Not as many people rolled into the Bible Church only on the major holidays, but the regular members were less likely to schedule vacation, or simply sleep in, on the big pageant days. Though it was only Sunday school time, the parking lot was already more full than usual. Palm Sunday was a ramp-up to Easter, when it came to attendance at UCBC.
Gladys led Jesus to her adult Sunday school class, where they were studying the Book of Romans. The former pastor had been converted by reading the Book of Romans as a college student, and his loyalty to the epistle was such that there was nearly always a study in the Book of Romans available through a sermon series, Bible study or Sunday school class. This class, meeting in the overflow section next to the main sanctuary, was led by one of the longest-serving adult Sunday school teachers in the church, Ivan Garber.
Though he was a few years older than Gladys, Ivan had been coloring his hair for a couple of decades. From a distance, he looked no different than he did teaching Sunday School in his fifties. From a distance. Up close, his face was a Romans Road detail map, of lines that gathered and stretched when he smiled. On his nose perched a pair of gold rimmed glasses that he sometimes actually looked through.
Arriving a minute after the class bell rang, Gladys had to sit too far back to read on Ivan’s face just how many years he had been teaching these classes. He was one of the few remaining members of the first generation of that church, and he liked to mention that occasionally. When Gladys sat down, she heard the end of one of those reminiscences.
Jesus sat next to Gladys and laughed along at Ivan’s mildly amusing anecdote about meeting in a tiny one-room church, back in the day. Gladys had been so busy getting ready and hurrying to church, and had become used to Jesus accompanying her everywhere, that it was not until his laugh that she stopped to think of the wonder of sitting next to Jesus in Sunday school. The idea sent a chill throughout her body and then tickled her so that she had to pull a tissue out of her purse to cover her nose and mouth, disguising a minor fit of church giggles.
She got more serious when she remembered something Jesus had said about delivering a message to the pastor for him. Gladys revisited delivering encouragements from Jesus to the two men in the store the previous afternoon, and tried to picture doing something like this for Pastor Heskett. Jesus nudged Gladys and nodded toward the front of the room, where Ivan was reading from the assigned passage. Gladys generally didn’t do the assigned reading, and this made her feel guilty, considering the companion sitting to her right.
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Ivan read these words right there in the presence of the one who died. Suddenly, giggling was the last thing Gladys felt like doing. She glanced over at Jesus, but decided she couldn’t look, that would make it harder. She didn’t want to think about him dying. She mulled over the approaching celebration of his death that coming Friday, and she felt as if her friend, and constant guide, would be taken cruelly away from her in just five days. But that wasn’t right, he did it already. He already had died. And then there was Easter. Gladys breathed a sigh. Easter, that was a better thought.
From there, she drifted to thinking about Katie’s visit. In the process, she missed what Ivan was saying about God’s love for sinners, “sinners like us.”
Gladys suddenly felt Jesus looking at her, She peaked into the corner of her right eye, from which she could see him turned fully toward her. He, of course, knew the whole story, even better than Gladys, who had been studying Romans every year for decades. He didn’t need to listen to the teacher. He was there that day for her.
This thought dragged Gladys even further from the lesson, as Ivan settled into an even tone for a bit too long—a couple of older students nodding off at this first provocation. She stared down at the back of the chair in front of her. Why had Jesus come to be with her, to be seen and to be heard so clearly by her? How did she deserve that? Then that question flipped over. What was so bad about her that she needed Jesus, himself, to show up and straighten her out?
Now Gladys sighed. And she thought she heard Jesus say something. She glanced toward him again, but could detect no change in his face, nothing to say that he had just finished softly speaking in her ear. As soon as she looked away, however, she heard the voice again.
“Gladdy, I’m right here with you,” the faint little voice said. Though faint and small, it still sounded like Jesus.
She snuck another look at his face. It was calm and still. He was speaking to her without moving his mouth. He was speaking from the inside. She could hear Jesus in her head.
