the <>Sixth Sunday after Easter
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Late one December, an elementary school principal said to his teachers: "Let's all write our New Year's Resolutions about how we can be better teachers, and I'll put them on the staff bulletin board. In that way, we can be mutually supportive in our efforts to keep those resolutions." The teachers agreed, and when the resolutions were posted, they all crowded around the bulletin board to read them. One of the young teachers in the group suddenly went into a fit of anger. She said, "He didn't put up my resolution. It was one of the first ones in. He doesn't care about me. That just shows what it's like around here." On and on she ranted and raved. The principal, who overheard this from his office was mortified. He hadn't meant to exclude her resolution. Quickly rummaging through the papers on his desk, he found it and immediately went to the bulletin board and tacked it up. The resolution read: "I resolve not to let little things upset me anymore." Resolution, but no commitment!
As a schoolboy, I worked with my father during the summer months. Each morning we stopped to pick up the early edition of the newspaper at a small grocery store.
One morning when we got to work, my father found that by mistake he had taken two newspapers instead of one. He first thought of paying the man the extra price the next morning, but then after a moment’s consideration he said, “I had better go back with this paper. I don’t want the man at the store to think I’m dishonest.” He got in his car, drove back to the store, and returned the paper.
About a week later, someone stole money from the grocery store. When police pinpointed the time it occurred, the grocer remembered only two people being in the store at the time—and one was my father. The grocer immediately dismissed my father as a suspect, saying, “That man is really honest. He came all the way back here just to return a newspaper he took by mistake.” The police then focused their investigation on the other man, who soon made a full confession. My father’s honesty made a big impression on that non-Christian storeowner, and on me.
Does your Christian walk square with your Christian talk? Is your honesty above question?
Once, as an experiment, the great scientist Isaac Newton stared at the image of the sun reflected in a mirror. The brightness burned into his retina, and he suffered temporary blindness. Even after he hid for three days behind closed shutters, still the bright spot would not fade from his vision. “I used all means to divert my imagination from the sun,” he writes, “But if I thought upon him I presently saw his picture though I was in the dark.” If he had stared a few minutes longer, Newton might have permanently lost all vision. The chemical receptors that govern eyesight cannot withstand the full force of unfiltered sunlight. There is a parable in Isaac Newton’s experiment, and it helps illustrate what the Israelites ultimately learned from the wilderness wanderings. They had attempted to live with the Lord of the Universe visibly present in their midst; but, in the end, out of all the thousands who had so gladly fled Egypt, only two survived God’s Presence. If you can barely endure candlelight, how can you gaze at the sun?
A young boy complained to his father that most of the church hymns were boring to him—too far behind the times, tiresome tunes and meaningless words. His father put an end to his son’s complaints by saying, “If you think you can write better hymns, then why don’t you?” The boy went to his room and wrote his first hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” The year was 1690, the teenager was Isaac Watts. “Joy to the World” is also among the almost 350 hymns written by him.
“You have a very rare and extremely contagious condition,” the doctor told his patient. “We’re going to put you in an isolation unit, where you’ll be on a diet of pancakes and pizza.”
“Will pancakes and pizza cure my condition?”
“No,” replied the doctor. “They’re the only things we can slip under the door.”
Thanks to the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, everyone has heard of the “midnight ride of Paul Revere.” But few have heard of Israel Bissel, a humble post rider on the Boston-New York route. After the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, Bissel was ordered to raise the alarm in New Haven, Connecticut. He reached Worchester, Mass., normally a day’s ride, in two hours. There, according to tradition, his horse promptly dropped dead. Pausing only to get another mount, Bissel pressed on and by April 22 was in New Haven—but he didn’t stop there! He rode on to New York, arriving April 24, and then stayed in the saddle until he reached Philadelphia the next day. Bissel’s 126-hour, 345-mile ride signaled American militia units throughout the Northeast to mobilize for war.
In northern Chile, between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, lies a narrow strip of land where the sun shines every day! Clouds gather so seldom over the valley that one can say, “It almost never rains here!”
Morning after morning the sun rises brilliantly over the tall mountains to the east. Each noon it shines brightly overhead, and every evening it brings a picturesque sunset. Although storms are often seen rising high in the mountains, and heavy fog banks hand their gray curtains far over the sea, Old Sol continues to shed his warming rays upon this “favored” and protected strip of territory. One might imagine this area to be an earthly paradise, but is far from that! It is a sterile and desolate wilderness! There are no streams of water, and nothing grows there. We often long for total sunshine and continuous joy in life, and we desire to avoid the heartaches that bring tears to our eyes. Like that sunny, unfertile part of Chile, however, life without clouds and even an occasional downpour would not be productive or challenging. But though showers do come, they will also end, and the sun will shine again.
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5).
Early in the morning toward the last day of the semester
There arose a great multitude smiting the books and wailing,
And there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth
For the day of judgment was at hand.
And they were sore afraid for they had left undone
Those things which they ought to have done.
And they had done those things which they ought not to have done
And there was no help for it.
And there were many abiding in the dorm
Who had kept watch over their books by night,
But it availed them naught.
But some were who rose peacefully,
For they had prepared themselves the way
And made straight paths of knowledge.
And these were known as wise burners of the midnight oil.
And to others they were known as “curve-raisers.”
