New Leader 19

Sarah was in a total panic.  The church were all in a hotel together.  It was the Superapostolic Weekend.
"Darling," she said to Pastor David, "we haven't got any wine."
"Well Dear," he said, "go to the supermarket and buy some blackcurrant juice."
"We're in the middle of the country.  I'd have to drive for an hour and I don't know my way around.  Stanley borrowed my satnav and he never gave it back."
"Ask the staff in the hotel," said Pastor David.  "Don't they have any wine?"  Sarah went to the hotel bar.
"Do you have a bottle of red wine?" she asked the barman.
"No, we haven't any wine.  With this being a small hotel bar we only have a limited range of stock.  We've got lager and beer, we've got cola and lemonade, we've got little bottles of soda water, lemonade and fruit juice, but no wine."  Billy Graham David Watson was sitting drinking a small glass of cloudy lemonade while he was having a spiritual conversation with a woman who was about the same age as his mother. 
"Bill," asked Sarah, "can you turn water into wine?"
"I'll be there in a few minutes," said Bill.  "Just healing this lady's asthma and leading her to Christ."
"How do you know I've got asthma?" asked the woman.
"I can feel it in my spirit.  Something else I can feel in my spirit is that you're very self-centred."
"Yes I am," she said.  "I feel so ashamed of my selfishness."  She started to shake. "Oh, heal my asthma quickly, the conviction I feel of my sin is bringing on an attack."
"In the name of Jesus, be healed right now."
"That's better, that's better, thank you," said the woman.  "Now I can breathe.  It's all gone, it's all gone, all that breathlessness, all that tightness, it's all gone."
"Now to turn some water into wine," said Bill, and left the bar for the main hall.  In the main hall he found Pastor David and Sarah.
"There's three hundred people coming to this conference," said Sarah, "and we haven't got any wine for communion."
"Don't stress yourself," said Bill.  "Just have faith.  Fill up all the empty jugs you can find with water and put them on the stage at the front.  Then all the water will turn to wine."

 

At the evening meeting Bill was standing on the stage, in front of hundreds of people, doing a revue of his new book.  A slide of the book cover appeared on the screen.
"How To Be a One Man Walking Revival," read the title.  Next to this was his name, "The Very Very Reverend Billy Graham Charles Haddon Lewis David Watson."
"Do you want to change the world?" asked Bill.  "Do you want to see a revival in your lifetime?  Do you want to see it last for all of your lifetime?  Do you want to see all your friends, neighbours and relatives become Christians this year?  Then read this book."  Bill picked up a copy of the book from the table in front of him and opened it to the contents page.  "Chapter 1," he read, "Become a Church Leader When You're in Your Early 20s and You Still Know Everything.  Chapter 2.  How to be a Superapostolic World Changing Prayer Warrior.  Chapter 3.  Twenty Million Volt Transmission Lines of God's Power.  Chapter 4.  Jesus said, 'Greater Things Than Me Will You Do.'  I know I've done miracles but until now I've only done the kind of miracles Jesus did.  Can you think of any miracles greater than the ones Jesus did?  What would you like me to do?"
"Raise someone from the dead," said Betty.
"Jesus did that," said Bill.
"Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead when he'd only been dead for a few days," said Betty.  "What if the person had been dead for months or even years?  The body would be decomposed.  Only a skeleton would be left behind.  What if it happened in England and the person was buried six feet under the ground in a coffin and had to push their way out?"
"What do you want me to do Betty?"
"Go into the church cemetery at Piddledon and raise somebody from the dead."  There were gasps of horror, shock and confusion from the audience.
"Calm down everybody," said Bill.  "The lady is right.  This is what we should all be thinking.  I'm a Christian.  I can raise the dead.  Just let me into the nearest cemetery."
"But why?" asked Stanley.  "What would be the point?"
"Do you think the people out there are going to take any notice of us if we just politely tell them about angels sitting on the clouds playing harps?" asked Bill.  "I want to prove there's a heaven.  I'm going to bring a Christian back from the dead."

