Man in White Read online

  “I am not fleeing Jerusalem in fear of the men who would kill me. I go at his command to take the testimony of his gospel to the Gentiles. Concerning those who feared me in this congregation, I am pure of the blood of all men, having been justified by my surrender to the Master’s love.”

  He paused, then looking into all their faces said, “I leave you with a reminder of our Lord’s commandment, that you love your neighbor as yourself.”

  He turned to Barnabas and laid one hand on his shoulder and the other on his head. “Join me, Peter,” he said, “to pray to the Lord to heal Barnabas’s wounds.”

  They bowed their heads with their hands upon Barnabas as Paul said, “Lord, Creator of worlds, you who raise the dead to life, renew the flesh of our wounded brother.”

  They stood quietly for a moment. The image of the Man in White was behind Paul’s closed eyes, and when he opened his eyes to look at Barnabas, he saw that the scar on his neck was gone. There was no sign of it.

  “The cuts from the lash are gone, Barnabas,” said Peter. “He who raises the dead can easily heal broken flesh; we need only have faith in him.”

  Paul embraced Peter. “Surely we shall meet again.”

  “Yes,” said Peter. “In God’s own time.”

  “Good-bye, Barnabas,” said Paul. “I have found in you a kindred spirit. We shall minister together someday.”

  He turned to James. “The love of Christ will settle all confusion and differences of opinion, my brother,” he said, embracing him.

  “Look into the perfect law of liberty,” said James, “and continue in it, doing his work, and you will be blessed.”

  He turned to Sarah last. “Stay here for the time being. Pray for God’s will in your life. If it be his will, I will soon see you in Tarsus.” They embraced tearfully, and he was gone.

  He stood outside the door of Marcellus, the Roman governor. A guard blocked the door as he approached.

  “I demand protection,” said Paul. “I will not go into this place, but you can tell him to supply me with a military escort to Caesarea.”

  The guard turned on his heel and went inside.

  Paul could see down a long hallway of marble flooring. The interior was very rich and ornate. A large bust of Caesar Caligula and one of Tiberius sat on tall pedestals, both images well lighted by polished tin reflectors behind oil lamps on the floor.

  Someday, he thought, I will enter buildings like this to witness to kings and rulers and will more than likely be scorned and abused in such places. But not tonight. Not for this business. Besides, I am not worthy to enter this hall and stand where the Master stood before Pilate.

  Soon Marcellus appeared at the door with the guard, and looking Paul up and down, he sneered. Marcellus wore a crown of laurel leaves on his head. He was robust and fully dressed in his Roman military armor, with a flowing blue silk cloak with a golden fringe.

  “So you are the fearful turncoat persecutor,”Marcellus laughed. “I must say, you do not appear very fearsome,” he said as he fingered the sleeve of Paul’s homespun robe and eyed his dusty sandals.

  “I am a Roman citizen,” said Paul. “I come from Tarsus of Cilicia, to which I would return now.”

  “Then go,” said Marcellus, starting to turn away.

  “I demand a soldier escort to Caesarea due to the plots against my life.”

  “You demand?”Marcellus asked incredulously.

  Paul stared at him evenly. “My brother Barnabas the Cypriot was chained and flogged in your prison; this is a violation of Roman law inasmuch as he is a citizen of Rome. Various groups in this city are plotting to kill me; should they do so, it would be yet another violation of your law, for they plan to kill me on religious grounds, and we are guaranteed freedom of worship since the days of Pompey.” Paul lowered his voice and stared unwaveringly into the eyes of Marcellus. “If you do not provide me with safe escort out of this city, I shall see that these injustices and legal infractions reach the ear of Caesar himself.”

  “Are you threatening me?”Marcellus asked loudly.

  “Yes,” said Paul firmly.

  Marcellus turned his back to Paul for a moment and told the centurion beside him, “Organize a detail of six soldiers to go to Caesarea. Get this man out of the city immediately.” The centurion saluted and was gone.

  “Thank you,” said Paul.

  “Just go,” said Marcellus, “and don’t come back.” He turned and went inside.

  “No time soon,” said Paul, waiting for his escort.

  As he passed the Temple with his guards, he wasn’t aware if anyone recognized him or not. He could barely see the Temple for his tears. He was thinking that the Lord himself wept that night in Gethsemane and grieved in his soul, knowing of the coming destruction.My people must be made to understand that God does not live in a temple made with hands, he thought.

  Yet at a certain point along his journey and knowing that soon he would no longer be able to see the Temple, he stopped a moment and looked back. He whispered the Shema. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.”

  As he turned his back to the city and continued on with the soldiers, he said aloud to the soldiers in Latin, “And he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes on him shall not die but shall have eternal life.”