And the multitude arose and ate a hearty breakfast.
And they came unto the appointed place
And their hearts were heavy within them.
And they had come to pass, but some to pass out.
And some of them repented of their riotous living
And bemoaned their fate.
But they had not a prayer.
And at the last hour there came among them
One known as the instructor;
And they feared exceedingly.
He passed papers among them and went his way.
And many and varied were the answers that were given,
For some of his teachings had fallen among fertile minds,
While other had fallen flat.
And some they were who wrote for one hour,
Others for two;
But some turned away sorrowfully, and many of these
Offered up a little bull in hope of pacifying the instructor.
It cost Mary and Joseph the comforts of home during a long period of exile in Egypt to protect the little babe.
It cost mothers, in and around Bethlehem, the massacre of their babies by the cruel order of Herod.
It cost the shepherds the complacency of their shepherd’s life, with the call to the manger and to tell the good news.
It cost the wise men a long journey and expensive gifts and changed lives.
It cost the early Apostles and the early church persecution and sometimes death.
It cost missionaries of Christ untold suffering and privation to spread the Good News.
It cost Christian martyrs in all ages their lives for Christ’s sake.
More than all this, it cost God the Father His own Son—He sent Him to the earth to save men.
It cost Jesus a life of sacrifice and service, a death cruel and unmatched in history.
In South Africa, naturist club owner Beau Brummell was irked by accusations from morals watchdogs that a shriveling Transvaal drought was brought on the “sin” of nude togetherness at his 1000-acre farm. So he asked his 370 visitors to get dressed. And, for the first time in two months, it poured rain. “It’s enough to make me become a monk!” Brummell said.
Shortly after I got my driver’s license I was driving too close to the middle of a narrow road and I sideswiped another car. The crash tore the front fender, two doors, and the rear fender from my dad’s car. After I found out everyone was okay, I stood in the ditch and prayed, “Dear God, I pray this didn’t happen.” I opened my eyes and saw that the car was still wrecked, so I closed my eyes, squinted real hard, and prayed again, “Dear God, it didn’t happen.” Then I opened my eyes, but it happened anyway.
Marcel Sternberger was a methodical man of nearly 50, with bushy white hair, guileless brown eyes, and the bouncing enthusiasm of a czardas dancer of his native Hungary. He always took the 9:09 Long Island Railroad train from his suburban home to Woodside, N.Y.., where he caught a subway into the city.
On the morning of January 10, 1948, Sternberger boarded the 9:09 as usual. En route, he suddenly decided to visit Laszlo Victor, a Hungarian friend who lived in Brooklyn and was ill.
Accordingly, at Ozone Park, Sternberger changed to the subway for Brooklyn, went to his friend’s house, and stayed until midafternoon. He then boarded a Manhattan-bound subway for his Fifth Avenue office. Here is Marcel’s incredible story:
The car was crowded, and there seemed to be no chance of a seat. But just as I entered, a man sitting by the door suddenly jumped up to leave, and I slipped into the empty place. I’ve been living in New York long enough not to start conversations with strangers. But being a photographer, I have the peculiar habit of analyzing people’s faces, and I was struck by the features of the passenger on my left. He was probably in his late 30s, and when he glanced up, his eyes seemed to have a hurt expression in them. He was reading a Hungarian-language newspaper, and something prompted me to say in Hungarian, “I hope you don’t mind if I glance at your paper.”
The man seemed surprised to be addressed in his native language. But he answered politely, “You may read it now. I’ll have time later on.”
During the half-hour ride to town, we had quite a conversation. He said his name was Bela Paskin. A law student when World War II started, he had been put into a German labor battalion and sent to the Ukraine. Later he was captured by the Russians and put to work burying the German dead. After the war, he covered hundreds of miles on foot until he reached his home in Debrecen, a large city in eastern Hungary.
I myself knew Debrecen quite well, and we talked about it for a while. Then he told me the rest of his story. When he went to the apartment once occupied by his father, mother, brothers and sisters, he found strangers living there. Then he went upstairs to the apartment that he and his wife once had. It also was occupied by strangers. None of them had ever heard of his family.
As he was leaving, full of sadness, a boy ran after him, calling “Paskin bacsi! Paskin bacsi!” That means “Uncle Paskin.” The child was the son of some old neighbors of his. He went to the boy’s home and talked to his parents. “Your whole family is dead,” they told him. “The Nazis took them and your wife to Auschwitz.”
Auschwitz was one of the worst Nazi concentration camps. Paskin gave up all hope. A few days later, too heartsick to remain any longer in Hungary, he set out again on foot, stealing across border after border until he reached Paris. He managed to immigrate to the United States in October 1947, just three months before I met him.
All the time he had been talking, I kept thinking that somehow his story seemed familiar. A young woman whom I had met recently at the home of friends had also been from Debrecen; she had been sent to Auschwitz; from there she had been transferred to work in a German munitions factory. Her relatives had been killed in the gas chambers. Later she was liberated by the Americans and was brought here in the first boatload of displaced persons in 1946.
Later, she was liberated by the Americans and was brought here in the first boatload of displaced persons in 1946.
Her story had moved me so much that I had written down her address and phone number, intending to invite her to meet my family and thus help relieve the terrible emptiness in her life.
