Will had been holding back, letting the other people leave the church before he approached the pastor. Finally, when everyone else had left, Will walked over to the pastor and said, "Pastor North, do you have a minute?"
"Sure," the pastor answered.
"I don't know why I'm telling you this," Will said. "I've never told anyone else, but I just feel like I want to tell you."
"Okay," Pastor North said with a puzzled look on his face.
"Back during the war," Will began, "I was stationed on Guam. It's not a very big island, you know."
"Yes, I know," Pastor North replied.
"Well, one day there was nothing happening, so I went for a walk. Not a long walk. Maybe about a mile, on a dirt road. And this is the part you're not going to believe. Right there beside the road, I saw a burning bush. Out in the middle of nowhere, here is this bush and it is on fire. And there was no reason for it to be on fire."
“You mean it wasn’t burning because of an explosion or something to do with the war?” the pastor asked.
“No, nothing like that was going on,” Will answered. “I wouldn’t have been out there walking if there was any action going on. And what was really amazing was that the bush was not being consumed by the flames.”
“Are you saying that it was like the bush that Moses saw burning up on the mountain?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It was just a really strange thing to see out there in the middle of this island. I always thought God had something to do with it, but I’m not even sure about that.
"What did you do?" Pastor North asked.
"I didn't do anything. I stood there and looked at it for awhile. Then I just kept walking. In a little while, I met up with two fellows from another unit coming toward me. I told them about the burning bush. Then I turned around and walked back to show it to them. We couldn't find the bush. We couldn't even find a burned area. So, Pastor, am I crazy?"
"No, you're not crazy," Pastor North answered. I had something like that happen to me once too, in a church before coming here. I was preaching and glanced back over my shoulder at the life-size cross that hung in that church’s sanctuary. I saw Jesus hanging on that cross. He was dying. His body was drawn up in terrible pain, and his skin was dark with dried blood. Everything was very dark. The nails were there, holding his hands and feet. I was surprised at how small Jesus seemed to be. I saw him for just an instant, because as I said I was preaching at the time. So I looked back at the congregation. They showed no sign of having seen what I did. And, even though I kept on preaching, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had just seen. So, I glanced back at the cross again to see if Jesus was still there.”
“Was he? Will asked.
“No, all I saw was the plain wooden cross hanging where it had always been. There was no sign of Jesus. So I wondered if I had really seen Jesus, or if it was just a figment of my imagination.”
"Were you preaching about Jesus on the cross?" Will asked.
"No," Pastor North answered, "nothing even close to that. And I had never seen a picture that showed Jesus like I saw him on that cross."
"What does it mean?" Will continued to question. "What you saw and what I saw - do these things mean something? Is God trying to tell us something?"
“Well, I didn’t know what my vision meant until several years later. I had prayed about it off and on. Thought about it. Wondered about it. But never understood it. Then I was getting ready for a wedding at the new church where I had been appointed. I was marking the lesson I would be reading from the big sanctuary Bible. I read over the words, just to keep them fresh in my mind so I wouldn’t stumble over them when I read them during the wedding. And then, there it was “…and I will love them and reveal myself to them” from John 14:21. Those words just leapt off the page, and I immediately knew that they were the answer to my understanding what I had seen. Jesus loves me, and so he revealed himself to me to let me know. I’ve never really doubted that Jesus loves me. But it sure does feel good to have him tell me plainly – or maybe I should say that he showed me plainly. In any case, I’ll never forget seeing him that way. It is very humbling to see Jesus dying the death that you deserved. I can still see him clearly – drawn up in pain and covered with dried blood. And the darkness, it was just overwhelming.”
“I know I’ll never forget the bush I saw,” Will said. “I can still see it just as plainly now as I did then. I just wish I knew what it means.”
“Do you have any ideas about what it could mean?” Pastor North asked.
“Not at all,” Will answered. “Do you?”
"No. Not really," Pastor North answered. "Except that it certainly lets us know that God is still at work in our world. It also means that you and I both have been given a very precious gift. It's kind of like the gift that Jesus gave Peter, James and John when he let them see him transfigured into all his heavenly glory and talking to Moses and Elijah. Why did Jesus let them see that? We don't know. We only know it was a very precious gift to them, and through them to all the rest of us who believe."
"You're right," Will agreed. "It is a gift, and I have always felt special because I was allowed to see that burning bush.
"God is like that," Pastor North said, "always making his children feel special and very, very much loved."
"Yeah," Will echoed, "that's what God is like."
Questions for Meditation, Discussion or Preaching
Copyright 2020. Robert D. Ingram, 32746 Jourden Rd., Albany, Ohio 45710 (dr.bobingram@gmail.com). Used by permission.
