I am Malchus…

I am Malchus, servant of the High Priest Caiaphas.  When a job needs to be done, quickly and quietly, Caiaphas taps me. 

I became a servant because I owed money I could not pay back.  I was put into a debtor’s prison and then sold.  I knew the only hope I had for freedom was to do the jobs I was assigned and to do them well.  I passed from Master to Master, always selling for a higher price.  One day my Master told me I was going to new Master, someone close to the very top.  I was brought to Jerusalem and entered the service of Caiaphas.

Caiaphas’ family were the elite.  His father-in-law, Annas, was the real power.  He was more politician than priest, always jockeying for position, always jealous for more power.  I was supposed to serve and not hear, but I could not help but overhear the news that would flow through the household.

Before long, because of my size, I became the enforcer for the family.  When they needed someone to shut up, I was sent to “persuade” the talker.  Occasionally, something more than words was needed.  After I broke a few bones, people got in line.

A recurring topic of conversation for the past few years was Jesus of Nazareth.  According to my Master, he was another hot-head who thought he was the Messiah.  But I heard other stories when I was out in town.  People said he healed the sick and drove out demons.  He came to Jerusalem a few times and I was sent by my Master to blend in with the crowd and find out more.  I only saw the man teaching, nothing more.  It was teaching like I had never heard.  He claimed to be the “light of the world” and the “bread of life.”  I did not understand his meaning, but even I had to admit there was something about his teaching that drew me, that made me want to know more.

Though a Jew, I was not a religious man.  Working in my Master’s house convinced me that religion was just a scheme to manipulate people.  Something about Jesus, however told me he was not interested in religious power.  He spoke of God as “Father.”  Whatever he was, I knew he was not a hot-head radical. 

It was the start of Passover week when Jesus came to Jerusalem the last time.  Crowds gathered and sang songs hailing him as the Messiah.  I reported all this to my Master.  With every report, I could sense he was more rattled, unnerved almost. 

On Wednesday before the feast, I saw my Master talking with a man I recognized as a disciple of Jesus.  I saw my Master hand over a bag of money.  I did not inquire about the transaction; I would find out soon enough if it concerned me.

Late Thursday night, my Master called to me.  When I came to him, the disciple of Jesus was with him again.  My Master said, “Malchus, go with this man, Judas.  Take some men with you, there may be trouble.  Judas will show you where Jesus is.  Seize him and bring him to my father-in-law’s house.”  I gathered a force of men: a few temple guards, a couple of other servants, and a few acquaintances who always seemed to be lurking near the High Priest’s home, including my cousin.

Judas led us to the Garden called Gethsemane.  The full moon shown on his face.  Streaks of red marked his face as if he had been bleeding.  His disciples were gathered around and looked like they had just awakened.  Judas told us he would kiss Jesus, as a servant would kiss a master.  I knew it would be a kiss of betrayal.

Judas did kiss him and we stepped forward.  From nowhere came a flash of metal and I felt pain as I had never felt before.  I put my hand to my head and realized in shock my right ear was missing.  Then I looked down and saw it: my ear, in the dirt. 

One of his disciples, a man I had seen before, was holding a sword.  The men with me surged forward but Jesus stopped them.  He seemed to radiate power.  “Put away your sword,” he commanded Peter.  “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”

I fell to my knees, in agony, screaming from the pain.  Then Jesus leaned down, picked up my severed ear, and he put it back in its place.  When the ear touched my bloodied head, there was a power I had never felt before. It was warmth and light.  The pain stopped.  Jesus looked me in the eye, he smiled, then he helped me to my feet. 

I reached up with my right hand, just to make sure.  Had I imagined it?  Was my ear really torn off?  I felt the pain.  I saw my ear on the ground.  It was real, I’m sure of it.  But now my ear was back on my head. 

The other men took hold of Jesus and led him off to Annas’ house.  I trailed behind, bewildered.  When I got back to the Caiaphas’ house, I saw them bring Jesus in.  Others were gathered.  I decided to stay in the courtyard in case there was trouble.  There was.  Around the fire, heated conversation arose.  Then I heard clearly my cousin’s voice, “Didn’t I see you in the olive grove.  You are one of his disciples.”  Another voice spat out an oath, “I tell you, I don’t know the man.”  A rooster crowed in the distance.

There were many comings and goings last night.  Now it is Friday and I hear Pilate, persuaded by my Master and his allies, ordered Jesus to be crucified.  He is hanging on the cross, just outside the city walls.  I do not know what to make of this.  He seemed more irritant than rebel, more teacher than general. 

