THE CONFUSED COUSIN/^ Dale G. Foster
Hold your horses! I’m coming. Where’s the fire anyway?” shouted the surly old prison guard in an swer to the loud pounding on the outside. His huge form lumbered toward the massive gate. After fum bling with a large ring of keys for a minute he finally produced the right one and pulled open the gate. “Now, whad’ya want? Oh, it’s you,” he said as he recognized young Rufus standing there. “Come on in. I suppose you want to see John again.” Rufus nodded and rushed in, brushing past the old gatekeeper in his haste. “Ever since Herod locked up John the Raptist in here I’ve done nothing but open and shut the gate for you fellows,” complained the old man. “How many disciples does John have, anyway? There must be hundreds of them.” Rut Rufus didn’t hear this last remark. He was already more than halfway down the gloomy stone corridor which led to John’s dismal cell. Another young man was standing outside of the cell talking to John.
his mind regarding the things he had been so vigorously preaching about just before his unjust im prisonment. “I must confess,” he said, ‘‘that at one time I was fully convinced that my cousin was the Christ, the Messiah, whom the Sc r i p t u r e s prophesied would come some day. But recently I’ve begun to wonder about this. And now you tell me he’s doing and saying things which make the people think he is God! I just don’t know what to think.” Suddenly a thought occurred to him. “Listen, Rufus and Jason, go to Jesus and ask Him point blank who He ,is. Tell Him I sent you. Maybe by doing this we can get the question settled definitely one way or the other.” After the grumbling old gate keeper had let them out they hur ried away to find Jesus. “Do you believe that Jesus is God come in human flesh?” Rufus asked his companion. “I don’t know. I’m just as con fused about it as you and John are. But I do know one thing — Jesus believes that He Himself is God! He claims that his supernatural power to perform miracles of heal ing is absolute proof of his deity.” “How do you know that?” Rufus asked. “Why, the other day while I was listening to Him teach on Solomon’s Porch in the Temple, the religious leaders came up to Him and said, ‘How much longer are you going to keep us in suspense? If you real ly are Christ (the Messiah), tell us so straight out!’ “ ‘I have told you,’ replied Jesus, ‘and you do not believe it. What I have done in my Father’s name is sufficient to prove my claim. I and the Father are One.’ “Then the enraged leaders start-
“Hello, Rufus,” called the young man. “Hello, Jason,” he said, return ing the greeting. A voice came from the depths of the cell. “Is that you, Rufus? I ex pected you long before this. Well, what did you find out?” “I’ve got some real news for you this time, John — the biggest since you asked me to check up on your cousin Jesus,” replied Rufus. “Yes terday, just outside the city of Nain, a widow and her friends were taking the dead body of her only son out to the cemetery for burial. Jesus came along and ac tually raised him from the dead! Now all the people are saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen among us and God has visited his people!’ They really think that Jesus is God!” John was a tall strapping young man is his early thirties but the long months of imprisonment were beginning to leave their mark on him. His golden-brown tan had long ago faded into the unhealthy p a l l o r of long-term p r i s on e r s . Doubts too had been creeping into
A b o u t t h e A u t h o r Dale G. Foster, M.D., was born in Los Angeles in 1920. Since graduating from the Univ. of Calif. Medical School (Phi Beta Kappa and the outstanding member of his class) he has had a brilliant medical career. In 1954 he was elected to Fellowship in the American College of Surgeons and in 1956 became an Associate in the International Col lege of Surgeons. From 1952 to 1957 he served as a med ical missionary (Presbyteriari) in French Cameroun, West Africa, where he was co-director and chief of surgery of a 220-bed hospital located in the heart of the tropical jungle 50 miles from the nearest town. This year, on furlough, he is a resident surgeon at the City of Hope Medical Center, Duarte, Calif.
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