It seemed impossible that there could be any connection between these two people, but as I neared my station, I fumbled anxiously in my address book. I asked in what I hoped was a casual voice, “Was your wife’s name Marya?”
He turned pale. “Yes!” he answered. “How did you know?”
He looked as if he were about to faint.
I said, “Let’s get off the train.” I took him by the arm at the next station and led him to a phone booth. He stood there like a man in a trance while I dialed her phone number.
It seemed hours before Marya Paskin answered. (Later I learned her room was alongside the telephone, but she was in the habit of never answering it because she had so few friends and the calls were always for someone else. This time, however, there was no one else at home and, after letting it ring for a while, she responded.)
When I heard her voice at last, I told her who I was and asked her to describe her husband. She seemed surprised at the question, but gave me a description. Then I asked her where she had lived in Debrecen, and she told me the address.
Asking her to hold the line, I turned to Paskin and said, “Did you and your wife live on such-and-such a street?”
“Yes!” Bela exclaimed. He was white as a sheet and trembling.
“Try to be calm,” I urged him. “Something miraculous is about to happen to you. Here, take this telephone and talk to your wife!”
He nodded his head in mute bewilderment, his eyes bright with tears. He took the receiver, listened a moment to his wife’s voice, then suddenly cried, “This is Bela! This is Bela!” and he began to mumble hysterically. Seeing that the poor fellow was so excited he couldn’t talk coherently, I took the receiver from his shaking hands.
“Stay where you are,” I told Marya, who also sounded hysterical. “I am sending your husband to you. We will be there in a few minutes.”
Bela was crying like a baby and saying over and over again. “It is my wife. I go to my wife!”
At first I thought I had better accompany Paskin, lest the man should faint from excitement, but I decided that this was a moment in which no strangers should intrude. Putting Paskin into a taxicab, I directed the driver to take him to Marya’s address, paid the fare, and said goodbye.
Bela Paskin’s reunion with his wife was a moment so poignant, so electric with suddenly released emotion, that afterward neither he nor Marya could recall much about it.
“I remember only that when I left the phone, I walked to the mirror like in a dream to see if maybe my hair had turned gray,” she said later. “The next thing I know, a taxi stops in front of the house, and it is my husband who comes toward me. Details I cannot remember; only this I know—that I was happy for the first time in many years.....
“Even now it is difficult to believe that it happened. We have both suffered so much; I have almost lost the capability to not be afraid. Each time my husband goes from the house, I say to myself, “Will anything happen to take him from me again?”
Her husband is confident that no horrible misfortune will ever again befall the. “Providence has brought us together,” he says simply. “It was meant to be.”
Skeptical persons will no doubt attribute the events of that memorable afternoon to mere chance. But was it chance that made Marcel Sternberger suddenly decide to visit his sick friend and hence take a subway line that he had never ridden before? Was it chance that caused the man sitting by the door of the car to rush out just as Sternberger came in? Was it chance that caused Bela Paskin to be sitting beside Sternberger, reading a Hungarian newspaper?
Was it chance—or did God ride the Brooklyn subway that afternoon?
A medical student had a hard time accepting that the whole world and even Christ's birth was part of a plan.
One day this lady medical student said, "I was working on an arm and hand, studying the perfect mechanical arrangements of the muscles and tendons-how the sheaths of certain muscles are split to let tendons of certain muscles through, so that the hand may be delicate and small and yet powerful. I was all alone in the laboratory when the overwhelming belief came. A thing like this is not just chance, but a part of a plan, a plan so big that only God could have conceived it.
"Religion had been to me a matter of form, a thing without conviction. Now everything was an evidence of God-the tendons of the hand, the patterns of the little butterfly's wings-all was part of a purpose."
The Psalmist wrote, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works" (Psa 139:14). But, has there ever been a better plan for the salvation of man than for Jesus coming into the world to save sinners? It was not a matter of chance, it was all planned and executed at the right time.
Charles Harvey, Good Samaritan of Grand Prairie, Texas, felt a bit nervous as he was driving to an important job interview. He was fifteen minutes late and in a hurry when he passed a middle aged woman stranded with a flat tire. "My conscience made me stop," he said. "I changed her tire and headed to the interview, thinking I could just forget about getting the job now."
But he filled out the job application anyway, and went to the Personnel Director's office. Did he get the job? He sure did. The Personnel Director hired him on the spot. She was the woman whose tire he had just changed.
It is not thy hold on Christ that saves thee
It is Christ.
It is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee,
It is Christ.
It is not even thy faith,
Though that be the instrument,
It is Christ’s blood and merit.
- Spurgeon
Apart from our Lord, it is hard to think of historical figures whose dying words were, "It is accomplished!" Alexander the Great conquered Persia, but broke down and wept because his troops were too exhausted to push on to India. Hugo Grotius, the father of modern international law, said at the last, "I have accomplished nothing worthwhile in my life." John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States-not a Lincoln, perhaps, but a decent leader-wrote in his diary: "My life has been spent in vain and idle aspirations, and in ceaseless rejected prayers that something would be the result of my existence beneficial to my species." Robert Louis Stevenson wrote words that continue to delight and enrich our lives, and yet what did he pen for his epitaph? "Here lies one who meant well, who tried a little, and failed much." Cecil Rhodes opened up Africa and established an empire, but what were his dying words? "So little done, so much to do."
