The Mercy Seat

[ZiSunka]

Suddenly, behind him, the doors of the church opened and a man stepped out.

He looked at John and asked, "Do you knock?"

John looked at the man. Dressed in a cheap suit with a bald head, he was the stereotypical pastor. John laughed a cynical little laugh and said, "No. I didn't knock."

The man answered, "I heard a knock. I keep these doors locked during the day, but the back doors open. Last year we had a theft, someone stole the alms box. A shame really; if they had just come and asked, I would have given them the whole thing anyway. But they also broke two very valuable windows imported by our founders from France. Worth $185,000 each. We didn't want to spend the money to replace them, and now we just have plywood over the openings. I had to lock the doors to keep that from happening again."

John was simultaneously amused and bored by this recitation. He turned to go, but the pastor asked, "Could you come in? I'm a little lonely today. My wife has gone to New York to visit our daughter. I was about to have some tea."

John laughed again. He really didn't want to deal with this man and his loneliness. But something inside him propelled him into the church.

The beauty of it astonished John. The church was plain on the outside, but inside it was radiant, not only the architecture and the art, but some intangible substance John couldn't identify. John felt instantly humbled by the presence of God.

Not the Watcher, some "it" who observes, but God, the Holy presence who loves.

John fell to his knees, light-headed. He didn't want to be on his knees, but he couldn't get up. His head was swimming and woozy. He really couldn't stand up.

The bald man sat on the floor with John. "Are you sick?" he whispered.

John shook his head. "Not sick," he whispered back. "Sinful." John knew he had no business in the presence of God. It was the same feeling he had had in the basement tombs of the church in Italy. He knew he was no more righteous with God than he had been that day. John's soul was not washed clean by the blood of the Lamb.

"Reverend, can a man lose his salvation?" John whispered.

"You mean a man who once knew the love of God and turned his back? Maybe. He can't lose it, but he can throw it away," the pastor replied. "Have you thrown away your salvation?" he asked.

John nodded. "I think I have. I have lived like the devil for 16 years, thinking it woudn't matter. But now I know it does."

"Tell me about your salvation experience, son," the pastor put his hand on John's shoulder to comfort him.

John described the events in the tombs.

"But when did you realize that you were a sinner, hopeless to save himself?"

"What?" said John.

"When you prayed that prayer, who were you praying to?" the pastor asked.

"Who?" John replied. "Well, God, I guess."

"But why? So that bad feeling would go away? Or because you wanted to submit your sins to Him and let Him wash you clean?"

"To feel better. And I did feel better, for a while. But I lost it somehow. I lost my salvation and I threw it away with evil living."

The two men sat on the floor looking at each other. Neither spoke. The pastor had the most peaceful, compassionate look in his eyes that John had ever seen.

"Sir, that's not a salvation experience. That's a bandaid experience. You wanted some pain to end. But salvation isn't a self-comforting device, it is an act of the will to submit yourself to God and let Him wash your sins away. When you left Italy, you went straight back to the same old sins again and never grew in the faith, didn't you?" John nodded. "And you've never been able to put them behind you?" John nodded again. "You try to be good, but you keep failing?" More nodding. "And you deal with that by blaming God." John just sighed and began to cry.

"Would you like to really get saved, to submit to God and start a real relationship with God?" the pastor asked.

John was silent for a moment. Then he started to crawl toward the door. He had to find a way out of this church. Fear and revulsion gripped him and propelled him toward the door.

The pastor tried to stop him, to hold him back, to struggle with what was going on inside John. But it was like he was possessed. John threw the older man off him and rushed through the door.

Once outside, John ran to get away. When he was completely out of breath, he stopped, and panting, he looked around and realized he was lost. His heart sank. He was lost. His soul was lost, his body was lost, his life was lost, his hopes were dead, and he wasn't saved. He sank to the ground, getting his clothes muddy. The chill in the air was worse. John started toward the inn.

Every step felt like a hundred steps. He could hardly keep his body moving. Night was coming on fast, and he would surely freeze if he couldn't find the inn soon.

He tried to ask a passerby for directions, but his appearance was so rumpled and dirty, the man brushed him off. "Get away from me! Can't the city keep the homeless off the streets!" the man screamed at John. "I don't have any money for you, you old wino. Get away."

John tried to tell the man who he was. "My name is John Ransom. I'm a very rich man, and if you help me now, I'll reward you. I'm very rich!"

"Yeah, that's right," the man said scarastically. "Very rich like Bill Gates. And I'm the King of Persia!" and he laughed with a cutting laugh as he got into his car and drove away, almost hitting John with the front bumper.

It was now very dark and the streets of Ambler were deserted.

 

[ZiSunka]

"There is a Hell, everyone goes there, and the longer you live, the worse it gets." The words rang inside John's brain. He could still hear his college philosophy professor saying them, twenty-five years ago, and now they resonated in John's soul. John was 45. The longer you live, the worse Hell gets. So the Hell set aside for John would be pretty bad by now. The thought gave him chills. He was thinking about ending his life tonight. The hell he had been living through on earth was bad enough, and the one he would be entering at death was getting worse by the second, according to his old teacher.