Though he had done something like this when she was shopping, the notion triggered the insanity fears of last week. She stopped to size up the fact that she was hearing voices. This was different from hearing a man who was visibly standing next to her. The fact that other people couldn’t see or hear him was a secondary experience for Gladys. She could only witness from the outside some imperfect evidence that others were not hearing the clear voice speaking wisdom and love to her. That seemed less certain, and therefore less insane, somehow. Hearing a voice in her head was the sort of thing she feared.
“How else should I speak to you?” that voice said, now seeming to respond to her thoughts. Her thoughts had discovered that they were not alone in her head anymore. Jesus was not just reading her thoughts; he was inserting his in next to hers, in response to hers. Then she heard a phrase from Ivan’s lesson that grabbed her back to the class, and the present Sunday morning that was rolling by.
“And what’s most amazing is that this salvation came to us not because of what we had achieved, or would achieve, but because of undeserved favor from God,” Ivan said. “In the world’s eyes, this is crazy. Who would sacrifice his life for sinners, for people who were his enemies? That’s insane in the eyes of the world.”
This was the sum total of all that Gladys would catch from that Palm Sunday adult education lesson. Recognizing that fact might have put her to shame. But, instead, she latched onto that idea that, at its core, the Christian faith was crazy. Maybe she worried too much about being crazy, or at least seeming crazy to others.
Her thoughts turned again to her cousin Leah. She could recall a game they played at Leah’s house, where Leah was the queen who had been put to sleep by a wicked witch, and Gladys was to play her sister, who had been looking everywhere for her, frantic with worry about what had happened to the beautiful queen. The way Leah’s eyes wandered to distant horizons when she set up the story, the way her hands instinctively rose to her chest, as if to keep her broken heart from spilling out onto the floor, the way her voice projected every word, so hushed and full of drama, had made play time with Leah more exciting than anything Gladys experienced in her young life.
That was crazy Leah. Maybe crazy wasn’t the worst thing she could be, Gladys thought.
She jumped back to the present when most of the people around her laughed at a joke that she had missed. By the way Ivan had raised his nose to look through his glasses, she could tell he was proud of his quip. Even Jesus was laughing. But she could tell that he was still paying attention to her.
“They called me crazy, remember,” Jesus said. “Even my own family.”
Gladys had forgotten that story in the Gospels, but didn’t doubt Jesus’s claim. She set aside the distraction about being crazy (or not) and tried to focus on the lesson. That struggle lasted about ten minutes, taking her to the end of the class.
When Ivan followed the class bell with parting words and a brief prayer, those still awake nudged those who weren’t, men and women gathered coats, purses and hats, and rose to their feet, to herd toward the sanctuary.
Jesus helped Gladys to her feet. Though her legs were much better, she still felt the need to rise slowly, partly out of habit, and partly for concern about her circulation. She tended to have low blood pressure, which was a good trend, but made quick changes from sitting to standing a bit too adventurous.
“You should have someone lay hands on you so I could fix that blood pressure problem,” Jesus said, as they shuffled slowly amidst the congealing crowd.
Gladys looked at him to judge whether she had understood him correctly, but lost that thought when Marge Kennedy hooked her arm and offered a warm Palm Sunday greeting.
“Hello, Gladys. You’re looking well these days,” Marge said. She looked at Gladys through lavender reading glasses that she had forgotten to take off when the class ended. Those glasses blended well with her light blue eyeshadow and her rust red hair, a color that bore no relation to her natural hair color, even before the last of it turned white. Marge’s voice had a bit of a creaky hinge quality, but was usually inflected upward, and her smile usually offered a look at her pearly teeth.
“I am feeling wonderful these days, Marge,” Gladys said, happy to be reminded of it.
Marge, just a few years younger than Gladys, leaned in confidentially. “What’s your secret,” she said in a stage whisper.
