Friday, November 28, 2003

Thus the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, and gave them orders regarding the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt, charging them to free the Israelites from the land of Egypt.
(Exodus 6.13 NRSV)

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CDR John O. Stull, USN (Ret.) tells about an event that happened many years ago when he and his wife were on a short Thanksgiving vacation in Palm Springs. They had gone to see the movie production of the musical, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. The show is about a Jewish family in turn of the century Russia who are finally driven out of their village. In spite of the somber theme, it is generally upbeat, full of humor and great songs. However, when Comodore Stull and his wife left the theater and reached their station wagon in the parking lot, they found a man leaning up against the car beside theirs, crying his heart out.

He was middle-aged, well dressed, and the car was a new Mercedes Benz. A woman in a long mink coat, her hand glittering with diamonds, was patting his back in a half-hearted way. She was obviously very embarrassed. "What is it?" she asked, frantically. "What's the matter? It was just a musical."

"It wasn't just a musical," the man sobbed. "That could have been my family. I suddenly thought what if there had been no America. America!" he practically shouted. "Don't you see what it means?"

Stull said that he was not sure what that man's wife saw, but that he and his wife stood practically transfixed. Through that unexpected stranger, they saw an unexpected angle of the meaning of Thanksgiving, a dreadful vision of what the world would have been without the saving shores of our nation.

If you live in a free land, you have been greatly blessed!

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Lord Jesus, thank you for the most important gift of freedom: being forgiven. Amen.

Ron Newhouse

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