Job: A Comedy of Justice (34 page)

He told me that he had a rig that needed to be returned to the next town up the road. What he meant was that he had too many rigs and nags on hand, his own and others, or he would have waited until he could send it back by renting it to a passing drummer.

I offered to return it for one day’s wages at the same extremely low rate that he had paid me to shovel manure and curry nags.

He pointed out that he was doing me a favor, since my wife and I had to get to Joplin.

He had both logic and strength of position on his side; I agreed. But his wife did put up a lunch for us, as well as giving us breakfast after we slept in their shed.

So I was not too unhappy driving that rig, despite the weather, despite the frustrations. We were getting a few miles closer to Joplin every day—and now my darling was praying. It was beginning to look like “Home Free!” after all.

We had just reached the outskirts of this town (Lowell? Racine? I wish I could remember) when we encountered something right straight out of my childhood: a camp meeting, an old-time revival. On the left side of the road was a cemetery, well kept but the grass was drying; facing it on the right was the revival tent, pitched in a pasture. I wondered whether the juxtaposition of graveyard and Bible meeting was accidental, or planned?—if the Reverend Danny had been involved, I would know it was planned; most people cannot see gravestones without thinking about the long hereafter.

Crowded ranks of buggies and farm wagons stood near the tent, and a temporary corral lay beyond them. Picnic tables of the plank-and-sawhorse type were by the tent on the other side; I could see remains of lunch. This was a serious Bible meeting, one that started in the morning, broke for lunch, carried on in the afternoon—would no doubt break for supper, then adjourn only when the revivalist judged that there were no more souls to be saved that day.

(I despise these modern city preachers with their five-minute “inspirational messages.” They say Billy Sunday could preach for seven hours on only a glass of water—then do it again in the evening
and
the next day. No wonder heathen cults have spread like a green bay tree!)

There was a two-horse caravan near the tent. Painted on its side was: Brother “Bible” Barnaby. Out front was a canvas sign on guys and stays:

That Old-Time Religion!
Brother “Bible” Barnaby
Healing Every Session
10 a.m.—2 p.m.—7 p.m.
Every Day from Sunday June 5th till
!!!JUDGMENT DAY!!!

I spoke to the nag and pulled on the reins to let her know that I wanted to stop. “Darling, look at that!”

Margrethe read the sign, made no comment.

“I admire his courage,” I said. “Brother Barnaby is betting his reputation that Judgment Day will arrive before it’s time to harvest wheat…which could be early this year, hot as it is.”

“But you think Judgment Day is soon,”

“Yes, but I’m not betting a professional reputation on it…just my immortal soul and hope of Heaven. Marga, every Bible student reads the prophecies slightly differently. Or very differently. Most of the current crop of premillenarians don’t expect the Day earlier than the year two thousand. I want to hear how Brother Barnaby reasons. He might have something. Do you mind if we stay here an hour?”

“We will stay however long you wish. But—Alec, you wish me to go in? Must I?”

“Uh—” (Yes, darling, I certainly do want you to go inside.) “You would rather wait in the buggy?”

Her silence was answer enough. “I see. Marga, I’m not trying to twist your arm. Just one thing—We have not been separated except when utterly necessary for several weeks. And you know why. With the changes coming almost every day, I would hate to have one hit while you were sitting out here and I was inside, quite a way off. Uh, we could stand outside the tent. I see they have the sides rolled up.”

She squared her shoulders. “I was being silly. No, we will go inside. Alec, I do need to hold your hand; you are right: Change comes fast. But I will not ask you to stay away from a meeting of your coreligionists.”

“Thank you, Marga.”

“And, Alec—I will
try.
”

“Thank you. Thank you loads! Amen!”

“No need to tank me. If you go to your Heaven, I want to go, too!”

“Let’s go inside, dear.”

I put the buggy at the far end of a rank, then led the mare to the corral, Marga with me. As we came back to the tent I could hear:

“—the corner where you are!

“Brighten the corner where you are!

“Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar!

“So—”

I chimed in: “—brighten the corner where you are!”

It felt good.