To become a Christian is to accept an extra dimension to life. From the Christian’s point of view the notable thing about the unbeliever’s world is how much SMALLER it is. The unbeliever is imprisoned in a decaying universe.
Imagine you took a child to the theater to see some tragedy like, say, HAMLET, at the end of which the stage is littered with corpses. And suppose you had difficulty comforting the child afterward, so distressed was he at the spectacle of the deaths. “But the man who played Hamlet is not really dead,” you explain. “He is an actor. He also lives a life outside the theater. He has a wife and family and, far from being dead, he is probably now at home with them enjoying a late supper.”:
If there is one word the Christian secretly wants to use to describe the unbeliever’s outlook, it is LITERAL . . . like the child who takes the play for reality.
One day, Mr. L., a businessman living in a southern city, knocked at the office door of the Salvation Army. The Army captain answered and was very surprised to receive a gift of from Mr. L. That was big money at that time and was much appreciated by this charity organization.
As Mr. L. started to walk down the sidewalk, he heard steps behind him. It was the Army captain hastening to catch up with him.
"Our baby is sick," he said, "would it be all right to use some of this money to buy milk for it?"
"Go ahead and use all you need for your child," Mr. L. replied.
A number of years later, Mr. L. was running for a high government office and was to make a speech in the city where the Army captain worked. The large auditorium was filled to capacity with interested listeners, and the Army captain was one of them.
When Mr. L. finished his speech, the Army captain stood up and asked permission to speak. He told the incident how Mr. L. had given and about his sick child receiving the needed milk.
There was a thundering applause from the audience-and a decided victory for Mr. L. in his campaigning!
"Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days" (Ecc 11:1).
Death, like its master, Satan, stealthily watches to take its victims as a thief in the night. Quite often he gives no warning. Be prepared, therefore, to meet this enemy at any time. Professor J. H. Huxley was a well-known agnostic. His nurse revealed that in the last moments of his life, as he lay dying, the great skeptic suddenly looked up as at some sight invisible to mortal eyes, and, staring a while, whispered, "So it is true."
Having lost in a fire virtually everything they owned, the Spafford family made new plans, including a move from Chicago to France. Horatio Spafford planned the trip for his wife and four daughters to be as trouble-free as possible. To transport them from America to France, he booked passage on a huge ship, and made sure they had Christians with whom to fellowship in route. He planned to join them a few weeks later. In spite of much careful preparation, Mr. Spafford’s plans suddenly dissolved when the ship carrying his loved ones was rammed by another vessel and sank, carrying his four beloved daughters to the bottom. Anyone who has ever had their plans disrupted by the hand of God can understand Spafford’s plight. The next time you are in church, turn to the words of the great hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul”—words he penned as his ship passed over the watery grave of his four daughters!
I gave you life; but cannot live it for you.
I can teach you things;
but I cannot make you learn.
I can give you directions;
but I cannot always be there to lead you.
I can take you to church;
but I cannot make you believe.
I can teach you right from wrong;
but I cannot always decide for you.
I can teach you to be a friend;
but I cannot make you one.
I can advise you about friends;
but I cannot choose them for you.
I can teach you about sex;
but I cannot keep you pure.
I can tell you the facts of life;
but I cannot build your reputation.
I can tell you about "strong drink"
but I cannot say no for you.
I can warn you about drugs;
but I cannot prevent you from using them.
I can tell you about lofty goals;
but I cannot achieve them for you.
I can warn you about sin;
but I cannot make your morals.
I can love you as a child;
but I cannot place you in God's family.
I can pray for you;
but I cannot make you walk with God.
I can teach you about Jesus;
but I cannot make Him your Savior.
I can teach you to obey;
but I cannot make Jesus your Lord.
I can tell you how to live;
but I cannot give you eternal life.
Once, an unbeliever visited Isaac Newton, the great English scientist and Christian. Newton had a mechanical model of the solar system in his study.
The unbeliever asked, "Who made this?"
"Nobody," Mr. Newton replied promptly.
"You must think I am a fool!" the unbeliever said, "It would take a genius to make this."
Newton said, "This is only a puny imitation of a much grander system. I cannot convince you that this mere toy is without a designer, yet you profess to believe that the great original from which this design is taken has come into being without a Designer or a Maker."
On a crowded street of one of our large cities, a young man was snatched from the path of a speeding truck, his life saved by a venerable-looking man. Still breathless from fright, the youth thanked the one who saved his life and then was lost in the crowd.
Two weeks later in a crowded courtroom, an anxious young man stood in the prisoner's box to be sentenced for murder.
"Young man, have you anything to say before the sentence of death is passed upon you?" "Why! Yes! Yes, Judge," the youth responded, "you know me." A silence moved like a shock wave over the courtroom. "I'm sorry. I cannot place you."
"Yes. Surely you remember. Two weeks ago. At Main and Seventh Streets, you saved my life. Surely, Judge, you can do something to save me now." A silence pervaded the courtroom. "Young man, now I do remember you. But that day I was your savior. Today I am your judge."
Today the Lord Jesus Christ wants to be your Savior. If you refuse Him and His grace, one day He will be your Judge.
