural Hun response:

  “There are treasures in Egypt?” Making a mental note of that too, coz the Huns had never gotten that far in their raids. Catching himself, Luke blushed and apologized.

  “One step at a time, I suppose,” the man of God remarked, shaking his head.

  “How many steps do I have to make altogether?” Luke wondered, with that Hun-trained skill of always looking for the payoff.

  “We come from God and to God we must return. How many steps it takes to return to God depends, I suppose, on how far from Him you have strayed.”

  Luke laughed, “Well then I’d best get ta walkin’!” Then after some brief reflection, he added more earnestly, “Um, if I knew what direction to go, I guess that would work even better...”

  The man of God smiled, nodded, and gave the invitation again: “Come and see.”

  Luke followed the man deeper into the cavern, into its third room, the man’s office. He stopped in his tracks at the doorway, however, and his jaw dropped. With wonder, he exclaimed: “Is that real?” The man of God nodded. There, all about them, was a dark, voluptuous shimmer. The very walls of the cave in this room were solid gold!

  Luke studied them skeptically, applying his Hun-knowledge of gold and treasure: “This can’t be a natural formation. Where did you get all this gold?”

  “Did not the same God make both granite and gold? Can He not create as much or as little of each as He pleases? No, this is not a natural formation, but then neither is any other: they are all formed by the hand of God. He led me to this cave so that whenever I meet anyone in need, I can simply scrape off some more wealth and provide for them.”

  “Aren’t you worried about thieves?” Luke wondered. His own excited heart was still beating a little more quickly than usual, and he couldn’t keep from doing some mental arithmetic computing volume, weight and value--even though he personally had retired from the looting biz, of course.

  “Ah, but when they come here, I convert them,” the man of God said, with a slow spreading smile. “My own little mousetrap, this is. All the world’s greatest sinners come to visit me. They come thinking they want gold, and they leave knowing they need God. You‘ve heard of the notorious French crime syndicate, the Chenal Ecarte?”

  Luke had. “When it’s not out killing someone, it spends most of its time in banks.”

  “Well, when they showed up here, they were perilous, vile and spewing venom. But when they departed, they were as pure as snow and as harmless as rain.”

  Luke shrugged, pleased to hear that at least he was in good company. Then he observed, “Must be an interesting place to work, anyway.”

  “You get used to it. A little of something is a distraction; but making it a common thing helps one to realize it is not to be prized. God works in mysterious ways: he gives me gold to teach me that gold is meaningless.” He laughed and mused, “Or maybe to help better illuminate a single verse of Scripture: ‘The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not’.” He lingered, savoring the words. “Would he do that do you think? A miracle to reinforce a single statement? What’s one more when He makes an infinite number of miracles every moment? Anyhow, the glow is pleasant, with a few candles. I do a lot of writing here.”

  Then, speaking of that, he walked to his desk and picked a special hand-written volume off the shelf. He carried it lovingly to Luke, and gently placed it in his hands. ‘HOLY BIBLE’ was on the cover10. “This, on the other hand, is rare and priceless. This is the book about God, and it will give you some of the answers you need, about which direction to go to seek Him. Takes me about a year to re-copy one of these, working at it daily. I give it to you.”

  Luke balked: “What!? It’s too much! A year of your work? And I wouldn’t even know what to do with it! And how do you know I won’t c
ast it aside, since I don’t believe in it anyway?”

  The man of God did not look worried. “A year of my work? No, no. It was never my work, but God’s. And He wants you to have it. He brought you here for a reason. Everything happens always for a reason, though we may not realize it until later. And if this book is unfamiliar to you, remember that Jesus’ said, ‘I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’ Besides, unfamiliarity can change by simply reading it daily--just as I will continue to read it daily as I begin to copy it again...”

  Luke felt a little queasy, and quite nervous about what he was getting himself into. He protested again: “Look, I feel very honored that you would try to give me this gift, but I don’t think I’m ready for this burden, this responsibility.”