John didn't know where he was or how long he had been running. He had left his watch back at his room, along with his phone, his wallet and everything else that could help him now. Even if Ambler had taxis or a bus service (John loked around for a bus stop sign), he had no money to pay the fare. He had no idea which way to walk and no way to call for help. He was wearing a light sweater and cotton pants which let the cold soak right through to his bones.

It started to drizzle.

John started to laugh, a cynical, desparate laugh, the laugh of a madman, but he was still perfectly sane. HIs mind was very clear. He knew that God was showing him who He was, and who John was.

He began to walk. He didn't know what way he was going or where he would end up, but walking was better than standing in the rain. Inside, he was on the verge of surrender. He had to admit that things weren't going his way, no matter how much he had railed at God and demanded his own way. There was nowhere to go that he could get away from God, but he was still too angry to surrender, still too bitter to submit, still too stubborn to admit he was a sinner.

Ambler wasn't that big a town. Sooner or later, he would come to the city limits, and beyond that, the wilds of Alaska. Chances were, no one would even realize he was gone. He'd just wander out there and die in the cold. Who would even miss him enough to look for him? John couldn't think of anybody.

He plodded along, the cold making it harder to take each next step. He wished he were warm and dry, instead of wet and dying. He wished he could take his whole life back and start over. He wished he could be born again.

That thought hit him like a lightning bolt, and he started to cry. He had lost his salvation, had thrown it away. He remembered the audio Bible saying something about once you know Christ and reject him, you had lost your salvation for good, since you couldn't go back and re-crucify Christ. John didn't really understand what that meant, but some instinct in him told him that all was lost. He didn't really even understand what Christ had to do with it, or how Christ dying on the cross 2000 years ago had anything to do with his own rebellion and sins. Maybe if sometime he had looked into that, there might have been hope. But it was all too late.

A passing truck splashed through a big puddle and drenched John. He was shivering, but his heart was so sad and desparate that it didn't matter to him. The rain and the tears all mingled together. Was God crying right now, too? John wondered. No, John decided. It was too late for God to care. Not after what John had said and done that afternoon at the inn. John had cursed God; He could never forgive that.

The cold and sadness made it hard for John to walk, and he sunk to the sidewalk. He was on a bridge and he leaned up against the rails and looked over. The river was running fast and deep. If he jumped, it would be all over in seconds.

John pulled himself up with the rail. He didn't want to die, he wanted to live. But he had nothing to live for, and no way to live with himself and what he had done. His life was a waste of resources. His life was a waste of time. He had pursued money, and money was all he had now. And money couldn't buy back his daughter, or save his soul.

John collapsed against the rail. He was too tired and sick to cry. He just stared down at the water, mesmerized by the leaps and streamers it made as it rushed down its course. The water couldn't control its destiny, and neither could John. As the water goes helplessly to the ocean, John was going helplessly to Hell.

John remembered the dream in which he was being tested and called out on God to save him. He wanted to do that. His very soul ached to call out to God to save him. But he was too weak. He just leaned against the rail and waiting for enough energy to jump over and into the raging river.

Way down in his soul, a tiny voice eeked out a single word. "God."

Nothing happened. No rush of angel wings, no magical lights from heaven, no voice from above. John prepared to jump.

He got one foot over the rail and paused. Then a hand grabbed his shoulder with amazing strength, and he heard someone say, "Mr Ransom." He stopped and turned to see what was going on.

It was the young man from the news article, the former-architect-turned-pastor. John couldn't make sense of what was happening. His face showed his puzzlement and his desparation.

"Mr. Ransom," the young man repeated. "Do you know me? I'm Josh Anderson. I used to work for you, three years ago. Do you remember?"

John couldn't say anything. He had no idea what to make of someone who knew him here in Ambler, Alaska. He just couldn't process what was going on.

Josh held his strong grip on John's shoulder and eased him back from the edge. John was like a paralyzed man, he couldn't walk, speak or move, he just stood there, wondering what was happening.

Josh saw the bewilderment, the daze that John was in, and pciked him up like a baby and carried him down the street to the Daybreak Center, which was still under construction.

Though John was out of the rain, he still couldn't understand or speak. He just sat. Part of him was fearful of having to go on living, and part of him was afraid of dying.

Josh silently wrapped him in a blanket. Wisely, he didn't try to make John talk, he just hugged him, trying to make him stop shivering. John accepted the hug, actually grateful that someone would touch him. John couldn't remember the last time he was hugged. Without shame, John leaned into the hug and accepted it.

 

[ZiSunka]

Josh continued to hold John like he would hold a sick baby or a delicate vase. He even kissed John on top of his head, which he was afraid would offend John. But John didn't recoil, he sighed. It had been so long since anyone had held him or kissed him without sexual intent. It was a kiss of peace that infiltrated John's heart.

"Some things cannot be fixed until they are completely broken," Josh said quietly.

John nodded. "But I can't fix myself. I've already tried."

"You wish you could start life over,wiping out the bad stuff and only keeping the good stuff," Josh answered.

John nodded again, still without looking up or withdrawing from Josh's embrace. But that was impossible. John still wanted to die, so he wouldn't have to keep living as a loser.

