More Than a Skeleton by Paul L. Maier

Author:Paul L. Maier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2012-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

Nearly a hundred thousand people were indeed gathered on the hillside that sunny Wednesday afternoon. As the crowd faced eastward toward the Mount of Olives, an afternoon sun baptized the hill in molten gold against a sky of Kodachrome blue. Wearing sunglasses to avoid recognition, Jon and Shannon thought the view itself was a spiritual experience. Here was the very rise where Jesus, facing in their direction, had wept over the city of Jerusalem. Here was the hill down whose slopes He had entered triumphantly into the Holy City on the back of a donkey, to the frenzied cheers of people waving palm branches and crying, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Jon broke the reverie, reminding Shannon, “This, you’ll recall, is also the place where Merton assembled the faithful several years ago at an Easter sunrise service, which he predicted Jesus Himself might attend.”

“How could I ever forget that?” she whispered into his ear, giving it a soft kiss in the process. “Or the night before, when we were in the Seven Arches Hotel up there to the right.”

He smiled exuberantly, nodding at the memory.

At 3:35 P.M., several musical fanfares broke into their conversation. A raised platform just before the Kidron ravine to the east was decked out in the blue and white colors of Israel, with a Christian cross superimposed. The ruddy, trapezoidal face of Melvin Morris Merton was clearly visible on the dais, even at that distance, Jon and Shannon regretted to see. And now that oily, self-styled “anointed” voice of his boomed out over the PA system: “Hallelujah! This is a most blessed day!”

Day, Day, Day echoed across the Kidron Valley.

“My fellow Christians—and any unbelievers out there! As you all know, I’ve long declared that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, would be coming back again soon. And so He has! ”

A tidal wave of cheering wafted up from the vast audience, and quickly the synchronized chorus broke out: “JOSHUA I S JESUS!” “JESUS I S JOSHUA!”

“Oh, blessed, yes!” Merton answered. “Joshua is Jesus indeed! And He has returned, bless His holy name, just as He said He would! Soon you will see Him in person! Can anything be greater than that? ” A thunderous, rolling wave of cheering split the afternoon air. A praise band and chorus now held forth in a favorite contemporary Christian anthem: “Majesty.” Other praise hymns followed, with their inevitable reiterations of God being glorious, glorious, and glorious. Jesus, in turn, was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, while the Holy Spirit was awesome, awesome, awesome, and even awesome, depending on how many identical verses followed.

Jon turned to Shannon and muttered, “Not my favorite music. The songwriters compose one or two lines, and the rest is repetition. Where, oh where, is Johann Sebastian Bach when we need him?”

“Okay, Jon, Bach obviously has the best music. But this is what gets through to the younger set.”

“Yeah. Sure. Maybe. Nothing against contemporary Christian music, mind you, but some of it is really

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