Deadline

  But now he was in the bathroom shaving and humming “Silent Night” and thinking about the words. After a long hot shower, he put on some casual clothes, grabbed his wallet and keys, and headed for the door.

  I wonder if Mom will recognize me.

  It was Christmas Day now, and Jake was alone. His time with his mother yesterday morning had been difficult at first, but the longer he’d stayed the more at home he’d become. He even met a few of his mother’s friends, which he’d never had time to do before.

  Last night he’d been with Sue, Little Finn, Angela and her husband Bruce. Their first Christmas without Finney. There had been tears, but lots of laughter. The laughter in that family came from deep inside. They celebrated Christmas as if they had some inside knowledge of what it really meant.

  The investigations shadow hung over him. Perhaps Jake would spend the rest of his life speculating on who killed his friends and why, never knowing for sure, and never seeing the killer brought to justice. To think that someone could get away with this. Where was justice in this world? It was frustrating to be out of control, to not be in charge, to know he wasn’t calling the shots. Maybe nobody was. He was tired of it. He wanted answers and he wanted them soon.

  He sat back in his frayed blue recliner, molded perfectly to his shape and sitting position. The surround sound and big screen of his home entertainment system presented impressive reruns of the new starship Enterprise blasting through space, with Captain Jean-Luc Picard at the helm, accompanied by his trusted friends and advisors. The journey into the unknown, the exploration of the undiscovered country appealed to something deep inside Jake. It wasn’t just his desire to escape, but his longing to understand the universe, to know what if anything lies beyond, to discover and interact with worlds and peoples far greater than his own. To find a planet, perhaps a whole galaxy, untainted by the ravages and ruin of earth. It seemed a childish fantasy, but it was a fantasy he would gladly choose over the reality he knew.

  Two more hours of television left him hungry for something that satisfied. Jake opened Finney’s Bible for the second time. He flipped his way through it, like a pioneer hiking through virgin territory, seeing new terrain from every new viewpoint. He was amazed at all the underlining, circled words, lines connecting words and verses to each other. He read the notes and the verses, seeking to understand. Often he was pleased he could, though he suspected Finney saw deeper and more profound connections than he. He looked at each page as if it were an ancient treasure map, with the scrawlings of Magellan in the margins.

  Jake’s mind drifted, holding Finney’s Bible triggering thoughts of his old friend. He was awakening to the crackle of an early morning campfire. He crawled out of his Cutter’s-scented sleeping bag and stuck his head out of the tent to get a deeper whiff of the savory smell of frying bacon. Finney looked and laughed.

  “Morning, bud! You look like you need a jump start. I’ll pour you a Cappuccino.”

  Finney brought over a cup of fire-roasted coffee that should have tasted terrible, but didn’t. Then Finney ruffled Jake’s matted hair. Funny how he remembered that. Jake missed not just the sight of his friend, but his smell and touch.

  Why did they go on those hunting trips together? Was it the spontaneity, the differentness, the departure from the routine? The adventure, the danger (minimal though it was) of the wild? Or was it just an excuse to stay up late with people you loved? Yeah, that was it, though you couldn’t just come right out and say you “loved” those guys. It was being with friends where there was nothing to do but talk and tell stories and hold on to this something special you knew you had together. You could accomplish a lot of the same thing just setting up a tent in the back yard.

  His mind drifted back to his friend’s most valued possession, the ancient book on his lap. These pages so cram full of notes revealed Finney’s view of the Bible, Jake thought. He saw it not as a relic to be enshrined, but bread to be consumed. Every scratching of the pen represented time spent in thought and prayer. Finney would read the Tribune to see how people were living. He would read the Bible to see how people should be living.

  Jake suddenly remembered the letter. About a year ago Finney had written him a letter, not long after the infamous duck hunting disaster when Finney and Doc almost came to blows. He remembered how bad Finney felt. He wrote to Jake, to let him know why he felt as he did. Jake had put that letter somewhere. He’d thrown away some other notes—“Finney’s evangelistic notes” he’d labeled them—but not this one. Perhaps he instinctively realized that if one day Finney was gone, he could always remember him from this letter.

  Jake got up from his recliner and scanned the bookshelf. Finally, yes, there it was, folded into a book Finney had given him at the same time—Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. Jake had never opened the book. It had served only to preserve the letter.

  The letter was three typewritten pages long. It was a typical Finney-looking letter, beautiful on the page, having been labored over on his computer and printed out on his laser printer. Jake imagined him writing it late one sleepless night just after the hunting trip.

  Dear Jake,

  Sorry about the “duck hunting disaster,” as you so aptly dubbed it. I find myself between the proverbial rock and hard place. I feel compelled to act according to what I believe, yet it troubles me to know this makes things so uncomfortable for you.