A closely sealed vase was found in a mummy pit in Egypt by the English traveler Wilkinson. In it were discovered a few peas, old, wrinkled, and hard as a stone. The peas were planted carefully under a glass, and at the end of 30 days, they sprang into life, after having lain sleeping in the dust of a tomb for almost 3,000 years-a faint illustration of the mortal body which shall put on immortality. "Because He lives, we shall live also."
Charles Dickens once wrote: "Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some." It only takes a minute to begin reflecting on our present blessings: the gift of life itself, the warmth of friendships, the riches of good health, the power of love, the glory of a sunrise, the privilege of prayer, the joys of music, the satisfactions of work, the treasures of books, the beauty of art, the miracle of spring, and the grace of God. Be more grateful and you will become more joyful!
Argentinean race driver Juan Manuel Fangio discovered that after the opening lap of the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix. As he approached a dangerous bend for the second time, Fangio noticed that something was wrong. The faces of the spectators, which he usually saw as a whitish blur as he drove by, were all turned away from him. “If they are not looking at me,” Fangio thought, “they must be looking at something more interesting around the corner.” So he braked hard and carefully rounded the bend, where he saw that his split second assessment had been accurate. The road was blocked by a massive pileup.
Nothing that is valuable is achieved without effort. Fritz Kreisler, the famous violinist, testified to this point when he said, “Narrow is the road that leads to the life of a violinist. Hour after hour, day after day and week after week, for years, I lived with my violin. There were so many things that I wanted to do that I had to leave undone; there were so many places I wanted to go that I had to miss if I was to master the violin. The road that I traveled was a narrow road and the way was hard.”
There is an inscription on a highway plaque in a small Minnesota town which reads, "On September 1, 1894, a forest fire swept over this area and 450 people lost their lives." As a person reads this sign, he cannot help asking himself, "What do you suppose started that fire?" Along the highways throughout our national forests we see signs urging tourists to be careful with fires. Each has a stern warning that a single match carelessly thrown away can start a conflagration. One match seems insignificant, but think of its tremendous potential. One Christian can be a radiant witness for his Master if he will only resolve to do so and dedicate his life to soul-winning.
I don't know if you are old enough to remember the organ grinder who used to go around in the streets with a little monkey to collect pennies. One such entertainer had an especially clever monkey. On one occasion, when a big dog broke away from some children with whom it had been playing and made a dash for the monkey, the bystanders were surprised to see that the monkey did not seem in the least afraid. He stood perfectly still in evident curiosity, waiting for the dog to come up to him. This disconcerted the dog, for it would have much preferred to chase something that would run and not stand its ground. As soon as the dog reached the monkey, the funny little scarlet-coated creature courteously doffed its cap. Instantly there was a laugh from the audience. The dog was nonplused. Its head drooped and its tail dropped between its legs. It looked like a whipped cur and not at all like the fine dog it really was. It turned and ran back home, and the laughing children could not persuade it to return. As for the monkey, he wanted no disagreement, and he knew instinctively that it took two to make a quarrel. You can often avoid strife by being the one who refuses to fight with a brother in Christ, even if he is somewhat different from you or belongs to another group.
Marcel Sternberger was a methodical man of nearly 50, with bushy white hair, guileless brown eyes, and the bouncing enthusiasm of a czardas dancer of his native Hungary. He always took the 9:09 Long Island Railroad train from his suburban home to Woodside, N.Y., where he caught a subway into the city.
On the morning of January 10, 1948, Sternberger boarded the 9:09 as usual. En route, he suddenly decided to visit Laszlo Victor, a Hungarian friend who lived in Brooklyn and was ill.
Accordingly, at Ozone Park, Sternberger changed to the subway for Brooklyn, went to his friend’s house, and stayed until midafternoon. He then boarded a Manhattan-bound subway for his Fifth Avenue office. Here is Marcel’s incredible story:
***
The car was crowded, and there seemed to be no chance of a seat. But just as I entered, a man sitting by the door suddenly jumped up to leave, and I slipped into the empty place. I’ve been living in New York long enough not to start conversations with strangers. But being a photographer, I have the peculiar habit of analyzing people’s faces, and I was struck by the features of the passenger on my left. He was probably in his late 30s, and when he glanced up, his eyes seemed to have a hurt expression in them. He was reading a Hungarian-language newspaper, and something prompted me to say in Hungarian, “I hope you don’t mind if I glance at your paper.”
The man seemed surprised to be addressed in his native language. But he answered politely, “You may read it now. I’ll have time later on.”
During the half-hour ride to town, we had quite a conversation. He said his name was Bela Paskin. A law student when World War II started, he had been put into a German labor battalion and sent to the Ukraine. Later he was captured by the Russians and put to work burying the German dead. After the war, he covered hundreds of miles on foot until he reached his home in Debrecen, a large city in eastern Hungary.
I myself knew Debrecen quite well, and we talked about it for a while. Then he told me the rest of his story. When he went to the apartment once occupied by his father, mother, brothers and sisters, he found strangers living there. Then he went upstairs to the apartment that he and his wife once had. It also was occupied by strangers. None of them had ever heard of his family.
As he was leaving, full of sadness, a boy ran after him, calling “Paskin bacsi! Paskin bacsi!” That means “Uncle Paskin.” The child was the son of some old neighbors of his. He went to the boy’s home and talked to his parents. “Your whole family is dead,” they told him. “The Nazis took them and your wife to Auschwitz.”