Without thinking about it, Gladys blurted the truth. “It’s Jesus,” she said, her croaky voice hitting a squeak at the end of her little declaration.
The two women had been friends for decades, and they had met at church, carrying out most of their friendship in that context. In spite of that, this answer struck Marge as strangely pious, coming from Gladys. There were a few old folks in the church who would take every opportunity to tell you how great God and Jesus were, how their lives were blessed. Neither Gladys nor Marge had ever been one of those folks.
Marge blurted her response equally impulsively. “You got religion?” If you asked her to explain this question, she would have stuttered and mumbled for quite a while in search of an answer. Nothing but sheer surprise launched that irreverent challenge.
Gladys laughed. She knew she had shocked Marge, a bit sorry for the unplanned provocation, but amused at how shaken her friend seemed. “We’re in church, Marge,” Gladys said, a comical rebuke turning her voice into a low honk.
But Marge turned serious, considering that there might actually be something significant to explain the peaceful look on Gladys’s face, and her apparent lack of pain at walking. She only now noticed that Gladys carried no cane. When they reached the foyer, where coffee was being served in one corner and bulletins handed out at several stations next to the doors to the auditorium, Marge pulled Gladys to a stop, to get an explanation. They landed outside the main current leading to the center of Sunday morning activity.
Marge looked down at Gladys’s legs, though, of course, she wasn’t going to see anything really interesting without her x-ray glasses on. “Your hips are better?”
Gladys nodded slowly, a churlish smile on her full lips. Jesus was standing where he could have placed a hand on the shoulder of each woman, or perhaps joined in a little group hug. His grin was less churlish than Gladys’s, at the moment.
“My hips are healed. Completely healed. I have no pain there, or in my knees, and the doctor says I have the joints of a fifty-year-old.” Her gratitude for that quote was almost enough to keep Gladys from looking for a younger doctor.
“So where did you get this miracle cure?” Marge said.
“I told you, it was Jesus.”
“What do you mean? Did you go to one of those Holy Roller healing churches?”
Gladys laughed. “I don’t even know where to find one of those,” she said, looking at Jesus, as if to check whether he could give her directions.
Marge interrupted what looked to her like a random distraction drawing Gladys’s attention toward the ministry opportunity table on the far wall. “Well, how did it happen then? Don’t make me ask you twenty questions.”
Gladys felt suddenly squeezed into a tight place. The only way to tell Marge what really happened was to reveal the rest of her secret. Though her responses had amused Gladys, Marge had reminded Gladys by her words and her tone, that this wasn’t the sort of thing that happened in UCBC. Gladys tried to duck full disclosure.
“We need to get in there to grab our usual seats, Marge. I’ll just tell you the short version. Jesus healed my joints right in my kitchen.” And, with that, she headed for the nearest door to the sanctuary, even though she would have to circle around behind the back row of seats to her usual section.
Marge lost a step and couldn’t do more than trail along behind, trying to decide how to respond. Though the good news should have inspired halleluiahs, or at least congratulations, the oddity of the story prompted a feeling that Gladys had some explaining to do.
For her part, Gladys was feeling delinquent at having evaded a full answer to Marge’s question. What bothered her most, was how hard it was to talk openly about Jesus as a real and present person, with one of her dearest friends. She didn’t have to face Marge any more that morning, however, because Marge headed to her customary seat, with her sister and her sister’s husband, opposite where Gladys usually sat. But that did nothing to mute Gladys’s discomfort. Jesus paced along beside her effortlessly, slipping between people with supernatural ease. And that, of course, made all of it even harder to endure. How odd to be so awkward in church with Jesus. Gladys was actually disgusted with herself by the time she found a pair of empty seats near her Sunday service target zone.
Pausing from her internal preoccupation, Gladys focused on Jesus for a moment. He seemed to be looking for someone he knew, yet smiled at everyone. After watching him a bit, she decided that he knew everyone and was actually looking for them all, and very glad to see them all. Such indiscriminate joy stunned Gladys for a moment. Jesus turned to her and broke her from her mental paralysis.