"You can start over Mr. Ransom. Whoever is a believer in Christ is a whole new person. The old one passes away and a whole new life starts," Josh said. "Can you believe in Christ?"

"I don't know who Christ is," John replied.

"He is God. He came to earth in a human body to give us new life, to take away our sins and give us access to God."

"I don't understand," John replied.

"Can you believe in the Bible?"

"I'd like to try," John answered.

Josh picked up his Bible, which had been on the bench beside him. He had been reading and praying this evening inside this empty building on the "bad" side of town. He was worshipping and making himself available to God when he got the strong urge to go outside. It was raining and cold, but the urgent push outside wouldn't go away, so he went out and followed the urge until he saw a man about to throw himself off the bridge. The word, "ransom" came to his mind, but it didn't make any sense. He ran up to the man, he grabbed out at him, hoping against hope that he would be able to reach him before he fell. "Ransom," his brain said again. Then the man turned around and he saw the face. John Heckler Ransom, his former boss. What was he doing here? Josh couldn't deny that God had brought him out to save this man's life. He told this whole story to John while he flipped through his Bible to take John done the "Romans Road."

At the end, John Heckler Ransom finally understood who Christ is and how he had made the way for man to have access to the real, living God. He acknowledged that he had been a sinner, one of the worst, submitted himself to Christ and beggged God to make him a new person.

Instantly, John Heckler Ransom felt different. Not the way he had in that tomb in Italy, but different. He felt like a giant weight had been lifted off him, like he could sing and dance, like he wanted to bow down and kiss God's feet. John told him that that was exactly what one woman did when she received forgiveness from Christ. John laughed and wished with all his heart that he could do the same thing. He was free. He was a new creation. Not the same old guy with a new religion. but a whole new person.

 

[ZiSunka]

The crash of the Atlantic Ocean always put Josh into a reflective mood. As he sat here on the upper porch of this shingled house at the beach, he sipped lemonade and comtemplated the last three years.

He had been reading an article from BusinessFirst Weekly. It featured John Heckler Ransom and his transformation from billionaire businessman to innkeeper to missionaries. The article said he had sold his interest in the real estate development firm which he founded to open his homes in Tempe, Arizona and Currituck, North Carolina as retreat centers for missionaries, pastors and urban mission workers and their families, cost free. He had also heavily endowed Josh's Daybreak Center, so much so that no one in Ambler would ever have to go hungry or homeless again. Josh smiled recalling the look of great love with which John handed over the endowment papers to Tom Simmons and Rufus Ample, the directors of Daybreak. It was almost the happiest day of Josh's life.

Josh put the magazine down and took Brenda's hand. He marveled at the simple beauty of the wedding ring he had given her two years ago. The Lord sets the solitary into families, Josh thought, Psalm 68:6. And that is certainly what He did for Josh. In three more months, Brenda would deliver their first child. And He had given Josh, an only child, a brother.

John Heckler Ransom came out onto the porch. "Got the mail, " he said as he sat across from the happy couple. "We got our certificate of incorporation for Ransom-Anderson Building and Loan."

Josh and Brenda jumped up to celebrate. This was the day they had been waiting for for two years, the day when John and Josh could start building modest homes for lower-income families with no-interest mortgages. Ransom-Anderson would be doing business as Agape Homes. They had already drawn up plans for 18 different homes, so that their clients could get just the right home for their family.

"There's more," John said. "We got approvals for our first revelopment in Ambler. The planning commission gave us their blessing. So did the planning commission in Cleveland. All we have to do is take bids, and we'll be ready to start construction on eighty new homes."

Josh and Brenda gave John high fives.

"But there's still more," John continued. "You got this letter from State of Alaska, Board of Architects."

Josh's hands trembled as he took the envelope. He was so nervous, he almost couldn't tear it open. He finally got the letter out, amidst nervous giggles from Brenda and John. "...reviewed your application for reinstatement...completed our investigation...approved your request. Approved!!!! I got my license back!! I got my architect's license back, and they're not going to penalize me for being away from the profession or being unable to pay fees. I don't even have to pay the back fees." Josh held Brenda close to him and kissed her. Then he hugged John and all of them held hands to say a prayer of thanksgiving. Josh would have to intern again under a registered architect for one year, but John could be that architect. They both had been only children, but now they were brothers.

Brenda and Porter would manage the retreat centers, summers in Currituck, winters in Tempe. Only three more weeks until John and Porter's wedding.

It was nearly a miracle how God brought the two of them back together after more than twenty-five years. Porter had become a Christian almost immediately after their bad break-up in college, and she had married and had two children, but was widowed five years ago.

John had posted his testimony on Christianforums.com, and Porter had recognized it and contacted John to tell him that she forgave him and not to tear himself up about what had happened before. They reconnected, and five months ago, John proposed marriage. Her children loved John, the new creation in Christ, and fully supported the relationship. Although he had not yet regained visitation rights with Rory, John would soon have the family his heart always longed for. He even hoped that he and Porter might have a child of their own, although he knew their ages made that unlikely. He was ready to accept God's will, whatever that was.

Not his will, blessed by God, but God's will, accepted by John.

THE END