Auschwitz was one of the worst Nazi concentration camps. Paskin gave up all hope. A few days later, too heartsick to remain any longer in Hungary, he set out again on foot, stealing across border after border until he reached Paris. He managed to immigrate to the United States in October 1947, just three months before I met him.
All the time he had been talking, I kept thinking that somehow his story seemed familiar. A young woman whom I had met recently at the home of friends had also been from Debrecen; she had been sent to Auschwitz; from there she had been transferred to work in a German munitions factory. Her relatives had been killed in the gas chambers. Later she was liberated by the Americans and was brought here in the first boatload of displaced persons in 1946.
Later, she was liberated by the Americans and was brought here in the first boatload of displaced persons in 1946.
Her story had moved me so much that I had written down her address and phone number, intending to invite her to meet my family and thus help relieve the terrible emptiness in her life.
It seemed impossible that there could be any connection between these two people, but as I neared my station, I fumbled anxiously in my address book. I asked in what I hoped was a casual voice, “Was your wife’s name Marya?”
He turned pale. “Yes!” he answered. “How did you know?”
He looked as if he were about to faint.
I said, “Let’s get off the train.” I took him by the arm at the next station and led him to a phone booth. He stood there like a man in a trance while I dialed her phone number.
It seemed hours before Marya Paskin answered. (Later I learned her room was alongside the telephone, but she was in the habit of never answering it because she had so few friends and the calls were always for someone else. This time, however, there was no one else at home and, after letting it ring for a while, she responded.)
When I heard her voice at last, I told her who I was and asked her to describe her husband. She seemed surprised at the question, but gave me a description. Then I asked her where she had lived in Debrecen, and she told me the address.
Asking her to hold the line, I turned to Paskin and said, “Did you and your wife live on such-and-such a street?”
“Yes!” Bela exclaimed. He was white as a sheet and trembling.
“Try to be calm,” I urged him. “Something miraculous is about to happen to you. Here, take this telephone and talk to your wife!”
He nodded his head in mute bewilderment, his eyes bright with tears. He took the receiver, listened a moment to his wife’s voice, then suddenly cried, “This is Bela! This is Bela!” and he began to mumble hysterically. Seeing that the poor fellow was so excited he couldn’t talk coherently, I took the receiver from his shaking hands.
“Stay where you are,” I told Marya, who also sounded hysterical. “I am sending your husband to you. We will be there in a few minutes.”
Bela was crying like a baby and saying over and over again. “It is my wife. I go to my wife!”
At first I thought I had better accompany Paskin, lest the man should faint from excitement, but I decided that this was a moment in which no strangers should intrude. Putting Paskin into a taxicab, I directed the driver to take him to Marya’s address, paid the fare, and said goodbye.
Bela Paskin’s reunion with his wife was a moment so poignant, so electric with suddenly released emotion, that afterward neither he nor Marya could recall much about it.
“I remember only that when I left the phone, I walked to the mirror like in a dream to see if maybe my hair had turned gray,” she said later. “The next thing I know, a taxi stops in front of the house, and it is my husband who comes toward me. Details I cannot remember; only this I know—that I was happy for the first time in many years....
“Even now it is difficult to believe that it happened. We have both suffered so much; I have almost lost the capability to not be afraid. Each time my husband goes from the house, I say to myself, “Will anything happen to take him from me again?”
Her husband is confident that no horrible misfortune will ever again befall the. “Providence has brought us together,” he says simply. “It was meant to be.”
Skeptical persons will no doubt attribute the events of that memorable afternoon to mere chance. But was it chance that made Marcel Sternberger suddenly decide to visit his sick friend and hence take a subway line that he had never ridden before? Was it chance that caused the man sitting by the door of the car to rush out just as Sternberger came in? Was it chance that caused Bela Paskin to be sitting beside Sternberger, reading a Hungarian newspaper?
Was it chance—or did God ride the Brooklyn subway that afternoon?
Newspaper reporter phoned a story into his editor about an empty truck that rolled down a hill and smashed into a home. Editor was unimpressed and told reporter he didn’t want to run the story. “I’m glad you’re taking this so calmly. It was your house.”
Charles Leber, a Presbyterian missionary, was in Westphalia, Germany at a clinic for handicapped children. A wealthy businessman came to tour the facilities and said to the doctor, “These are very pathetic children. What ratio of cures do you get? How many go back to normal life?” “About 1 in 100.” “1 in 100! It’s not worth it.” “Yes it is. If that one was your child it would be worth it.”
Two men worked on a large ocean-going vessel. One day the mate, who normally did not drink, became intoxicated. The captain, who hated him, entered in the daily log: “Mate drunk today.” He knew this was his first offense, but he wanted to get him fired. The mate was aware of his evil intent and begged him to change the record. The captain, however, replied, “It’s a fact, and into the log it goes!”
A few days later the mate was keeping the log, and concluded it with: “Captain sober today.” Realizing the implication of this statement, the captain asked that it be removed. In reply the mate said, “It’s a fact, and in the log it stays!”
In 1912, two Irish music hall players were spending an afternoon in a pub at Stalybridge in Cheshire, England. They were extolling the musical traditions of Ireland when it’s said they boasted they could write and perform a song in the same day.