 

The next morning a fleet of cars and minibuses drove from the hotel to the church cemetery at Piddledon.  It was a cold foggy day in the middle of March.  Bill stood in a field where there were dozens of tombstones in memorial to church members who had died.
"Who do you want me to raise from the dead?" he asked.
"Pastor Boris," said Mavis.
"Boris?" asked Pastor David.
"Bring him back," said Betty.
"Good idea," said Bill.  "Someone who was moderately famous, at least, well known.  We're far more likely to get a good news story if we raise Boris from the dead.  Get your mobile phones out and start filming.  This is going to be on the evening news all over the world."  Bill found Boris' grave and laid his hands on the tomb stone.  There was a white light in the cold dark fog and a sound like someone knocking on a wooden coffin.
"Should we dig him up?" asked Stanley.
"No need to," said Bill.  "He's in a resurrection body.  He can just go through walls."  Boris appeared.  At first he looked like a ghost.  Then his body became solid.  He stood on the ground next to Bill.  The people all waited in shocked silence, anxious to hear what Boris had to say.
"What did you do that for?  I was having such a lovely time."
"Boris, where were you?" asked Bill.  "Did you enter another dimension?  Did you travel forward in time and come back again?  Or did you enter the spirit world and worship God with the angels, like St John in the book of Revelation?"
"I haven't got a clue where I went or how I got there," said Boris, indignantly.  "Only that I was with the saints and with Jesus and that we were having a wonderful time."
"Which saints were you with?" asked Boris.
"It doesn't matter."
"Did you recognise anybody?  Will we get the chance to say to David Watson, 'Thank you for writing that beautiful book,' or to Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 'I was saved when I was listening to your sermon in 1862.'  Will we meet people that we know?"
"If everybody did that David Watson and Charles Haddon Spurgeon would get fed up," said Boris.  "I didn't recognise anyone.  They might have been famous hymn writers or famous preachers for all I know, but fame means absolutely nothing up there.  David Watson and Charles Haddon Spurgeon are just the same as anyone else."
"Did you see any angels?" asked Bill.
"It was hard to tell who was an angel and who wasn't."
"Is that because you're made of the same kind of substance, the dead in Christ and the angels, do they exist in the same physical state?  Is this only a temporary state of affairs until the second coming of Christ?  Will there be a physical resurrection one day and an eternal kingdom which is not yet existing?"
"I don't know," said Boris.  "Does it matter?"
"You always used to speculate on these things," said Mavis. 

"You used to spend whole hours discussing these questions in our meetings," said Betty.
"That's like someone from a thousand years ago trying to describe a computer," said Boris.  "All our theories about these things are rubbish anyway.  Just love one another, that's all you need."
"Totally rubbish or just with some of the events in the wrong order?" asked Bill.
"All our theories are totally stupid," said Boris.  "I remember Sarah and her friend when they were young children, arguing about the Holy Spirit.  Don't be stupid, said Sarah, how can you have Jesus living inside you?  He's too big.  He wouldn't fit."
"That's right," said Sarah, laughing.  "Do you remember that?"
"Children can't understand the miracle of the Holy Spirit.  Neither can we understand it completely, but we understand it better than a child does.  We've experienced it.  But we know as little about eternity as children know about the Holy Spirit."
"I want to know more about it, Boris," said Bill.  "I want you to explain it all to us at this weekend conference.  It will be on television all over the world."
"You brought me back to this foggy, muddy brown island just to tell people what Heaven was like?"
"Yes.  I hope you don't mind."
"I do mind.  I do mind having my eternity interrupted for the sake of you making a television programme.  Look what you've done to my body.  No fibrosis in my lungs anymore.  Oh no, I could live another fifteen years.  Shucks.  Still, I'll have plenty of time to get over it.  Go on, get filming."
"We're already filming," said Mavis, holding a mobile phone in her hand that seemed too big to be kept anywhere except in a large ladies' handbag.
"I never trusted those box phones," said Boris.  "Right up until the day I died I had a little phone in my pocket that was the same size as my inhaler.  Everyone is a TV star in the 21st century.  Smile, you're on Candid Camera."
"What's Candid Camera?" asked Sarah.

