©2011 Glass Onion Productions
A knock on the door. A disheveled looking thirty-some year old man opens it to find two sweet, upbeat yuppies—one male, one female—standing smiling at him. “Hello, sir. We’re from Life Eternal Evangelical Church. Are you a Christian?”
“No, but I think about God a lot, or whether there is a God. I worry a lot.”
“Oh, there is a God and he is Jesus Christ. Jesus can ease your pain and free you from your worries,” says the smiling young man as he thrusts a pamphlet into the air. “Why don’t you try our church? The address is right there on the back of our pamphlet. We can help you.”
“Let me think about it,” replies the disheveled one as he closes the door.
Several weeks pass and it is a Sunday morning.
The thirty-some man, now with a dingy sports coat, tie and blue jeans, is walking up the stairs of the church. He hears singing inside: “Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”
The singing continues as he walks through the doors into the small chapel filled with an array of pleasant looking folks singing happily along with the organ.
Our hero parks himself in a pew near the back, as a woman sitting next to him hands him an open hymnal, smiling, of course.
Leading the singing, dressed in a bishop’s robe with a purple collar, is the pastor—a fortyish looking pleasant man—a throwback to the sanguinity of the 1950s. Behind the pastor is a large crucifix with a life-like Jesus, head bowed, dead, crucified. It is so lifelike that our hero can’t keep his eyes off it. He is stirred by the image.
The singing stops, and the congregation collapse in their seats. The pastor eloquently, but gently, begins his sermon.
“Behind me is the One who gives hope. This One willingly died and gave his blood so that all people, whatever the race or gender, would have eternal life.”
And with emphasis: “I sense that there is one among us who needs to experience life eternal. This one needs the hope that only the blood will bring. And you know who you are.”
Our hero, eyes frozen on the crucifix and ears absorbing the pastor’s words, begins to sob. Something—a strange emotion—wells up inside him. He can see the pastor preaching, lips moving, but it is as if all sound has been erased—silence. The congregation, sensing a surrender, turns and stares at him with reassuring smiles.
Submerging from this deafening moment of emotion he once again hears the preacher speak: “Come forth, my son, and experience the blood. Know eternal life.”
As if an invisible force has consumed him, our hero’s legs unhinge, he stands and walks down the aisle. The pastor gently extends his hand to the broken figure before him and pulls him up by the podium, facing the preacher.
Our hero turns his head to gather one more glance at the incredible figure on the cross and notices, for the first time, two puncture wounds oozing lifelike blood from Jesus’ throat. In fact, it is a real person.
Startled, he turns to look at the pastor who now, fangs bared, sinks them into our hero’s throat. With mouth agape and the pastor’s head buried into his neck, our hero falls into the abyss. Life eternal is his.
A quick flash to the pews reveals a congregation all with fangs bared as they sing: “Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. We will all come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”