It might have been a gimmick to stimulate attendance or it could have been genius jumping out of its bag, for It’s a Long Way to Tipperary was performed that night at the Stalybridge Grand Theater by Jack Judge and Harry Williams. It was an overnight success that gained tremendous popularity during World War I as an Allies marching song.
The next time you feel yourself feeling confident, challenge yourself to do the impossible. You just may. There are legions of people with unchallenged genius potential.
In 1912, two Irish music hall players were spending an afternoon in a pub at Stalybridge in Cheshire, England. They were extolling the musical traditions of Ireland when it’s said they boasted they could write and perform a song in the same day. It might have been a gimmick to stimulate attendance or it could have been genius jumping out of its bag, for It’s a Long Way to Tipperary was performed that night at the Stalybridge Grand Theater by Jack Judge and Harry Williams. It was an overnight success that gained tremendous popularity during World War I as an Allies marching song.
George W. Truett, a well-known pastor, was invited to dinner in the home of a very wealthy man in Texas. After the meal, the host led him to a place where they could get a good view of the surrounding area.
Pointing to the oil wells punctuating the landscape, he boasted, “Twenty-five years ago I had nothing. Now, as far as you can see, it’s all mine.” Looking in the opposite direction at his sprawling fields of grain, he said, “That’s all mine.” Turning east toward huge herds of cattle, he bragged, “They’re all mine.”
Then pointing to the west and a beautiful forest, he exclaimed, “That too is all mine.”
He paused, expecting Dr. Truett to compliment him on his great success. Truett, however, placing one hand on the man’s shoulder and pointing heavenward with the other, simply said, “How much do you have in that direction?” The man hung his head and confessed, “I never thought of that.”
The famous preacher D.L. Moody told about a Christian woman who was always bright, cheerful, and optimistic, even though she was confined to her room because of illness. She lived in an attic apartment on the fifth floor of an old, rundown building. A friend decided to visit her one day and brought along another woman—a person of great wealth. Since there was no elevator, the two ladies began the long climb upward. When they reached the second floor, the well-to-do woman commented, “What a dark and filthy place!” Her friend replied, “It’s better higher up.” When they arrived at the third landing, the remark was made, “Things look even worse here.” Again the reply, “It’s better higher up.” The two women finally reached the attic level, where they found the bedridden saint of God. A smile on her face radiated the joy that filled her heart. Although the room was clean and flowers were on the window sill, the wealthy visitor could not get over the stark surroundings in which this woman lived. She blurted out, “It must be very difficult for you to be here like this!” Without a moment’s hesitation the shut-in responded, “It’s better higher up.” She was not looking at temporal things. With the eye of faith fixed on the eternal, she had found the secret of true satisfaction and contentment.
During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religious had different versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death. The debate went on for some time until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room. “What’s the rumpus about? He asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”
After some discussion, the conferees had to agree. The notion of God’s love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhist eight-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of karma, the Jewish covenant, and Muslim code of law—each of these offers a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God’s love unconditional.
Ancient paganism thought of each god as bound to his worshippers by self-interest because he depended on their service and gifts for his welfare. Modern paganism has at the back of its mind a similar feeling that God is somehow obligated to love and help us, even though we don’t deserve it. This was the feeling voiced by the French freethinker who died muttering, “God will forgive—that’s his job.” But this feeling is not well founded. The God of the Bible does not depend on his human creatures for his well-being (see Ps. 50:8-13; Acts 17:25), nor, now that we have sinned, is he bound to show us favor. We can only claim from his justice—and justice, for us, means certain condemnation.
God does not owe it to anyone to stop justice from taking its course. He is not obligated to pity and pardon; if he does so it is an act done, as we say, “of his own free will,” and nobody forces his hand. “It depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy” (Rom. 9:16). Grace is free because it is self-originated and proceeds from the One who was free not to be gracious. Only when one realizes that what decides each man’s destiny is whether or not God resolves to save him from his sins, and that this is a decision which God need not make in any single case, can one begin to grasp the biblical view of grace.
In the Middle East they tell the following story to illustrate the essence of tact:
A sultan called in one of his seers and asked how long he would live.
“Sire,” said the seer, “you will live to see all of your sons dead.” The sultan flew into a rage and handed the prophet over to his guards for execution. Then he called for a second seer and asked the same question.
“Sire,” said the prophet, “I see you blessed with long life, so long that you will outlive all your family.” The sultan was delighted and rewarded the seer with gold and silver trinkets.
Both prophets knew the truth, but one had tact, the other did not.
It’s not always easy to smile and be nice,
When we are called to sacrifice.
It’s not always easy to put others first,
Especially when tired and feeling our worst.
It’s not always easy to do the Father’s will.
It wasn’t so easy to climb Calvary’s hill.
But we as His children, should learn to obey;
Not seeking our own but seeking His way.
It’s not always easy to fight the good fight.
But it is always good and it is always right!
- Glenda Fulton Davis
Two men were out hunting. Neither was a good shot. After they had tramped through the fields for hours, they had seen plenty of rabbits but had yet to hit one. With evening coming on, both were getting tired. One turned to the other and said, “Tom, what about it? Let’s just miss two more and call it a day.” Despite the lack of anything to show for their time, these two hunters probably expended as much energy and effort as if they had bagged twenty rabbits. The same thing, unfortunately, can and does happen to people. “It is not enough to be busy,” someone once said, “one must also get results.”