Their instrumental music consisted of a foot-pumped organ and a slide trombone. The latter surprised me but pleased me; there is no other instrument that can get right down and rassle with
The Holy City
the way a trombone can, and it is almost indispensable for
The Son of God Goes Forth to War.

The congregation was supported by a choir in white angel robes—a scratch choir, I surmised, as the white robes were homemade, from sheets. But what that choir may have lacked in professionalism it made up for in zeal. Church music does not have to be good as long as it is sincere—and loud.

The sawdust trail, six feet wide, led straight down the middle, benches on each side. It dead-ended against a chancel rail of two-by-fours. An usher led us down the trail in answer to my hope for seats down front. The place was crowded but he got people to squeeze over and we wound up on the aisle in the second row, me outside. Yes, there were still seats in the back, but every preacher despises people—their name is legion!—who sit clear at the back when there are seats open down front.

As the music stopped, Brother Barnaby stood up and came to the pulpit, placed his hand on the Bible. “It’s all in the Book,” he said quietly, almost in a whisper. The congregation became dead still.

He stepped forward, looked around. “Who loves you?”

“Jesus loves me!”

“Let Him hear you.”

“JESUS LOVES ME!”

“How do you know that?”

“IT’S IN THE BOOK!”

I became aware of an odor I had not smelled in a long time. My professor of homiletics pointed out to us once in a workshop session that a congregation imbued with religious fervor has a strong and distinctive odor (“stink” is the word he used) compounded of sweat and both male and female hormones. “My sons,” he told us, “if your assembled congregation smells too sweet, you aren’t getting to them. If you can’t make ’em sweat, if they don’t break out in their own musk like a cat in rut, you might as well quit and go across the street to the papists. Religious ecstasy is the strongest human emotion; when it’s there, you can smell it!”

Brother Barnaby got to them.

(And, I must confess, I never did. That’s why I wound up as an organizer and money-raiser.)

“Yes, it’s in the Book. The Bible is the Word of God, not just here and there, but every word. Not as allegory, but as literal truth. You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. I read to you now from the Book: ‘For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the Trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.’

“That last line is great news, my brothers and sisters: ‘—the dead in Christ shall rise first.’ What does that say? It does not say that the dead shall rise first; it says that the
dead in Christ
shall rise first. Those who were washed in the blood of the Lamb, born again in Jesus, and then have died in a state of grace
before
His second coming, they will not be forgotten, they will be
first.
Their graves will open, they will be miraculously restored to life and health and physical perfection and will lead the parade to Heaven, there to dwell in happiness by the great white throne forevermore!”

Someone shouted, “Hallelujah!”

“Bless you, sister. Ah, the good news! All the dead in Christ, every one! Sister Ellen, taken from her family by the cruel hand of cancer, but who died with the name of Jesus on her lips,
she
will help lead the procession. Asa’s beloved wife, who died giving birth but in a state of grace, she will be there! All your dear ones who died in Christ will be gathered up and you will see them in Heaven. Brother Ben, who lived a sinful life, but found God in a foxhole before an enemy bullet cut him down,
he
will be there…and his case is specially good news, witnessing that God can be found anywhere. Jesus is present not only in churches—in fact there are fancy-Dan churches where His Name is rarely heard—”

“You can say that again!”

“And I will. God is everywhere; He can hear you when you speak. He can hear you more easily when you are ploughing a field, or down on your knees by your bed, than He can in some ornate cathedral surrounded by the painted and perfumed. He is here
now,
and He promises you, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you. I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to Him, and will dine with Him, and he with Me.’ That’s His promise, dearly beloved, in plain words. No obscurities, no highfalutin ‘interpretation,’ no so-called ‘allegorical meanings.’ Christ Himself is waiting for you, if only you will ask.

“And if you do ask, if you are born again in Jesus, if He washes away your sins and you reach that state of grace…what then? I read you the first half of God’s promise to the faithful. You will hear the Shout, you will hear the great Trumpet sounding His advent, as He promised, and the dead in Christ shall rise again. Those dry bones will rise again and be covered with living, healthy flesh.

“
Then
what?

