Famine

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

   Jonah bided his time while waiting for word from Sonny.  If he was to join his secret Christian cell, he wonder how he would be contacted.  Jonah on a day off from work went out o his bicycle when he noticed a jogger approaching.  In his hand he carried a slender stick, which Jonah presumed was for warding off spirited dogs in town.  He got Jonah’s attention and they both stopped.  After a bit of small talk, the jogger bent over and drew a curved line in the dirt in Jonah’s presence.  He then looked Jonah in the eye as if expecting him to understand.  He offered the stick to Jonah.

   As Jonah took it in his hand, he thought for a while.  That’s it.  This man is a Christian, he realized, and he’s inviting me to complete drawing the symbol of a fish that he had begun in the dirt.  Early Christians identified each other this way in the days of their persecution in Ancient Rome.   If the Christian’s mark looked like random scribbling to the stranger, he would continue on after a while.

   How simple, Jonah thought, to bring back the ancient sign used in the earliest days of the persecuted church. Jesus’ twelve disciples in the gospels were almost all fishermen on the Sea of Galilee.  Well, they called it a sea in the Bible.  The Romans called it Lake Tiberius. It was just a big lake fed by a stream, small compared to man-made lakes even in Kentucky, and then emptied into the Jordan River to the south. But Jesus called these unsophisticated followers to become “fishers of men.”  They got the message.

   So now an unbelieving America that never read the Bible would not have a clue when Christians from local cells drew in the dirt.  It was safe for Jonah to complete the simple symbol for a fish.  He reached down with the stick and completed the drawing.

   The jogger said nothing else.  He said, Wait here.”  He then resumed running.  In a moment a car drove up. Someone unseen said, “Get in, Jonah.  He said his name was Eddie.  He drove an irregular route to confuse anyone watching them.  At length he took him to a house. He said, “Knock on the door, they’re waiting.”

   Sonny Philpot was at the door and invited him in.  “Sorry for the secretive nature of my friends, we had to make first contact that way.  They don’t know you all that well.  The area they chose is not under surveillance at this time.  We swept it last week for even minute devices and found none.  No one saw you at all. We’re safe.”

   Sonny introduced Jonah to ten others in his cell.  There were four people in the Thompson family, four in Sonny’s family, and a Mr. and Mrs. Hagar with their ten-year old boy named Sean.  The boy reminded Jonah of himself at the same age.

   It was Sonny’s turn to lead the cell’s worship and Bible study.   They gathered in a semi-circle and he read from the gospel of John.  “The thief comes only to steal, but I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.”

   Then he sat down to teach.  Jesus had done that very thing in the synagogues of his day two thousand years before.  Sonny said, “While many people in ancient times lived seventy or even eighty years, the average person living in his time lived about twenty-tow years on average.  In our friend Jonah’s time most made it to three score and ten, most of you here today may well live past a hundred fifty.  If you decide to extend your life through cryogenics, doctors may enable you to live a thousand years.”

   Sonny paused.  “Now, I don’t see the idea of living for centuries as wrong.  Long living is not everything.  The ancients knew that.  Ecclesiastes says “if a person lives a thousand years twice told and see no good, it is vanity  The Hebrews once believed that both the good and bad went down to a pit underground for eternity.  Good was to be enjoyed in this life.  By the time of Daniel, they believed in life after death.  But that was about five hundred years before Jesus.