When John Matar stepped outside his Chicago home on his birthday recently, he found two tons of manure piled eight feet high on his front lawn. The present, compliments of his brother in California, was the latest in an outlandish gift-giving war that erupted between the two when John sent his sibling one of those “insulting” birthday cards. He got 50 back.
Last year John received a pet rock that tipped the scale at 4,000 pounds. He responded with 10 tons of pebbles and a note telling his brother that the pet rock had babies.
Over the years, gifts between the two have also included a full-grown elephant and two busloads of choirboys. Which goes to show, it’s not just the thought that counts.
When you go to a doctor for your annual check-up, he or she will often begin to poke, prod, and press various places, all the while asking, “Does this hurt? How about this?” If you cry out in pain, one of two things has happened. Either the doctor has pushed too hard, without the right sensitivity. Or, more likely, there’s something wrong, and the doctor will say, “We’d better do some more tests. It’s not supposed to hurt there!” So it is when pastors preach on financial responsibility, and certain members cry out in discomfort, criticizing the message and the messenger. Either the pastor has pushed too hard. Or perhaps there’s something wrong. In that case, I say, “My friend, we’re in need of the Great Physician because it’s not supposed to hurt there.”
It is not what men eat but what they digest that makes them strong;
Not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich;
Not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned;
Not what we preach but what we practice that makes us Christians.
Spring is here, and many of us are fighting to shed those five pounds we picked up over the winter. Fortunately, there is a sensible way to avoid those excess calories that wreak havoc on the battle of the bulge. Simply follow these rules, which have been passed down by calorie counters through the generations:
Anything eaten in small increments has no calories. If someone in your office brings in a box of cookies and you only nibble each time you pass by, you do not have to count those calories.
Anything eaten standing up or off someone else’s plate does not count.
Gulps count, sips don’t.
Whatever you purchase from a street vendor has fewer calories than the same item consumed at home.
The calories in hard candy or gum are too minuscule to bother with. Eat as much as you want.
Whatever you eat that was prepared by your child (no matter how old the child) does not have calories.
Neatness cancels calories. If you take an extra bit of cake to even off the slice, those calories do not exist. Ditto for evening off a pint of ice cream.
Anything you cook yourself has reduced calories because of the huge amount of energy you expended preparing it. - Judith H. Dobrzynski in New York Times
Spring is here, and many of us are fighting to shed those five pounds we picked up over the winter. Fortunately, there is a sensible way to avoid those excess calories that wreak havoc on the battle of the bulge. Simply follow these rules, which have been passed down by calorie counters through the generations:
Anything eaten in small increments has no calories. If someone in your office brings in a box of cookies and you only nibble each time you pass by, you do not have to count those calories.
Anything eaten standing up or off someone else’s plate does not count.
Gulps count, sips don’t.
Whatever you purchase from a street vendor has fewer calories than the same item consumed at home.
The calories in hard candy or gum are too minuscule to bother with. Eat as much as you want.
Whatever you eat that was prepared by your child (no matter how old the child) does not have calories.
Neatness cancels calories. If you take an extra bit of cake to even off the slice, those calories do not exist. Ditto for evening off a pint of ice cream.
Anything you cook yourself has reduced calories because of the huge amount of energy you expended preparing it.
It is not what men eat but what they digest that makes them strong;
not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich;
not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned;
not what we preach but what we practice that makes us Christians.
When I saw Sadhu Sundar Singh in Europe, he had completed a tour around the world. People asked him, Doesn’t it do harm, your getting so much honor?” The Sadhu’s answer was: “No. The donkey went into Jerusalem, and they put garments on the ground before him. He was not proud. He knew it was not done to honor him, but for Jesus, who was sitting on his back. When people honor me, I know it is not me, but the Lord, who does the job.”
An Englishman by the name of Ebenezer Wooten had just concluded a preaching service in the village square. The crowd had dispersed, and he was busily engaged in loading the equipment. A young man approached him and asked, “Mr. Wooten, what must I do to be saved?” Sensing that the fellow was trusting his own righteousness, Wooten answered in a rather unconcerned way, “It’s too late!” The inquirer was startled. “Oh don’t say that, sir!” But the evangelist insisted, “It’s too late!” Then, looking the young man in the eye, he continued, “You want to know what you must DO to be saved. I tell you it’s too late now or any other time. The work of salvation is done, completed, finished! It was finished on the cross.” Then he explained that our part is simply to acknowledge our sin and receive by faith the gift of forgiveness.
Ted Williams, at age 42, slammed a home run in his last official time at bat.
Mickey Mantle, age 20, hit 23 home runs his first full year in the major leagues.
Golda Meir was 71 when she became Prime Minister of Israel.
William Pitt II was 24 when he became Prime minister of Great Britain.
George Bernard Shaw was 94 when one of his plays was first produced.
Mozart was just seven when his first composition was published.
Now how about this? Benjamin Franklin was a newspaper columnist at 16 and a framer of the United States Constitution when he was 81. You’re never too young or too old if you’ve got talent.
Let’s recognize that age has little to do with ability.
Destiny is determined not by chances but by choices. Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.