“Aren’t you worried people will see you staring at an empty chair?” he said.
Gladys looked away and then checked around her to see if anyone was showing signs of suspicion about her odd behavior. She didn’t see anyone taking particular notice. But, when she looked to her right, she did catch the eye of old Eric Swenson, a widower who often made a point to say hello. His ruddy face, under his elaborate head of carefully combed white hair, was smiling right at her, when her eyes swept the rows across the aisle. She paused her scan and nodded at Eric before facing forward again. The singers and musicians were entering the stage, followed by the choir assembled for this special event.
Gladys’s preoccupation with her portfolio of worries and fears ruined a well-rehearsed pageant produced by the primary grades of the Sunday school. Small children in costumes waved palm branches, as a miniature Jesus rode into the sanctuary on a sawhorse on wheels, serenaded by the choir, leading the congregation in a song projected on the screens above the stage.
Standing with the rest of the congregation, Gladys wasn’t able to see much from her diminutive perspective, until the procession rounded the front of the church and headed up her aisle. The sight of the little boy dressed like Jesus, wearing a dark beard, nearly stopped Gladys’s breath. The likeness was pretty good, given the age of the boy, but this didn’t power her shock nearly as much as the loud cheers of the real Jesus standing next to her. Over the sound of the singing and clapping of the congregation, Gladys heard the jubilant shouts and forceful handclaps of her special guest, just before he ran down the aisle to join the other Jesus.
To the other adults watching, it appeared that the children gathered steam and, with their inhibitions eroded, suddenly began to praise more vigorously. Their “hosannas” expanded, as more of the collected children lent full voice to their song. Hands waved above heads, and children who had been awkwardly half-walking, half-dancing, broke loose and let their feet fly. They seemed to catch some of the jubilation of the first Palm Sunday, in that little burst toward the end.
Gladys, fully aware that Jesus had run to join the procession, and to lead the dance, saw the escalation from childish repetition to unfettered worship as the direct result of his participation. Not a careful calculator of such things, Gladys couldn’t have explained how he did it, but she knew that Jesus had energized the little worshippers arou
nd him, to break loose and engage in a real celebration, in place of their little dramatic production.
Fortunately for Gladys, many of those observing this intense burst of praise were moved to tears and exclamations. This prevented them from seeing her hands flying to cover her mouth, or to notice her rollercoaster eyes.
When the children finished the last turn of their snaking parade through the sanctuary, they received a rousing applause from the adults. Even the unflappably enthusiastic children’s church leader had difficulty meeting the level of intensity they had achieved. When she finished the procession with her scripted “Hosanna in the highest,” the children nearly drowned her out. This, of course, stood in stark contrast to their director’s experience of dragging a few dozen boulders up a hill during practice.
Jesus jumped and spun as he shouted praise along with the kids, and Gladys just shook her head at his boundless display. She laughed out loud in church for the first time she could recall, as her heart caught the updraft of that praise.
With uncharacteristic applause, and a few swipes at tears on his cheeks, the music leader on the big stage thanked the children and then started the first of three worship songs. Jesus danced his way back to the aisle near Gladys, but he didn’t join her in the confines of the row of chairs. Instead, he continued to dance and wave his hands during the music, his enthusiasm unabated by the departure of the children. Gladys had to fight the urge to try and join him, though she had no notion how she should dance, other than to try to imitate Jesus. She didn’t, however, resist the urge to watch him throughout all three songs, oblivious to the curiosity she was raising with her wayward focus across the aisle.
When Jesus finally came to rest in the seat next to her, as Gladys and the whole congregation briefly greeted folks around them and then took their seats, he didn’t seem winded, nor did his excitement seem sated. Gladys grinned back at him and just shook her head in wonder.
Hearing Jesus (Seeing Jesus Book 2) Page 15