  The soldiers looked at him questioningly but didn’t say anything.

  They will have much to say and many questions, thought Paul, smiling, for I have much to tell these, my first Gentile audience, on my first journey.

  THIS STORY

  HAS NO

  END

  EPILOGUE, AD 70

  They had escaped for just a while, this remnant of the last surviving citizens of Jerusalem. The Romans had found them in caves, in burned-out buildings, and in the rocks and cliffs of the wilderness around the city.

  Thousands had been enslaved, mostly the young and strong, male and female; they would be sold in Rome or given as gifts to certain select citizens of the city. Those slaves, part of the spoils of Judea, would be marched in chains on foot into the Eternal City, where they would suffer public humiliation. Before them in Titus’s triumphal procession would be other spoils of the war—the ark of the covenant, the golden candlestick, and other treasures and sacred objects from the destroyed Temple.

  But those who had been caught later and brought back to the scene of total desolation prayed for death, if indeed they prayed at all, for they moved leadenly under the lash of the soldiers. They were forced to pick up the bodies of their fellow Jews, men,women, and children, and toss them onto carts. The oxen pulled their frightful burden westward to the Valley of Gehenna, where their remains were dumped into a burning pit. Other slaves poured out buckets of pitch to keep the fire constantly burning. The oxcarts and slaves, under the lash of the soldiers, returned time and time again to the city until the last of the bodies were found and burned.

  Then from Lake Asphaltitis, the dead salt sea, came a long line of sons of Israel shouldering heavy bags of salt into the city that was no more. The salt was poured onto the ground until it covered the whole of the Temple area. Day after day the bags of salt were brought until a layer of white covered the whole city area.

  Then as a final act to make the conqueror’s point, oxen and plows were brought in and the salt was plowed into the ground throughout the city. Never would plant life grow here as it had before. And the blood of the citizens of the city was plowed under, not to be seen again, for it had covered the ground.

  Over most of the Roman Empire, the sect calling themselves Christians was flourishing. The apostles had established churches from Jerusalem to Rome to Spain. In Asia they grew, and in Cilicia and Macedonia.

  Order had been established in the churches. Bishops and elders were appointed or elected in each city, and the fight for the protection and propagation of the gospel of Jesus Christ was tirelessly waged. In Africa and India the apostle established churches, appointing elders and deacons to see that the gospel was spread.

&
nbsp; But a few years before the war in Judea, a great persecution arose against the Christians in Rome. The great fire that burned Rome under Nero was blamed on the Christians, and many died cruel deaths in the arena. Some were forced to face wild beasts unarmed; some were sewn up in animal skins and set upon by dogs; some were dragged around the arena behind a team of horses.

  Of the twelve disciples who had walked with Jesus as his friends, companions, and servants—not counting Judas Iscariot, who was already dead— eleven died by violence; one was flayed alive, one was pulled apart by wild horses, and one was crucified on a St. Andrew’s cross. James was killed by the sword under Herod Agrippa’s orders.

  Only one lived long and died at an old age—John, the beloved, who wrote Revelation while in exile on an island in the Aegean Sea. He was finally allowed to return to his church at Ephesus, where he continued to care for Mary, the holy mother.

  Two of the chief apostles of the Nazarenes were executed. Simon Peter, who refused Roman citizenship, maintaining that he was a citizen of the Land of the Lord, was, according to Rome’s way of executing foreigners, crucified. At the last minute he begged his executioners to crucify him upside down, because he deemed himself unworthy to die upright as his Lord had done.

  The other apostle was a freeborn citizen of the empire, although he was a prominent Pharisee in Jerusalem. This man, the most outspoken proponent of the gospel of the Nazarene, later established Christian churches all over the known world. Under his direction and pastorate, the church at Tarsus, his birthplace, grew in numbers and power.

  His journeys, during a time when transportation was primitive, are well documented and more than impressive. Wherever he felt the call to go, he went, often by direct command through visions of the Lord and of angels sent from God. Throughout the lands of Cilicia, Asia, Cappadocia, Pontus, all the provinces that are now Turkey, he traveled, establishing churches among the believers and suffering the most severe persecutions. He was stoned at Iconium and barely escaped with his life. In Derbe, he was stoned again, thrown into the city dump, and left for dead.

  With Barnabas, he was run out of the city of Antioch. But he returned to Antioch in Syria and, with Barnabas and another helper named Silas, brought great numbers into the congregation.

  In a vision at Troas, a man of Macedonia called him to come there, and he answered that call to go into the continent of Europe. Perhaps the gospel would not have reached us on this continent through our European ancestors had he not answered that call.

  He established a church at Philippi, where he and Silas were stripped naked, beaten with rods, and imprisoned. In Philippi, he and Silas preached in the synagogue and established a church in that city. At Athens, his message was generally rejected after he preached, but a few believed, and from those few a great church grew.