 

That afternoon Boris stood on the stage.  There was a shocked silence as people wondered at such a miracle.
"I am Boris.  I have been raised from the dead.  Put your hand up if you would like me to be leader of this church again?"  Dozens of hands went in the air.  "Is that what this is all about?  Here's me thinking that Bill wanted to bring someone back from the dead so that he could make an evangelistic television programme.  You want me to be your leader again.  You sad, misguided people."
"He's a better leader than Boris anyway," said Mikey.  "Boris wasn't very good."
"I am a perfectly good leader," said Boris.  "My one weakness is spiritual pride.  Thinking of myself more highly than I ought.  Yes, I'm a martyr to that one all right.  Pride hits the strong Christian.  If the devil can't get you with anything else, he'll get you with pride.  Do you ever suffer from spiritual pride, Bill?"
"I can't say that I do."
"No, how could the Very Very Reverend Billy Graham Charles Haddon Lewis David Watson possibly think of himself more highly than he ought to?  I don't suppose it could ever happen, could it?  But don't you people realise what you are throwing away, in wanting a tired old Russian to be your church leader when God has provided you with such a capable young man?"
"No one was more capable than you, Boris," said Mavis.  "You were a good all rounder."
"Respect the leader that God has given you," said Boris.  "That is all I am saying.  I had my weaknesses, Bill will have his weaknesses."
"What are they?" asked Mikey.
"At least one person in this room has some respect for the man God has appointed as their new leader.  I'm not going to lead this church again.  I want it to be led by a young man, someone who is still young enough to know all the answers to everything."
"What was Heaven like, Boris?" asked Bill.
"Beautiful, in colours that you can't imagine seeing anyway so it's pointless trying to describe it.  When you go up into the woods and the mountains on Earth it's like watching them on an egg shaped black and white television screen from seventy years ago.  Heaven is like watching a film on 3D goggles.  But if all you've ever had is two little eyes that can only see 3 primary colours, I can describe the mountains of Heaven all day long and you'll never really understand what it's like looking at the slopes of a rocky hill in ultra violet and infra red."
"Do people worship God in Heaven?"
"Of course they do.  People worship God all the time."
"Is there music?  Did you learn to play any instruments?"
"Yes, there is music.  Just don't imagine that you're going to spend long and painful years trying to master the keyboard or the guitar.  Playing a musical instrument is rather effortless.  Music never has to be written down either.  I can play instruments you could never imagine that make sounds you could never imagine.  It would be like trying to explain to somebody from a thousand years ago what a bass guitar with a sub woofer filter sounds like."
"I imagine I could play one of my favourite songs on a harp up there," said Bill, "and the famous person who wrote it would start playing it as well.  We'd look at each other, and I'd do a duet with Keith Green or one of the Victorian hymn writers."
"If you played your favourite song we'd all want to play along with you," said Boris.  "And those famous celebrity Christians will be up there, and they'll be just the same as everybody else.  In Heaven it doesn't matter if you're a world famous rock star, or an angel, or the Root of the Offspring of David, or the bright morning star.  You're just another brother."
"Do you eat food up there?"
"We had bread and wine.  Jesus said, 'I will not eat this feast again until I eat it anew in the Kingdom of God.'  So plenty of communion goes on.  Apart from that, we don't really feel hungry."
"Perhaps that's why the dead will be raised to life," said Bill, "so they can eat food and drink again."
"Bill, you're describing something you couldn't possibly understand," said Boris.  "God raising people from the dead into an eternal new universe so they can have steak pie and chips?"
"Is it more complicated than that?"
"No, it's actually very simple and you're complicating it with all your horrible theories."
"Boris, you used to spend whole seminars talking about your theories about the Second Coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead," said Mavis.
"It was all rubbish," said Boris.  "I'm not going to spend hours talking about it today.  Enough has been said for the glory of God.  End of sermon.  Goodbye to all those watching us on the video link."