Three Short Parables
By the time I got there it was too late. The victim lay naked and bloody on the ground. From the way he lay it was evident that there were even more serious wounds below the surface.
Even though it was late in the day I could see a long way down the road as it descended into the valley. In the far distance I could make out a lone figure hastening toward the distant town. A little less than a mile behind it, though still far away, was a second figure, also hurrying to the same destination.
I looked at the man on the ground. His wounds were many and untended, clouds of flies hummed about him and on a branch of a nearby, dead tree a couple of vultures waited patiently.
“Lord!” I cried, “You’ve made me a carer, but this is beyond me. Even though I want to, how can I tend this man’s hurts? I have not the means to clean and bind up these deep wounds, much less to heal those below the surface.”
“Little one,” said the Lord, “That is my task, yours will come presently.” The Lord knelt by the man’s side. Slowly and patiently He cleaned and bound up each wound until the man was a mass of bandages. Then He touched several places where I presumed the deep, internal injuries lay. The man, who had been only half conscious, seemed to relax and, giving a faint sigh, went to sleep. The Lord wrapped him gently in His own cloak, lifted him and placed him on my broad, strong back. Then, with my hooves clattering down the stony path, we carried the wounded man to the city of Jericho.
* * * * * *
Okay, so I wasn’t the world’s finest ornament, not that I was badly made. They would never have bought me otherwise. They were very fine people, only the best was good enough for them. So I ended up on a small, exclusive shelf in their house. Sometimes they would put flowers in me, sometimes I would be cleaned and polished and set there for general admiration. Not that I got all that much attention, as I said before, I wasn’t an exceptional work of art. Still, it was an easy life. Then disaster. A careless servant turned too fast when carrying me one day. It was just a grazing blow against the wall, but enough to knock a piece out of my lip and leave a crack down my side, ruining the fine glaze. Of course the stupid servant was punished, but for me it was too late. The damage was irreparable and I was taken to a place just outside the town where all the rubbish was left. The servant threw me onto the heap of broken, useless things. As I sailed through the air I hoped that I might land on something soft, perhaps a pile of rags. But the turn of bad luck that had caused all this was still spiralling down and I landed on the only brick in sight.
Shattered in every sense of the word I lay there while night followed day. Until the man came along. I had seen him once, long before, in my former home. He had been the greatest of his people, but now unrecognisably changed. The first thing I noticed were the boils. All over him. With slow and painful steps he made his way to my new home and slowly lowered himself to a sitting position nearby. He groaned and flexed his hands as if trying to claw himself. Then, groping around him, he found and picked up one of my pieces and began to scrape himself, gaining some small relief.
It wasn’t that he was infinitely more miserable than I that changed my outlook. It was after the others came and had argued long with him. One evening while turning my fragment over in his scarred hands he said, “Only a broken potsherd, but broken you have been to me of greater worth and use than all these miserable comforters.”
* * * * * *
They were, you must admit, the unlikeliest group of comforters ever. A jar of wine, a sponge and a six-foot long cane. Well, the jar of wine, you might say could bring comfort of a sort. However this jar had been around so long, waiting to be used, that it had turned sour. As for the sponge, just the opposite of a giver. And the cane? Unless you were into growing runner beans that was the only kind of support it was likely to give.
So there they were, a jar of wine vinegar, a sponge and a six-foot cane. They had been brought to the place of execution as part of the soldiers’ paraphernalia. They lay to one side, unregarded, for most of the day, until around mid-afternoon the dying man in the middle gasped out his need for a drink. “That’s me!” Cried the jar of vinegar, “My chance at last!”
“How will you get up there?” Said the sponge.
“Oh,” said the jar of vinegar, its moment of glory quenched. Without haste one of the soldiers picked up the sponge, dunked it in the vinegar and squeezed it several times.
“Hey!” Protested the jar of vinegar, “You don’t know where that sponge has been!”
“Yukk!” Cried the sponge as it was filled with vinegar, “What’s the big idea? I’m a sponge. I take. I don’t give.” The now-saturated sponge was raised from the jar of vinegar. The soldier stuck it on the end of the cane.
“Ouch!” Yelled the sponge.
“Yukk!” Cried the cane.
Cane and sponge, dripping vinegar, were raised up and up to the dying man on the centre cross.
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Adrian Rodgers adrian.rodgers@ams1.ulsop.ac.uk