  At the truck stop, I believed I had to warn Doc not to do something so wrong and destructive to him and his family. I got angry and said things I shouldn’t have. I asked both of you to forgive me then, and ask you again now. I’m sending a letter to Doc too. I don’t want to jeopardize the rich friendship we’ve always enjoyed.

  I’ve decided to lay out for you in this letter the core of my beliefs. Before you say “Not again,” hang on. I want to share them with you, then leave the ball in your court. I can’t promise I’ll never bring anything up again, but I do promise I’ll try never to push anything on you. Agreed? So please indulge me and read this. Like you, sometimes I need to put what I believe in writing. (Unlike you, though, nobody’s willing to pay me for it!)

  You’ve wondered aloud more than once why I spend my Sunday mornings in church. Well, it’s not to honor the dead, that’s for sure. Church isn’t a memorial service for a dead man. It’s a worship service for a risen Lord. This isn’t about being religious. This is about Jesus. I believe what the Bible says about him. I believe the Bible isn’t a bunch of fairy tales, but precisely what it claims to be—a serious record of history, written by reliable eye-witnesses. These included some real skeptics, who despite themselves just couldn’t ignore what they saw and heard.

  This Jesus has changed my life. You told me once you thought I was just fine before I became a Christian. I appreciate it, old buddy, but in my heart I know differently. Even back then I knew something vital was missing, though on the outside most people thought I was okay.

  I believe Jesus was and is God, that he’s alive and is coming again. I believe he died on a cross for my sins, but that means nothing unless the Jesus who died on that cross was who he claimed to be. He claimed to be the Savior of the world.

  You’re probably thinking, “To believe all this, don’t you have to check your brains at the door and throw out common sense?” You know me well enough to know I’ve never been easily convinced of anything. I don’t believe things just because I want to, only when I’m convinced there’s a compelling reason.

  I grant there’s a lot of foolishness and insincerity that passes itself off as “Christian,” but that doesn’t invalidate real Christianity, any more than counterfeit bills invalidate real money. The truth is real Christians are just ordinary people who’ve accepted the grace of God.

  Jake, I’m asking you to read the book I’m giving you—Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. I’ve mentioned him before. An agnostic Oxford professor, Lewis was so intellectually honest that he forced himself to weigh the evidence for the Christian faith, never expecting to be sway
ed by it. As he studied the biblical accounts, he was disturbed to conclude they were authentic, that they were written as history, not fable. Despite his deep desire to disbelieve, he found himself believing. This is how he described his conversion:

  “You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. Finally I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

  Later he began to find great joy in his new faith. But it was reason, it was the evidence that compelled him to believe even when he didn’t want to.

  Many people have said, “Well, I don’t believe Jesus was really God, but I do think he was a great man and a fine moral teacher.” You’ve said this yourself, haven’t you, Jake? But as Lewis says in Mere Christianity, Jesus claimed to be much more than that. He claimed to be the only way to heaven. I won’t say any more about this here, except to ask you to read what I’ve highlighted on pages 55 and 56.

  God created us to know him and to find great joy in our relationship with him and each other. But he gave us free choice, and we chose to rebel against him. The Bible says “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 3:23; 6:23). It says God is holy, that he’s so utterly righteous he has to judge sin. Somebody has to pay the price. Either we pay the price, through an eternity in hell, or Jesus pays the price for us. It’s just that simple, Jake.

  Remember when we were playing ball in front of Swenson’s? Mrs. Swenson set up that old card table and put out the lemonade for us, and then she and Mr. Swenson sat and watched us. Doc was pitching, and you knocked one of his pitches right through old man Bronson’s second story window. He was mowing his lawn and saw the whole thing. Our mouths were hanging open, and suddenly he was running at us like crazy.

  Well, you know what happened next. Mr. Swenson comes out in front of us and tries to calm Bronson down. Finally, he takes out his wallet and gives the guy what seemed like a fortune—wasn’t it a $20 bill? And Bronson walks away satisfied. We were off the hook. I don’t think we had three dollars between us. Mr. Swenson saved our necks by paying the debt for us.

  Jesus died for our sins, but his death doesn’t guarantee forgiveness for everyone. What it guarantees is the availability of forgiveness to everyone. If you want it, it’s yours: “Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life” (Revelation 22:17). Christ offers the gift of forgiveness and eternal life, but we must choose to accept it or it isn’t ours.

  Death is the one certain thing in all of our lives. No intelligent person would face death without seriously examining the claims of Jesus. Don’t turn away from Christ until you’ve taken a close look at him. Once you do, I think your mind will be forever changed. So, let’s see some of that open-mindedness good liberals are supposed to have. Are you open-minded enough to give Jesus a chance before the deadline’s past?

  I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable to know I pray for you every day, Jake. I have for years. I don’t want our friendship to end when our life here does. If I leave this world first, one of the greatest joys I can think of is being in heaven to greet you when you arrive.

  I only hope you’ll look past my inadequacies and failings and not hold them against the God I’m telling you about. I don’t want to get in the way of you or Doc coming to know Him. If I can ever be of help to you in this or anything else, please call on me, Jake. I’ll be there. I promise.