  The man of God got a little cross with him this time. The gentleness vanished, he grabbed Luke by the shirt front, and he looked him in the eye and said curtly. “Your life is a responsibility. The only burden is Truth; if you didn’t want to carry it, you should never have opened your eyes. But you did. You realized there was something missing from your soul, that life isn’t all fun and games, that righteousness and goodness exist--and you decided to seek them out. It’s too late to stop now. You’ll always know that there is such a thing as Truth. The only peace you will have now is when you find out what it is! Do I burden you with this book then? All I ask is that you read it. What does that take? Only time. You’re young. All you have is time. What else did you have planned that’s so important?” Luke fidgeted and hung his head a little. “As for the value of the book: simply bring it back when you’re done with it if that’s what bothers you. Or better yet, keep it if you want it, but make another copy for someone else... Make that decision when the time comes.” Then he gruffly pressed the Bible upon Luke, and steered him back into the kitchen. “Sit. You didn’t eat much.”

  Luke sat resignedly and started to leaf cautiously through the book as the man of God bustled about, fixing Luke a plate with grapes, a quartered apple, buttered crackers, a hunk of bread, cheese, and tasty summer sausage. And milk and honey for dessert. Givin’ Luke all the good stuff, saving the locusts for later. Sacrifice lived out.

  The man of God said a short prayer: “Lord, bless your child Luke and give him the answers he seeks. Thank you for all your gifts. Amen.” Then they ate. As they were finishing, the man of God abruptly spoke, quoting Scripture in such a way that it seemed like a fresh new prophecy: “‘And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.’” It hung in the air like a promise.

  Luke waited. When he was sure that was all that was coming, he joked, less respectfully than was appropriate: “Well, it was pretty good eats, but it won’t keep me for forty days. Maybe half that: since we Huns like to eat six squares a day.” Then, curious and calculating, he asked the man, “Is that how long my journey will be then? Forty days? That’s not too bad then.” (Thinking he would be all holied up and home by football season!)

  The man of God gave a wry smile. “If only. No, son. Forty steps to heaven are appointed for you, and forty days and forty nights. And teachers without number. But they won’t necessarily be consecutive days. How long your journey takes is up to you: whenever you devote your days and nights to God, and to learning His will for your life, you will be blessed. But any days that fall in between will just be days. That’s the way it always works,” he admitted with a sigh. Then he smiled again: “But such is the grace of God: if we are willing to receive even one tenth of his blessings, even the occasional guidance, even the rarest moments of grace, even the tiniest trace of his Spirit--even that small fragment will be enough to uplift us and see us through. Such is the greatness and power of His endless love: the thousandth portion of infinity is still quite a bit.”

  Luke was still flipping though the Bible, bein’ careful about the crumbs. “Hey, what are these blank pages in back for? You did give me a finished copy didn’t you?”

  “I always leave a few pages empty for notes. Write down things that you think will be of value to you. Stories or words that illuminate something that you read here, or that are illuminated by it. This one thing you must learn, Luke: God loves you. But God loves all the rest of his children as well. And he has given them knowledge, and blessings, and gifts also. So that everyone you meet may have something to teach you... You could certainly stand to learn from them!”

  “Hey,” Luke objected, half-heartedly.

  “I advise you to write the important stuff down. Or the things you might not remember. Because that’s one thing I know from my own experience: it does wonders for you when God gives you a blessing or a message, or teaches you a lesson. But it slows your progress considerably when you keep forgetting, so He has to send the same lessons over and over again! Just looking out for ya kid, that’s all.” The man of God, looking much less stern after the meal, offered Luke a pen and a pencil. Luke, feeling confident again, took the pen.

  “Oh, by the way” said the man of God, “When I was listing the roles I have played, preacher, teacher, prophet, and so on, I forgot one of my favorites… I’m also a Sender.”

  “How’s that work?” Luke asked, and then grinned when the man of God pointed towards the cave mouth, put a hand in his back, and told him to Go! Luke tugged on his cleats and asked one last request “Start me out right, though, seeing as I haven’t read the book for my directions yet--Which way should I go?”

  The man of God shrugged. “God is all and in all. So wherever you go, He is there. Makes more difference how you go.”

  “K. How should I go then?” Luke persisted.

  The man of God smiled broadly, and pushed Luke out the door. “Go with God!”

  Luke nodded, grinned, and thought, Perhaps. Then he randomly went west, with the Miles Davis song ‘Seven Steps to Heaven’ stuck in his head, thinking how much further than Miles he must have fallen.