  In Corinth, he challenged the ruler of the synagogue, for in a vision Jesus had told him, “Don’t be afraid to speak, for I am with you.”He stayed there a year and a half. His church flourished. At Ephesus, he performed miracles. Invalids and the diseased were healed just by touching his clothing. In that city he gained so many followers that people stopped buying idols of Diana, the goddess of love. The silversmiths rioted, but he had gained followers and left Ephesus.

  In Jerusalem after one journey, he was dragged out of the Temple and beaten. He was imprisoned for two years at Caesarea, charged with sedition. He was shipwrecked and bitten by a deadly poisonous snake, but he survived. He was imprisoned again and taken to Rome, where he continued to gain converts even among Caesar’s own household.

  He always left his churches solidly established and appointed elders at every place to keep order and preach the gospel of Christ. He never took pay for his service as an evangelist and pastor, but continued to ply his trade as a tentmaker wherever he stayed to pay his keep.

  But now, he had finished the fight, run the race, and kept the faith. The apostle was taken outside the city walls to be beheaded. With a Stephen-like expression on his face, he closed his eyes and turned his neck to the executioner.

  The dark outline of the Man in White suddenly appeared behind his eyelids, and just as he was dying, the image became as white, as dazzling, as glorified as the one that struck him on that day on the Damascus road. This time, however, the vision did not stop, and a truly brilliant light streamed from a countenance whose piercing eyes of love beckoned the apostle Paul.

  I’ve been to Damascus

  And I didn’t go by air

  I walked upon the paved Roman Way

  I stood at the very spot

  Where a brilliant light once shone

  And I saw a fleeting flicker there that day

  But it needn’t be Damascus

  And it needn’t be on a road

  And it needn’t be a lofty mountain height

  It could be in a closet

  And it could be at the door

  That, if opened, glows the glorious, blinding light

  © COPYRIGHT 1986 BY JOHN R. CASH

  AURIGA RA MUSIC, INC.

  AFTERWORD:

  THE THORN REMOVED?

  My father felt a kinship with the apostle Paul. In many ways, they were of the same ilk. Paul was a poet, traveler, and visionary. My father, who traveled most of his life, maintained his purpose and Christian standards as best he could. My father read Paul’s words as the poetry they were, and found inspiration in them throughout his life. He felt he knew Paul personally. To my dad, Paul was a mentor, friend, and companion. This book you hold was one of my father’s greatest visions.

  When I was very young, I slammed my finger in the car door. The nail was torn off, and it took a long time to heal. I feared that my finger would never be the same, that I would never be able to use it as before.

  When I told my father my fears, he smiled and said: “Son, I am sure your finger will be fine in no time, but if it doesn’t heal right, use it as a thorn in your flesh.”

  “But Dad, there’s no thorn in there,” I said, confusedly.

  “God can turn our hurts and weaknesses to our own advantage,” he said, “and ultimately, to His.”

  I looked at my missing nail and black fingertip and had no idea what he meant.

  My finger healed and was as good as new in weeks, but I never forgot what he said.

  When I first read Man in White, I understood what he meant. The thorn forces us to rise above the hurt. Somehow, the pain makes the focus more important, the goal more meaningful.

  We do not know exactly what Paul’s thorn was . . . epilepsy possibly, or a hearing defect . . . or even a speech impediment.

  I know some of my father’s: the loss of his brother at an early age, his struggles with his own demons . . . Later in life, his neurological disorder and his diabetes. These thorns may have slowed my father down, but not only did he stay strong in faith, he actually gained momentum through these struggles. I believe Paul did the same.

  “Some thorns are never removed, during the time we live and breathe. I believe Paul’s were not ever removed, and as my father, he accepted them as his personal burden, something to rise above, something to sharpen his courage, to define purpose, and to help him remember to stay grateful for his blessings.”

  I am grateful my dad’s words are still there to bless us, and that his music continues to touch the world. And now that his thorns have been removed, I feel certain their purpose is clear.

  Through a glass darkly,

  John Carter Cash

  May, 2006

  Hendersonville, TN

  JOHNNY CASH

  REMEMBERED

  Gospel Music Listening and Viewing

  ALBUMS RECORDED RECORD COMPANY YEAR

  Hymns by Johnny Cash Columbia/Sony 1959

  Hymns from the Heart Columbia/Sony 1962

  The Holy Land CBS/Sony 1969

  Timeless Inspiration Reader’s Digest 1986

  Precious Memories CBS/Sony 1975

  Believe in Him Word 1986

  Just As I
Am CBS/Sony Records 1999

  My Mother’s Hymn Book American Recordings 2004