But I cannot deny that I saw my ear severed and now it is back on my head.  Now I hear perfectly.  Whoever this man is, he has a power greater than any power I have seen.  I cannot help but wonder:  If a man can heal an ear, is there anything too hard for him to do?

Notre Dame, Good Friday, and Easter…

When I was fourteen our High School Band, the Largo Band of Gold, went to Europe to compete in the World Music Festival (we won two gold medals with distinction). After the competition, we toured continental Europe.  Our first stop was Paris.

Nothing in my Southern boyhood prepared me for Paris.  The first thing that caught my eye were the billboards with nude female models.  I knew I was not supposed to lust, but no Sunday School lesson prepared me for that.  We went to the Louvre.  I saw the Mona Lisa but more amazing to me were whole rooms covered with one work of art.  The artist painted the walls and the ceilings.  I’d never seen anything like it.

We played a concert underneath the Eiffel Tower and then went up to see the city in all it’s splendor.  I did get lost on the Paris subway, where a kindly stranger speaking Portuguese responded to my ninth grade Spanish enough to get back to the hotel.

But it was Notre Dame I remembered most.  At fourteen, I already knew I was supposed to be a pastor, a “preacher” in our Southern Baptist lingo.  I had seen my share of churches, of course, but nothing in Wauchula, Okeechobee, Kissimmee, or Largo prepared me for Notre Dame. 

Rural Baptists had a distrust of Catholics, probably because there weren’t very many of them in our neck of the woods.  Then again, we didn’t even trust Methodists because they didn’t have church on Sunday night (heathens!).  Seeing the Cathedral of Notre Dame on the schedule made me apprehensive.  Would I have to become Catholic to enter?  Would they kidnap me and force me to be a priest instead of a preacher?  Would I have to kiss a statue of the Pope?  I had been warned about false prophets in many sermons, but I had no instructions about entering a strange house of worship.

The tour bus rounded the corner, and I saw Notre Dame up close.  My eyes drifted up, my breathing stopped.  I had never seen anything so massive.  We walked off the bus and made our way to the cathedral.  It loomed larger and larger; I felt smaller and smaller.  Only much later in life would I learn this was intentional.  A cathedral was supposed to make you realize the grandeur of God and make you aware of your own smallness in the world.

Since my offshoot of the Protestant Reformation has a distant kinship to the Puritans, our sanctuaries (this was before we called them “worship centers”) are plain.  At Notre Dame, there was not one inch of undecorated space.  The entrances, the outside walls, and the interior were covered with carvings.  The stain glass sparkled colors throughout the interior.  I couldn’t read Latin, but I recognized enough to know some of the stories being told.  I saw Jesus crucified and resurrected in the stone and in the glass.  It began to slowly dawn on me that the people who built this worshipped the same Jesus I did.

It was not until I was in the middle of the cathedral that someone said, “Look behind you.”  Then I saw the famous South Rose Window.  It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen, more amazing than the billboards.  I was held in a spell of awe.  In the vast cavern of the cathedral, I had a sense of something holy, someone bigger than myself.  In that moment, a fourteen-year-old Southern Baptist boy felt the beauty of God.

Like you, I saw the picture of the Notre Dame Cathedral burning this week. Memories poured out of the deep corners of my brain.  I could feel once more the majesty of the moment from forty decades earlier.  My first thought was “I pray the windows can be saved.”

I’m not someone who thinks God caused the fire in the Cathedral.  God is much bigger than any building, no matter how beautiful.  I do believe, however, that God invites me to look at the news and find where he is at work.  There are more signs of the gospel in the world than you or I can see.

I saw the picture the next day, the picture of a beam of light shining into Notre Dame, showing the altar, showing the bright bronze cross still in place.  That picture is the story of Good Friday and of Easter.  It is the story of an evil world doing its best to burn down the work of God.  It is the story of the fire of my sin, which burns within, causing me to do that which I know I should not do.  It is the story of grace, the grace that rains down upon the fires of sin, grace inexhaustible, extinguishing the penalty and power of my sin.  It is the story of resurrection, that nothing – not the power of the darkness, nor the fires of sin, nor the pitiful human efforts to make God small – nothing can take away God love for me.  Grace is a beautiful thing.

This is the story of Good Friday and of Easter – the light has come into the world and nothing can put it out. 

I hear they saved the South Window, the window that so long ago gifted me with a holy moment.  It is just another sign of the gospel, that God can save anything, anyone.  Even you.  Even me.