“Hear the words of the Lord: ‘Then we which are alive’—That’s you and me, brothers and sisters; God is talking about
us.
‘Then we. which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord’!

“So shall we ever be! So shall we
ever
be! With the Lord in Heaven!”

“Hallelujah!”

“Bless His Name!”

“Amen! Amen!”

(I found that I was one of those saying “Amen!”)

“But there’s a price. There are no free tickets to Heaven. What happens if you
don’t
ask Jesus to help you? What if you ignore His offer to be washed free of sin and reborn in the blood of the Lamb? What then? Well? Answer me!”

The congregation was still save for heavy breathing, then a voice from the back said, not loudly, “Hellfire.”

“Hellfire and damnation! Not for just a little while but through all eternity! Not some mystical, allegorical fire that singes only your peace of mind and burns no more than a Fourth of July sparkler. This is the real thing, a raging fire, as real as this.” Brother Barnaby slapped the pulpit with a crack that could be heard throughout the tent. “The sort of fire that makes a baseburner glow cherry red, then white. And you are
in
that fire, Sinner, and the ghastly pain goes on and on, and it never stops. Never! There’s no hope for you. No use asking for a second chance. You’ve
had
your second chance…and your millionth chance. And more. For two thousand years sweet Jesus has been begging you,
pleading
with you, to accept from Him that for which He died in agony on the Cross to give you. So, once you are burning in that fiery Pit and trying to cough up the brimstone—that’s sulfur, plain ordinary sulfur, burning and stinking, and it will burn your lungs and blister your sinful hide!—when you’re roasting deep in the Pit for your sins, don’t go whining about how dreadful it hurts and how you didn’t know it would be like that. Jesus knows all about pain; He died on the Cross. He died for
you.
But you wouldn’t listen and now you’re down in the Pit and whining.

“And there you’ll
stay,
suffering burning agony throughout eternity! Your whines can’t be heard from down in the Pit; they are drowned out by the screams of billions of other sinners!”

Brother Barnaby lowered his voice to conversational level. “Do you want to burn in the Pit?”

“No!”—“Never!”—“Jesus save us!”

“Jesus will save you, if you ask Him to. Those who died in Christ are saved, we read about them. Those alive when He returns will be saved if they are born again and remain in that state of grace. He promised us that He would return, and that Satan would be chained for a thousand years while He rules in peace and justice here on earth. That’s the Millennium, folks, that’s the great day at hand. After that thousand years Satan will be loosed for a little while and the final battle will be fought. There’ll be war in Heaven. The Archangel Michael will be the general for our side, leading God’s angels against the Dragon—that’s Satan again—and his host of fallen angels. And Satan lost—will lose, that is, a thousand years from now. And nevermore will he be seen in Heaven.

“But that’s a thousand years from now, dear friends. You will live to see it
…if
you accept Jesus and are born again before that Trumpet blast that signals His return. When will that be? Soon, soon! What does the Book say? In the Bible God tells you not once but many times, in Isaiah, in Daniel, in Ezekiel, and in all four of the Gospels, that you will
not
be told the exact hour of His return. Why? So you can’t sweep the dirt under the rug, that’s why! If He told you that He would arrive New Year’s Day the year two thousand, there are those who would spend the next five and a half years consorting with lewd women, worshiping strange gods, breaking every one of the Ten Commandments…then, sometime Christmas Week nineteen ninety-nine you would find them in church, crying repentance, trying to make a deal.

“No siree Bob! No cheap deals. It’s the same price to everyone. The Shout and the Trump may be months away…or you may hear it before I can finish this sentence. It’s up to you to be ready when it comes.

“But we know that it is coming soon. How? Again it’s in the Book. Signs and portents. The first, without which the rest cannot happen, is the return of the Children of Israel to the Promised Land—see Ezekiel, see Matthew, see today’s newspapers. They rebuild the Temple…and sure enough they have; it’s in the
Kansas City Star.
There be other signs and portents, wonders of all sorts—but the greatest are tribulations, trials to test the souls of men the way Job was tested. Can there be a better word to describe the twentieth century than ‘tribulations’?