  Your friend,

  Underneath was Finney’s distinctive signature, the “F” a block rather than cursive, the “n’s” blending together into what looked like an “m,” and the “y” going straight down the page as if it had fallen down an elevator shaft.

  I miss you, Finn.

  For the next fifteen minutes, Jake was in another world, a world of memories and questions and conflict. When he returned, he discovered Finney’s letter still in his hands, wrinkled by his grip. He carefully smoothed it out, folded it, and put it back in the envelope.

  Jake went into the kitchen and put on some Macadamia Nut decaf, poured his first cup, then added French vanilla cream. He walked back to the old recliner and sat down with his coffee in one hand and a book in the other. He opened Mere Christianity to page 55 and read:

  I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

  Jake put the book down on his lap and, lost in thought, stared at nothing for the next several minutes. Then he picked the book up again, turned to the front, and started reading. He read it as a man reads something written by an old friend.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  You’ve taught me so much, Zyor. This place is wonderful, much more wonderful than I had even dreamed. And, besides Elyon himself, you’ve been the most wonderful part of it. I’m so glad we’re here together, finally able to talk face to face as friends.”

  “I am but a tiny part of your life here, which has just begun, and has endless eons of joyous adventure ahead.” The mighty one’s face softened into its most childlike features. “But I am honored you believe that part significant.”

  “At last,” Finney added.

  “Master?”

  “You didn’t say ’At last you believe that part significant,’ but you must have felt it. All those years you served me. You protected me from death and injury in situations I never knew. I remember when I was seven—I fell into Benton Stream and hit my head on that rock. No one could figure out how I’d kept from drowning. It was you, wasn’t it?”

  The gigantic warrior nodded like a sheepish child. “I begged Elyon to let me carry you to land. He said his purpose for you on earth was not done and granted my request. It was one of only three times I was allowed to physically touch you. I will never forget that day.”

  “You fought to keep me from temptation,” Finney said, “and when I foolishly walked headlong into it you fought to bring me through it faithful to Elyon. I gave God credit, and I know that’s all you wanted. I also gave myself some credit, and my family and friends and church. But never once did I give you any credit, faithful friend.”

  Finney reached his arm up to Zyor’s mammoth shoulders, accentuating how thin his perfect human body was, compared to this tender warrior’s. “I’m truly sorry, Zyor, for Elyon’s Book told me your kind were spirits sent to minister to my kind. It spoke of angels guarding us. But in the shadows of that world such thoughts somehow seemed unreal to me. As we used to say, I just didn’t get it. Please forgive my blindness, dear friend.”

  The angel’s resemblance to a bashful child kept growing. Finney grinned dimple to dimple again, feeling as if he were looking at a little boy—though this one was ten feet tall—blanching at the praise of his father. Zyor’s head hung low in a way that made Finney think of Barney, the Tennessee mountain boy in his platoon. He almost expected Zyor to say “Ah, shucks, it weren’t nuthin’.”

  That precious expression on his face. Yes, it’s like Little Finn. Just like Little Finn.

  “It is mine to serve,” Zyor said. “The servant seeks ultimate approval only from th
e Audience of One.”

  Zyor said the word “One” with such reverence there could be no doubt of whom he spoke. Yet these words seemed rehearsed, as if they came straight out of some angelic handbook designed to keep Elyon’s messengers focused and on track. Finney sensed Zyor must have said the words to himself many times in the dark world, as he worked so hard to defend someone who didn’t even know he existed.

  “And it is the beckon of that One I now must follow,” Zyor said with sudden urgency and determination. “That is why I must leave you.”

  “Leave me? How can you leave? My orientation isn’t over, is it? This is our home, Zyor. Why would you leave?”

  “My home is wherever my Lord sends me.”

  “But where is he sending you?”

  “To the front lines, where a warrior belongs when the battle rages. There will be time to celebrate later, time to tell great stories of valor, of campaigns won and lost, of struggles and weariness and victory. The time now is to do these things, not to speak of having done them. You no longer need me. Others do.”

  Zyor looked at Finney. “I am a warrior. The years by your side on earth were good, though never easy. And my time with you here has been a great privilege. It is so like Elyon to give us goodness beyond what we imagine. First and last, beginning and end, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, may his name be forever praised.”

  The giant’s acclaim for Elyon was so spontaneous and absorbing that it sometimes seemed a continuous interruption to his train of thought. Yet Finney could see that the focal point, the overriding theme of this world was Elyon. Not his creations, not his plans, but Elyon himself—the virtues of his character, manifested in the greatness of his deeds. He was the magnet that drew all things to himself, the center of gravity, the reference point, the anchor and foundation of all. Elyon was the subject matter of heaven. Everything else was a temporary interruption, a brief digression. That was why no conversation could go far without erupting into praise.